Patrick Comerford
Patrick Comerford
This blog reached yet another new peak early yesterday (11 July 2025), even before I had my surgery in the mornin, totalling up 14.5 million hits since I first began blogging about 15 years ago, back in 2010.
Once again, this is yet another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left not with a sense of achievement but with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.
After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.
But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal over the past few months, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), 12 million early last month (3 May 2025), 12.5 million a month later (6 June 2025), 13 million less than two weeks later (17 June 2025), 13.5 million a week later (24 June 2025), 14 million a week later (1 July 2025) and 14.5 million yesterday.
Last month (June 2025) was the second month that this blog ever had more than 1 million hits in one single month, with 1,618,488 hits by the end of the month (30 June). This followed January’s record of 1 million hits by the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025). We are not half way through July, but the figures for this month were already almost 650,000 by late this afternoon.
In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in June alone, four were in January 2025, and one was in this month (1 July 2025):
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 82,043 (23 June 2025)
• 81,037 (21 June 2025)
• 80,625 (22 June 2025)
• 79,981 (19 June 2025)
• 79,165 (20 June 2025)
• 69,722 (18 June 2025)
• 69,714 (30 June 2025)
• 69,657 (1 July 2025)
This blog has already had more than 5.1 million hits this year, over one-third (almost 35 per cent) of all hits ever.
I’m still acutely aware that some of these days were in the week before and after Trump’s inauguration, the others were in the days around his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC on 14 June and his hair-brained decision to attack Iran. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.
It’s not paranoid either to imagine how the bots at work in some ugly, dim basement in Washington are trawling far and wide for anyone critical of the Trump regime. The costs may be minimal, but it’s still money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, rehiring air traffic controllers or reinstating DEI programmes.
I doubt that my criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth and Musk are going to make it easy to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to visit the place under the present dystopian regime. I’d prefer to boost my ego and convince myself that my popularity is growing and that I have become a ‘must-read’ writer for so many people every day. But, sadly, I don’t think that’s so.
On the other hand – and in this lies my greatest fear – if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is feeling watched and intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics of the Trump regime and ICE inside the US feel they really are being trolled, monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.
Putting all this aside, with this latest landmark figure of 14.5 million hits by yesterday, over 1.6 million hits in June alone, and over 1.4 million hits in January, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 14.5 million people look like?
• Where do we find 14.5 million people?
• What does £14.5 million, €14.5 million or $14.5 million mean?
• What would it buy?
Over 14.5 million people – or one in five people – are living in poverty in the UK, including 4.5 million children. The number of people in England and Wales who are 60 years and older is put at 14.5 million.
About 14.5 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Sudan, with 10.5 million internally displaced and 4 million having fled to neighbouring countries, creating the largest displacement crisis in the world – yet the Trump regime is deporting immigrants from the US to Sudan.
In addition, the number of internal displacements in the Americas reached 14.5 million last year, more than the previous five years combined.
After the British Raj came to an end and India was divided into India and Pakistan, an estimated 14.5 million people became migrants within a four-year period, migrating from one country to the other.
Countries with an estimated population of 14.5 million include Guinea and Benin, and the population of Istanbul is estimated at more than 14.5 million.
The Arctic totals 14.5 million sq km (5.5 million square miles) – almost exactly the same size as Antarctica.
Areas measuring 14.5 million sq metres (or 14.5 sq km) include Chrisi or Chrysi Island Χρυσή, off the south coast of Crete, and Tory Island, which is 14.5 km off the north-west coast of Co Donegal.
Of the approximately 14.5 million sq m of tropical rainforest that once covered the Earth’s surface, only 36% remains intact.
A recent World Economic Forum report warns that by 2050 climate change may cause an additional 14.5 million deaths and $12.5 trillion in economic losses worldwide. The report Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health provides a detailed picture of the indirect impact climate change will have on human health, the global economy and healthcare systems around the world, and offers strategies to mitigate and prepare for this looming threat.
Liverpool FC has confirmed it will honour the remainder of Diogo Jota’s contract, reportedly worth around £14.5 million, by paying it in full to his wife Rute and their three children. The 28-year-old tragically died alongside his brother, André Silva, in a car accident in Spain last week (3 July 2025).
Sotheby’s Old Masters evening sale earlier this month brought in £14.5 million. In that sale, JMW Turner’s recently rediscovered ‘The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol’ (1792) was sold to a private British collector for £1.9 million, seven times its estimate. It was bought last year for just £500.
And did you know that 14.5 million pumpkins are left uneaten each year in the UK? … that’s according to posts from Lichfield District Council and Staffordshire County Council in advance of Hallowe’en last year.
