Try Google yourself and you may be amazed at what you find. From links to The Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/) to the 1922 Russian Anarchist and writer Alexander Berkman. (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/berkman/russiantragedy.html)

Another A Berkman is listed as an AIDS expert who, in 2001, published Confronting Global AIDS: Prevention and Treatment in the American Journal of Public Health.

My personal favourite is a listing of Pieter Berkman of Amsterdam who in 1707 was convicted of sodomy with ship’s boys who were sent to Robben Island while he, stripped of his rank as Ships Skipper, was sent home without pay. (http://www.history.und.ac.za/SemPapers/Newton King2003.pdf)

When Google searches South African sites, my own efforts are recorded 554 times.

While I may have made a contribution to Sea Point’s now exorbitant property prices in service of the Ratepayers’ Association, guided people where to eat through my restaurant reviews and assisted in networking the Public Relations community, I have long way still to go before establishing a chair at Harvard or indeed contributing anything sensible to the political discourse or scourge of AIDS.