Imagine that!

Read 'round the World

Odd things come to mind when you're sitting up far too late, as I am tonight.

Just the other day for the very first time, I clicked on the 'Stats' for my blogs and discovered that I can find out the number of pageviews by country for the three blogs, by day, week, month, and all time. There's even a world map with the countries where it has been viewed coloured in. For some reason I am not a huge hit in Africa, most of Asia, southern Europe, South America (Thinks, who could know me in Venezuela?)

Tonight, the first Friday of Lent, when I should have been in bed at a reasonable hour, I took a good look at the numbers. They amazed me, the countries represented amazed me even more. It is obvious that these figures tell nothing about the people who viewed the page, and probably includes plenty of unsuspecting folk who were looking for something interesting and hit me by accident. Nonetheless, the possibility that some of the readers in Russia, say, or Venezuela really do find this stuff I write interesting or helpful is gratifying. (If I am wrong, don't let me know; living a lie is no great problem.) The fact is sobering: they're not all friends and acquaintances!

Here are two of the lists for William Craig's Magazine:

Pageviews by Countries (All Time)
United States 618
Canada 535
Netherlands 220
Russia 163
Germany 132
United Kingdom 91
Slovenia 67
China 42
Latvia 31
Moldova 31

Pageviews for the past month, Feb 10 –Mar 11 2011
Canada 152
United States 52
Netherlands 44
Germany 23
Israel 14
United Kingdom 11
Russia 10
Syria 10
France 6
Venezuela 6

I haven't the skills to analyse the statistics, and don't want to. Those are just numbers, very pretty numbers.

I would have let this go without comment but for one fact. Most of the time I have a very small audience in mind. In fact, there are only about five people I know who read this regularly. And most of the postings are written in to big hurry to meet a deadline: they have to be done before Sunday.

Now it's all different. Now I know that all sorts of people are reading this. I wish I could say I will always do a better job. I can't: Sunday just comes too quickly. But I'll try.

So welcome, whoever you are and wherever you are. I hope you like this stuff I am offering and even find it useful, somehow.

Now I'm tired. Good night.