Please don’t feed the animals
I have just realised that this site has been running for fifteen years!
First I thought I would run it for a few days to see what happened. But those few days ran into weeks.
I decided then I would run it until 2010, that being a nice round number. But like most of my resolutions that went out the window.
Never mind. I’d run it until its 10th birthday in 2016. Another nice round number.
But the months and years rolled on. I have given up setting target dates now. This has just become an itch that has to be scratched with no respite in sight.
I had Google keeping track of traffic. They fucked up at some point though, so I can tell you I have had nearly four million page views but not a single visitor. Not one. Not even me. Maybe they’re right and the whole exercise is a figleaf of my imagination?
I mentioned a while back that the Chinese seem to have discovered the nuggets of my reflections? This wasn’t a one day wonder which sometimes happens. They became quite regular readers. Then they stopped. Quite suddenly. I was getting used to that early morning spike in traffic and then it just disappeared.
They’re back for the last few days, and are more than welcome. This is just a little snapshot I took a few minutes ago –

Am I being used as part of Chinese education? A typical example of the decadent West? Am I to be studied as a live example of an old fart. like some kind of zoo animal? Am I an Irish Takeaway?
I suppose there is only one thing left to say.
欢è¿è¿å ¥æçå°å®¶
I velli implessed that you speek Chineeze. Thought you lived in mansion rather than a ‘little home’ though?
Just a touch of modesty. Anyway, I don’t think I ever used the word “mansion” did I?
China? I think I need to ditch that browser header changer extension. It kept changing from the US to China and I forgot I had ever installed it. Considering it was last updated in 2013 I think the extension author is dead.
Off Topic: Please forgive my latest comments. I understand they don’t make much sense but I’m still sick and nothing seems to make much sense lately–like why the hell am I still sick?
I always understand your comments which must mean I have the same sickness? Or else we are the only two healthy ones and the rest are all sick?
I feel fine. Or possibly I just think I do. Is confusion a symptom of something other than age?
No. Just old age.
Damn!
Ho went the visit to the Vet ?
That’s easy for you to say.
Maybe there are an awful lot of visits from China as there are truly an awful lot of Chinese people in China. And, such an advanced nation is certain to have a good command of English. And, I have heard it said that the Chinese are inquisitive about the outside world. You write intelligible, plain English, to boot, and pepper the text with controversial “rude words” – this latter certain to cause excited titters amongst the easily-shocked, clean-living Chinese, even if those epithets are completely untrue. Then also the whole world is curious about the Irish, particularly as the Irish do not always agree with the English, maybe in the same way as the Chinese do not always agree with the English, but at the same time do have not much reason to disagree with the Irish. Their adherence to your blog is a compliment to the Chinese, my opinion of their country never that cold but now nonetheless warmer. They invented cast iron and their cuisines can be delectable. And the Chinese takeaway in my local town, here out West, west of the Shannon, that is, often manifests itself to the arriving customer in the form of a charming Chinese girl called Linn. She has told me that I must visit China and that I would love it. Indeed, as the WHO has just informed me, China “is the tobacco capital of the world”, which only adds to its allure, even if Dr Bernhard Schwartländer, whose name is clearly not Chinese but who made the foregoing announcement about China in 2015, then started wagging his finger at the naughty Chinese in his introduction to the WHO’s comprehensive report of that year called “Smoke-free Policies in China”, but ended with an optimistic: “China stands on the cusp of a [very big – actual term used was “quantum”] leap forward on tobacco control”. If most of your Chinese visitors are men, then over half of them will also be tobacco enthusiasts and therefore not fans of Dr Schwartländer, if they have ever heard of him. So, maybe the orange bit in the pie represents the glow of the busy end of a Chinese cigarette and thus, as such, is as pretty as the setting sun. Your welcome, “欢è¿è¿å ¥æçå°å®¶”, is most appropriate.
Some very interesting points! I am more than happy to welcome everyone though none has commented [yet] so individual thanks must wait.
What happens when the Great Firewall of China discovers me?
You may be turned into a bat in a cave. In the meantime, I apologise for omitting an “s” at the end of “represent” in the penultimate line just above. This will earn me minus points on Mr Xi’s good-citizen behaviour scale. I fear that.
Ta.