A woman of many parts

As we all know, you have to be careful not to be misled by what you find on the internet.

I have just become involved professionally with a consultant whom I had not met until yesterday. She is charming, youngish but hugely experienced and in every way a person on whose skills one might confidently rely. I did ask Google to tell me what they had on her (no, poor choice of words, I mean what information on her is available online) and what came back was, much as I had expected, most encouraging, and confirmed my impression.

This is fine, but there is more: it seems that she has a substantial presence on Facebook, with many friends among lively teenagers, and is fond of West Coast Cooler ("perfect for girly nights out") and Absolut Vodka. And finally, she was a big name in the Australian music scene in the 1920s, when she wrote a number of patriotic ballads about Ireland.

When I gave more thought to this, however, it occurred to me that all these attributes and achievements might not relate to a single individual, and that the websites to which Google had referred me may have been describing three people with the same name but nothing else in common.