Statistics

To my astonishment thanks to the miracle of Google Analytics I find that in the past few months this modest blog has been visited by readers in the following countries: U.S.A. (573, spread across forty-two states, i.e. all except for Alaska, Arizona, South Dakota, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and West Virginia), Australia (223, all states and territories), U.K. (183), Germany (35), Canada (32), France (25), Spain (23), Italy (19), Argentina (17), Malaysia (14), Brazil (13), New Zealand (10), Poland (10), Mexico (9), and Singapore (9). Seven have logged on from each of Japan, Switzerland, and Norway; six from Russia, India, and Greece; five from South Korea, Romania, and Indonesia. Four came from Hong Kong, Austria, Ireland, Chile, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Turkey; three from South Africa, Finland, Portugal, Hungary, and Colombia; two from the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Peru, China, Lithuania, Slovenia, the Philippines, Tunisia, Slovakia, and Denmark, while sole inquirers have logged on from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Ecuador, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Armenia, Taiwan, the Palestinian Territory, Georgia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Jamaica, and Croatia—1353 visits in all, from 1014 “unique visitors” spread across seventy-three countries on all five continents, amounting to 2701 “pageviews” which lasted on average two minutes and sixteen seconds each. No doubt these results are puny compared with far busier blogs elsewhere, but they do give me particular pleasure. I thank you all for logging on. Indeed these statistics raise the baffling question in my mind as to what on earth my readers make of what they find here, since such a large proportion of the posts relate to the (to us) engrossing story of our pioneering ancestors in Australia. Yet aren't pioneering stories pretty much the same wherever they unfold? Ups and downs; successes and failures; lives cut short, and others lived into venerable old age. There is also the intriguing question as to how some of this flattering attention might be converted into a little pocket money, but let us not become greedy or impatient. Though the prospect of quiet retirement to somewhere pretty and writing full time appeals to me very much, I shall try not to let it seduce. Not yet, anyway.