I’ve now been informed that if page views (hits) on my blog were films, “this blog would power 7 (Cannes) Film Festivals.”  Well, ok.  If sneezes were cards, my last cold wouldn’t have even been a full deck.  So what?  If dumb statements were Prime Ministers, WordPress just sent me David Cameron.  (This is NOT intended as a reflection on the intelligence of Mr Cameron’s statements, and shame on you for thinking it was :).)

If you are looking for spiritual insight today, beyond the insight that Christians can have fun, too, you might skip this post.  It’s not likely to get any better than that last paragraph.

I think they want me to post their whole report.  How did I get that idea?  They included a button on the report that does it.  Even I can figure out that is what they want me to do, but I’m not doing it.  Too bad.

For one, it’s dumb.  For two, their fireworks graphic is weak for such a big organisation.  My kids could come up with a better one in half an hour — and most of my kids are legally adults now.  Someone who has a bunch of twelve-year-olds could probably beat it in two minutes flat.  For three, I doubt ANYONE cares how many pictures I uploaded last year and how much storage space they took up.  If you want to know, contact me, and I’ll tell you to get a life.

For four, their stats are limited. If you subscribe to an RSS feed, you don’t count to WP.com.  Everyone else is making films for Cannes, but you are a nobody.  Sorry.  If you use a “don’t track me” browser plugin, they can’t include your hits.  Maybe you are painting pictures, but you aren’t making films.  If you get emails and read a post entirely in the email rather than on the blog, that doesn’t count, either.  Maybe the actual readership should be more like 9-10 Cannes Film Festivals, not seven.  Maybe it would be enough to warrant them sending me both a Prime Minister and a Business Secretary.  I could find plenty to say to both Cameron and Cable, but since they don’t listen to each other, I doubt they’d listen to me.

Furthermore, WordPress doesn’t say how many views on the blog were from:

• Family / friends who felt sorry for me and came just to inflate my hit count and make me feel better.
• People who like to watch train wrecks and don’t see any difference between that and my writing.
• People who live in warm climates and clicked on in December just because they liked watching the snow fall in front of the picture of John Knox’s Pulpit.
• People who like experimenting with how fast the snow comes down depending on where on the screen the mouse pointer was when the page loaded (you know who you are).
• Facebook’s Internet spies, who are everywhere.  If anything I write doesn’t seem very good to you, it was probably a Facebook spy posing as me.

But according to what WordPress knows:

1. The busiest months were March, January, February — and December?  I offended someone in March, and they forgave me and came home for Christmas?
2. The five most popular posts this year (because popular MUST be good, right?) included (pretentiously propounding on personal posts of popularity):
   1. Practical:  “OMG” — and Other Ways Christians Take God’s Name in Vain
   2. Political: When £26,000 Isn’t Enough
   3. Preservational:  His Word Will not Return Void — Preservation Implied (yes, I know the “P” alliteration here is getting, well, pressed to the limit)
   4. Proverbial:  A Proverb for Today — Proverbs 25:28 (part one) (posted 28 December 2011)
   5. Pericopal: The “Pericope Adulterae” and the Oldest Manuscripts
   6. Profound: …. (For some reason, no profound posts hit the top five.  I’m sure some of my readers could come up with explanations, but I don’t want to hear them.)
3. Breathless Stupid Statement from WordPress:  “Some of your most popular posts were written before 2012. Your writing has staying power!”  Yes, one was written three days before 2012, and got traffic in 2012.  This is surprising?  “Staying power!” 🙂
4. I had visitors from 149 “countries” (some are just pretend countries).  By continent / region, a modified list of the countries with the most traffic were:
   1. Europe — United Kingdom (Someone needs to send the Pope here.  I think Vatican City is the only European country that shows no visits at all.  He might not like it all, but he might learn something about the Bible.)
   2. North America — United States (lots of traffic from Canada, too)
   3. Australian continent — Australia (Yes!  I’ve had traffic from every country on that continent!)
   4. Asia — India
   5. Caribbean / Central America — Grenada (leading the world in hits per capita!)
   6. Pacific / Pacific Asia — Philippines (closely followed by Singapore)
   7. Africa — South Africa (Nigeria was the most in West Africa, Kenya in the East)
   8. South America — Brazil (Mexico had more, but someone needs to tell the BBC that MEXICO IS NOT IN SOUTH AMERICA!)
   9. Middle East — Israel.
5. One serious point in all the silliness — if you live in a country where Christians are officially and actively persecuted, I didn’t list it because I’d hate to have your access blocked.  Some countries clearly do block, and I don’t want it to happen in others — so I modified this list.  There’s just no need to highlight it.  Reminder for all, we have many brothers and sisters in Christ whom we must remember in prayer and help as we are able (Hebrews 13:3).  If this blog helps a little, we’ll praise the Lord!
6. The sites that sent the most traffic here were Google, Facebook, News for Christians, and Yahoo.  I only endorse one of those — the others make me feel like the children of Israel borrowing from the Egyptians when they left Egypt. 🙂
7. People search a lot for “Proverbs 25:28”, “Proverbs 13:22”, and “His Word will not return void.”  Maybe pastors should preach on those sometimes, so people don’t have to find it from some guy on the Internet, who might or might not have any credibility.  (I guess that’s another serious note.)

Ok, I think that’s probably more than enough time on this.  Thank you for reading — it is an honour and a privilege to have you here.  I pray it is profitable for you.