Very occasionally, I check out Blogger "stats" in relation to this humble blog. It's always interesting to see where one's "traffic" is coming from. Here you can see the Yorkshire Pudding state of play yesterday evening:-
Unsurprisingly, top of my league table comes Great Britain (i.e. "United Kingdom"), closely followed by The United States in which an adulterated form of English is widely spoken. No surprise there then and for the same reason it's no surprise that Australia and Canada are also in my top ten.
However, look at the countries coming in at three, four and five - France, Russia and Germany. I am especially surprised about France as in that Gallic nation, the French language is the preferred means of communication and this blog is of course almost exclusively written in English.
Pausing for a moment, it has just dawned on me that French people will read this very post. Being a stickler for good manners, I should like to take this opportunity to say "Bon Jour!" to all my French visitors and "merci beaucoup" for visiting "Pudin de Yorkshire".
Though obviously not as nice as Yorkshire, France is in my view a great country. Your wine is third only to wine from New Zealand and Australia. Your cuisine is pretty good too though personally I prefer a nice Indian curry, fish and chips or a trip to our local carvery. It's also nice to recognise that these days some French people actually have sweet smelling breath - untainted by garlic or "Gauloises". This is a great improvement upon past times.
Yes it's great to have French visitors in my fold - even though they never leave any comments. As for my equally silent Russian visitors, I just want to say that getting Trump elected was in my view a very sick joke on your behalf. Mind you, your own cartoon leader Vladimir is a bit of a joke himself - baring his chest, riding horseback, invading Ukraine and belting pucks across the ice. Even so, to all my Russian visitors I would still like to say - "Благодарим Вас за посещение йоркширского пудинга!" which I hope means "Thank you for visiting Yorkshire Pudding!"
Whenever I look at my blog's stats, it is because someone else's post reminded me of it - such as yours has today.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Cro Magnon one of your frequent blog visitors, and does he not live in France? That would explain part of your blog's popularity there.
To see Russia ahead of Germany is truly amazing! I would have thought that I (and at least one other reader of yours) click your blog so often that Germany easily reaches # 3 in terms of pageviews.
(By the way, I would have instinctively spelled it "page views", not pageviews.)
What can also be very interesting is to look at by what search terms people landed on your blog.
I agree with you about "page views" but Blogger conflates the two words and that fits in nicely with my habit of only having one word blogpost titles. Thank you for boosting my pageviews (page views) from Germany. Even though Brexit means Brexit it doesn't mean Blogxit!
DeleteIt could be that the readers in France and Russia are actually homesick Yorkshiremen who long for a bit of home comfort while they are forced to endure French cuisine and Russian snowdrifts.
ReplyDeleteHow my heart bleeds for all those Yorkshiremen languishing in Siberian jails or undertaking degrees at The Moscow University of Espionage! But at least that's better than being exiled to France.
DeleteI've often wondered how true those stats are...and I still wonder.
ReplyDeleteIf it is the case people from all areas are reading what we write then it's more reason we should always follow the words of the mother of Bambi's mate Thumper - "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all!"
I took Thumper's mum's advice and said some pretty nice things about The French. I would add that they played pretty well in The Six Nations match with England but unfortunately for them they were beaten by a better team. Still, I guess it's the taking part that matters.
DeleteI've had similar stats (though I'm not sure my numbers are as high as yours!) and I suspect they roughly correspond to countries where computers and Internet connections are widely available. It's basically just a numbers game -- the more people with computers, the more likely they are to find our blogs!
ReplyDeleteI see you decided to edit out your original reference to Ukraine and Russia to which I was already making this reply...
DeleteI guess there are school classrooms in Ukraine and Russia where imaginative teachers are using western blogs as vehicles for improving English language skills. Even now they will be looking up at the screen giggling about The Adventures of Olga - The Russian Spy Dog.
Hey - I read all your posts, but Belize (also the nominally English speaking former British Honduras) didn't make your top 10. Such a small country and easily overlooked, I suppose. But I represent 1/350,000 of the total Belize population, so that should count for something!
