Stats, boring stats...

Unashamedly proud to be British! Photo reproduced with the, er, anticipated kind permission of The San Pedro Scoop... Ooer, what if she gets mad?

I was never vain enough to bother looking at the stats of my blog (honest. C’mon, give a guy a break). I felt bad enough putting a counter on the side of the page (at least I stuck it at the bottom and not the top like some insecure bastards, you know, those that only get fifty million page views an hour) but it is nice to know that I am not merely casting words into the ether and that someone is reading this stuff even if, judging by the search terms used that landed the reader on my site were things like, ‘Plastic Garden Hippo’, or ‘Goat with slit throat’, ‘Snake found with human head’ along with a host of some quite frankly unrepeatable terms, meaning that their arrival in Hippo Land was wholly accidental and no doubt frustrating but, there you go, that’s Google for you. The other thing I like are the themed adverts, tailor made for me every time I use Google. Google has decided that I am rich enough to have disposable income, a portion of which I want to invest offshore and blow the rest on cookery courses, and that, as a 53 year old drop out, I am interested in further education. I wonder how accurate the background checks are on their own employees.

Today, though, I did take a good look at my stats. I did this because I noticed the visitor count for my blog had jumped from three since inception to over twenty thousand in 0.3 of a nano second during the night. Golly, I thought. The biggest and most consistent referrals to Hippo on the Lawn came from John Gray on Going Gently, Josh at Agrianista over the pond, SBW the Cockney plumber, and The Idiot Gardener (IG) who, given the relatively short time we have been reading each other’s blogs and I am using the ‘All Time’ stats, has made it into the top ten. I have not counted a few Google referral mechanisms listed because they aren’t human. Actually, reading some of your posts I am not entirely sure you all are human either but still, I do enjoy them. Chris, over at Grow Fish Eat makes it easily into the Top Ten if I use the monthly stats. Consistently in the Top Ten whether I use daily, weekly, monthly or all time stats are Jobsforsmartpeople, so they must be just as daft as Google and don’t, therefore, count. Still in first place after nearly three years polishing the same chair at the top of the class with his increasingly pert little bum is John Gray, the St Francis of Assisi in Wales, don of an allotment full of waifs and strays and living in a country home to Irishmen who could not swim and itinerant Northerners. So later in the post I will point him towards some, um, tips.

After only 48 hours, though, a very special mention must be made of San Pedro Scoop, the best blog I have found about life for an expat in Belize. Imagine, it is rather like starting a race three or so years after the starting gun and in only two days scoring your first driver’s championship points. Sixth place goes to the San Pedro Scoop and, just to remind you, these are All Time stats and, as I say, mine have gone through the roof, which, I will confess, is rather rewarding.

I have not bothered embedding all these links, by the way as all the sites I have mentioned are already listed down the right hand side of the page and I urge you to take a look at each others blogs and hope you like them as much as I do.

SBW would love to shoot wildfowl on Big Falls, an abandoned rice station and Chris over at Grow Fish Eat might realise what it is like to cacth a fish. Megan and the Barefoot Crofter could compare Mayan weaving and knitting and Ursula could freak people out in beach bars with her way off the wall conversation. IG as, we all know, loves banging on about all the exotic places he has visited (did he mention that he had been away?). If He has never been to Belize, he should seriously consider visiting. It is a beautiful country and offers such a diverse range of activities it more or less guarantees enjoyment for visitors of any age and I shall let the excellent photos on the San Pedro Scoop speak for themselves but, as IG is so very well travelled, I can’t think of a really compelling reason for him to go. For John Gray, however, I can think of one and direct his attention, therefore, to: The San Pedro Scoop is Being Read in Angola and: 70 British Troops Storm Pedro's Inn

A little cheeky of me, I know but, enjoy…