3000

The 27th of September 2013 turned out be be something of a "red letter day" here at Blogfordshire Headquarters. Not only did the blog itself finally stagger over the three-year anniversary mark, but, for the first time ever, the monthly page view tally broke through the three thousand barrier.

Three thousand... Perhaps not much in terms of television ratings, or even in terms of other, far more successful blogs, but it was significant in these here circles simply because it hadn't actually happened before. This was a clear seven hundred up on any previous month, aided, I'll grant you by a record day where the views numbered 469 at the top of the month for no very good reason that I could ascertain, and, given that there still remains a number of hard-core "followers" numbering a good, solid ten, I think that you can be very proud of the effort that you're putting in.

This was after the overall all-time figures smashed through the 40,000 pageviews mark a mere nine days earlier, so, whilst this blog could never claim to be a "hit" it seems to have found a tiny place in the world to call home...

I am under no illusion. Those figures are really not important. This blog is written chiefly for myself, although the six of you I know to be regular readers are firmly in my mind when I set fingertip to keyboard, because, just in case I ever actually meet any of you "in the flesh" (as it were) and have to explain some of my more "radical" (and sometimes very temporary) opinions in person.

Judging by the "other" statistical monitor, those numbers are great big fat lies anyway, and are mostly due to "pings" coming from remote file servers in faraway lands, mostly drawn by strange words in the post title which seem to suck in electronic interest for no definable reason, and this strangely illogical cyber-probing seldom lasts for more than a second or two, so there's not much actually reading of the words going on, I can be quite certain of that.

A friend, fellow blogger (and, incidentally, my most regular commentator) recently asked a question that I think everyone who is prone to regular blogging occasionally asks, "Why am I still blogging? (http://akh-wonderfullife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/why-am-i-still-blogging.html) and yet, given that his totals are one hundred thousand more than mine after perhaps only a year or so longer of playing this game, and his "followers" number in the dozens (although we're still never dealing with huge numbers here) I did wonder why on earth he was questioning what he does, given that in these limited terms, his  is something of a success story, and I decided that, for once, I ought to tell him so...

The maths speaks for itself... My own average is about 36, and my current total is running 100,000 behind yours despite being only a few hundred posts behind and I have been followed by the "Terrific Ten" almost since day one and no more... (although I do think that "following" has become less of a "thing" of late, to be honest...) 

Let's be honest here, you're a hit! A palpable hit! And whilst the rest of us may be Boring For Britain, you've certainly got more reason to pursue this follysome exercise than many of us would appear to have...

Dammit man, people LIKE what you're doing!!!

Before sliding into a more philosophical frame of mind (see also above)...

I think that all of us who do this suffer from occasional bouts of existential angst as to why we do so from time-to-time. 

As you know, when I write, I regularly make Eeyore seem like he ought to be a Holiday Camp Entertainments Manager, and I quite often want to give it all up, but, for whatever reasons, we plod on, presenting our wares to the world for no other very good reason than the fact that we can, but if it entertains a few people, or makes one or two of them take a moment out of their day to pause and think, it's not the most pointless thing that any of us could be doing with our time...

"Keep on keeping on" say I...

I know I do (and God alone knows why...)

If it really bothered me, of course, I could do more to "promote" these, my daily(ish) witterings, but I don't. These things are never all that likely to be immensely "popular" to be perfectly honest, I'm under no delusions there. However, from time-to-time I will be pleased enough with something that I will do something "additional" in order to promote something, and click on those buttons which will "share" a post on "Google+" (which is like not sharing at all) or Twitter, especially if I think that it might appeal to certain "niche" interests which people I occasionally banter with might have (as a rule, it generally doesn't, by the way), where it will be relevant for a microsecond before plummeting down the screen to be forgotten once more at the base of several hundred timelines.

I've pretty much - unless the circumstances are really exceptional - given up on linking these posts to FizzBok, though. Most of the time, with the exception of my most loyal contributor (see above), I may as well have been posting a tombstone for all the interest that is usually engendered. Although, to be fair, that pretty much sums up my entire FizzBok experience, to be honest. It was like being the invisible man and, despite the fact that my "friends list" numbered several times more than the number of people I may actually have face-to-face conversations with over the course of a year, it was still rather paltry and might, to a more impressionable soul, imply that I might not, in fact, be all that likable...

Much of what I used to see there annoyed me so much that I simply had to keep clicking the "Don't show in TimeLine" option to the point that I no longer existed in any real sense over there any more, which isn't, of course, very likable behaviour, but there we are.

So, here we find ourselves, enjoying a surprisingly popular environment, albeit in a small and rather unexpected way. At least the cyber-bots seem to be enjoying their visits anyway, and these regular reports from Lesser Blogfordshire will no doubt keep appearing, and the occasional bit of banter will amuse me for a fleeting few seconds before the awful grind of enduring enough of life to squeeze out the next observation of it has to be battled through.

I remain, as ever, glad that you're here, and I do occasionally wonder if there is anything else I should be doing to remind you that I'm here, but, as I may have mentioned before (see above), that really is not the point...