Two today

This blog is two today*.

Time flies!

Somewhere between eking out reasonable living and having a bit of fun, I've found time for 542 posts and 918 tweets.

This time last year, I resolved:

to put aside my daily rage and produce more posts that I can be proud of, even if that means producing fewer overall.

That October resolution was about as successful as the usual January kind.

I also vowed to read more books, but though I've bought a copy of the excellent Libertarian Reader, and more recently a signed copy of The Art of Suppression, I haven't got very far with either. On a recent flight to Toronto, however, I found time for Nigel Lawson's An Appeal to Reason: A cool look at global warming. I recommend it to everyone.

Last year my blog had received visitors from 40 countries. It's now up to 69, including one from Iran.


Last year saw visits from 77 different UK cities. The total is now 204.


Oxford still tops the list, and much as I'd like to claim a substantial local following, I think it's still mostly me.


My most popular post by far was one about aardvarks, and my follow-up piece about the strange aardvark traffic itself saw many visitors, so I introduced a special aardvark filter to Google Analytics. It sounds like the work of bots to me, but who knows? Maybe I do have a following among aardvark aficionados.

My blogroll isn't so different from last year. I still follow DK and Tom Paine, though both blogged less in 2011 (for different reasons). I still look to The Cobden Centre for voices of sanity in the economic wilderness. I still enjoy the posts from Daniel Hannan and Norman Tebbit, though they seem increasingly to repeat themselves (I can't really blame them; I do the same).

For a bit of variety, I've added Toby Young and James Delingpole to the list. There was a time when I was put off by the strident tone of the latter, but I'm now a fan. I'm not sure whether this signals enlightenment or madness. I'm certainly more firmly sceptical of AGW than I was a year ago, as my environment blogs attest.

My latest blogroll addition, and one of my favourites, is Christopher Snowdon's Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. His cool analysis and sharp wit are the perfect antidote to neo-prohibitionist stat-fudging and nanny state hectoring.

For my part, though lacking in both time and talent, I will blog on. It will be interesting, one day, to see what my grandchildren make of it.

Thanks again to those who've taken the time to read here, and especially to those who have commented.

* 'today' being the 13th of October, 2011, when I started writing this post, not the 31st, which is when I finally posted it!