Blog's First Anniversary (Official)

I set the blog up in mid-August 2012 but I didn't 'go live' until 31st August with this post. Since then I've made 158 posts on various subjects but mostly of a wargaming nature. Some posts which I was certain would be surefire winners were not as warmly received, in terms of views, as I imagined they would be. Others which I believed were a bit iffy were big hits. I've learned a lot over the year in terms of presentation of posts and from advice from other bloggers, some of whom have been inspirational. That compliment, of being inspirational, has been paid to me on a number of occasions which was really wonderful.

I have also made a lot of friends through the blog. In fact I have a worldwide audience now; some of my new friends I will almost certainly never meet but that's ok. Others have become friends in real life and they have introduced me to new ways of playing wargames. One thing about blogging I really love is the free exchange of ideas and information and the general decency of everyone.

After literally no requests for information I thought I'd do a top ten posts for the year. Some of them, as I said above, were a genuine surprise. So here we go:

Meaningless Stat #1: 158 posts & 402 comments = 2.5 comments per post.

Top ten posts by views 
10=. Outskirts of Menton 1940 100 views
10=. The Buildings of Vim Fuego 100 views
8. B'ham Toy Soldier Fair 107 views
7=. New Stuff 121 views
7=. Tarboosh Music 121 views
5. Recce Time 129 views
4. USN Pre-Dreadnoughts 149 views
3. For Sale 183 views
2. The Peasants' Revolt 216 views
1. The Army of The Nutcracker.224 views

Some of these posts are from way back when but not all of them. It will be interesting to see what makes this list in a year's time because some of the newer posts are rapidly approaching three figures.

I have 44 followers who are all stout-hearted chaps & chapettes who clearly like(??- Editor.) what I do. But the view count on the blog is now almost 22,000 and there is no way they could have done all that by themselves. I decided to do another top ten but this time by world audience and this really brought home to me the global nature of what we all do.

Meaningless Stat #2: 402 Comments & 44 Followers = 9.13 comments per follower. (This is made up like most stats. See British Government for details)

Top ten audience by views
10. France 190
9. Spain 215
8. Canada 222
7. Finland 262
6. New Zealand 592
5. Germany 766
4. Australia 1042
3. Russia 1113
2. USA 5175
1. UK 9658

Which is pretty much what you'd expect but it is nice to see I'm becoming a bit of an underground hit in China, Poland, Pakistan and Latvia!

Meaningless Stat #3: 22,132 Page Views & 402 Posts = 55 Views per post.

Right! That's enough boring bloody statistics. Sorry if I've put anyone to sleep with this drivel; normal service will be resumed shortly.

UATH!