Who are you?

This blog has now been going for 7 months, so I decided to have a look at the statistics that Google generously provide. These are available to us bloggers on a daily basis, and with a considerable degree of detail. I occasionally take a look at them, and I suddenly thought that it might be of interest to you readers to have some idea of who you are (at least where you come from), and what have been the most visited posts on this blog.

Firstly I would like to thank you all for visiting, and a few of you for having become followers. I had no idea when I started this that there would be as many of you as this. Maybe there could be some more followers, but one cannot have everything!

Of course one can construe statistics in all kinds of ways. Didn't a famous British Prime Minister once say: "there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics, and the worst of the three is the last kind."? In the case of a blog like this one, which talks of a wide variety of topics, statistics probably owe as much to hasard as to any deliberate attempt to reach a particular audience. I have no real idea how blog articles become known, and therefore I have never done anything to "tweak" the results or the figures. I am sure that some specialist could give me tips on this, but I am not sure that I want to go this way. In fact I am perfectly happy for people just to discover this blog and either stay with it regularly, visit it occasionally, or move on if they are not interested at all. It is not a commercial operation and therefore I have no interest in boosting the numbers of those who visit (apart from boosting my own ego of course!).

Here we go with a round-up of the various hit parades:

First of all, over 50,000 pages of More than just wine have been visited since I published my first article in mid October 2010. I should add that my own visits are naturally excluded from all these figures. Things started very slowly and then grew steadily to the point when the number of visitors per month currently stands at 10,500, and the number of countries concerened continues to grow.

1). Countries who have provided the most visitors (and the numbers of these)  
USA: 9650
France (where I live): 7345
India: 6520
UK: 5576
Canada: 1505
Germany: 1445
Spain: 1383
Australia: 1032
Lebanon: 755
Italy: 701

2). Most popular articles, their section on the blog and the number of visits
Cricket World Cup (the sports page): 6954
As time goes by (life and that): 1698
Steve McQueen (life and that): 1679
Down the Loire to Nantes (places to go): 1653
Bordeaux the magnificent (places to go): 1330
Isle of Man TT course with Guy Martin anybody? (motorbikes and other objects): 1177
Infinity in art (painting and stuff): 1172
Sachin Tendulkar, a great cricket player (the sports page): 1064
Billie is best (sounds good): 1008
New Year's bike resolution (motorbikes and other objects): 995
Photography and its influence on painting (painting and stuff): 911

3). Articles which have sollicited the most comments  
Cross-dressing ancestors (life and that): 19 comments
Why the term "natural" wine is absurd (wine, vin and vino): 17
Wines that are different (wine, vin and vino): 16
Work while you sleep (life and that): 15
Rugby 6 nations: what counts most (the sports page): 15
Let's crunch again (the sports page): 14
Girls on motorcycles 4 (motorbikes and other objects): 13

Attentive readers will probably note the extraordinary popularity of the article on the recent Cricket World Cup, which was won by India, one of the host countries. This is very clearly linked to the third place now held by India in terms of visiting countries of origin. Imagine what might happen should I ever choose to write about some joyful event in China.

Now for all of you who have had the patience to read all this useless information, here is a little present. Remember the title? Does it remind you of something? Those were the days....