ReplyDeleteI value all visitors from Belize which is a country I would very much like to visit. Thanks for calling by Wilma and let us sing together...
DeleteArise! ye sons of the Baymen's clan,
Put on your Armour, clear the land!
Drive back the tyrants, let despots flee -
Land of the Free by the Carib Sea!
Come to Belize! Would love to meet you and show you the sights.
DeleteYou never know Wilma. I just might take you up on that. I'll bore the pants off you!
DeleteNot easily bored. We just need a couple of weeks notice.
DeleteIt's so comforting to know that you are a stickler for good manners. You could have fooled me.
ReplyDeleteI hasten to explain to your foreign readers that Monsieur/Comrade Pudding is expressing his fondness for you in the typically English way, by poking a stick in your eye, metaphorically speaking. With my apologies to American actress Sally Field, he likes you, he really likes you!
You are like the parrot in "Treasure Island" - sitting on my shoulder, reminding me of my frailties.
DeleteHere are my "all time page view" stats:
ReplyDeleteUnited States 40118
United Kingdom 14449
Russia 13369
France 5127
Germany 3982
Italy 2681
Canada 1951
Australia 1237
Ireland 1179
China 1093
I suppose that with Russia showing up as #3 on the list I'd better quit saying mean things about our new president! :)
China is kind of weird....I wonder if any Chinese people actually read my blog?! I can't imagine that any actually do.
In the classrooms of Peking and Shanghai, small children may be learning English via "Sparrow Tree Journal". I notice that Ireland and Italy figure in your top ten while I've got Spain and Ukraine instead.
DeleteI get many American readers but think that they have a large population so that would be normal. I have very few Canadian readers and have trouble finding good Canadian blogs.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the standard of literacy in Canada Red? Maybe that explains it... By the way are you linking with Jenny-O The Canadian Procrastinating Donkey?
DeleteHey, hey! I'll have you know our standard of literacy is great. Now don't use me as an example of our standard! Our population is small though.
DeleteNow I am going to see where all my viewers are coming from.
ReplyDeleteLapland 23000
DeleteLap-Dancing Land 22000
Greenland 21000
Pinkland 20000
Norway 19000
Yesway! 18000
I am continually amazed by those in the blogging world whose first language is not English but who have very good proficiency in it. I can't say the same for myself, even though our country has two official languages. So it doesn't really surprise me that the stats show such interest from those countries. (Mine are similar.)(But only a fraction of your number!)
ReplyDeleteSomething weird is going on regarding Russian and Chinese visitors. It's easy to get suspicious and possibly with good reason. By the way, what is Canada's other official language? Inuit?
DeleteFederally, it is French. Provincially, Quebec is officially French, a couple of provinces and territories are bilingual (Fr. & Eng.) but there are pockets of French elsewhere, notably in Nova Scotia, PEI and Manitoba I think, plus Inuit and another northern language in Nunavut. I admire anyone who can function in another language. You've reminded me of a time I bit off more than I could chew trying to communicate with strangers who spoke no English. Post to come!
DeleteSo you have three official languages?
DeleteFederally, two: English and French. Provincially and territorially, it gets complicated :)
DeleteNo bad language in the Donkey household I hope!
DeleteBut California wine is #1. Do I have to send you a case to prove it?
ReplyDeleteWe can buy Californian wine in England Jan. Shirley and I always go for sauvignon blanc and having sampled many different brands we prefer NZ wine. Now don't get mad!
DeleteThe stats Blogger gives me are vastly different to the stats I get from a counter I installed myself. i don't trust the blogger ones even a little bit.
ReplyDeleteI always assume the visits from unexpected places are probably spammers
I bet your own stats counter says 36-24-36 Kylie!
Deletehahaha i'm almost middle aged, you know and it's not good for the stats!
DeleteThose visits from Russia are probably Russian Intelligence checking up on you YP ! Your list somehow reminds me of the Eurovision Song contest results....someone is bound to have null points !
ReplyDeleteNull points?...I guess that would be Bhutan where the internet is almost unheard of...
DeleteAnd if Russian spies are checking me out I just want to say to them, "Knickers! Knockers! Knackers!"