Patrick Comerford
Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers, reaching yet another overwhelming landmark at the end of 2025, with 21 million hits shortly after 1 pm yesterday afternoon (31 December 2025), more than 615,000 readers in the last week in December and almost 2.5 million visitors to this blog throughout last month (2,423,018), an average of 75,000 to 80,000 hits each day in December.
This was the fifth time in one month alone that this site passed the half million mark, having hit the 20.5 million mark on Christmas Day (25 December 2025), the 20 million mark a week earlier (18 December 2025), 19.5 million the previous Sunday (14 December 2025), and the 19 million mark less than a week before that (9 December).
I began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It more than another year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. This blog reached the 10 million mark early in 2025 (12 January), almost 15 years later.
Throughout last year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in December alone and four were in January:
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 146,944 (14 December 2025)
• 140,417 (16 December 2025)
• 122,398 (17 December 2025)
• 116,911 (30 December 2025)
• 112,221 (13 December 2025)
• 106,475 (27 December 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 94,824 (12 December 2025)
The latest figure of 21 million is all the more staggering as more than half of those hits (10.5 million) have been within this year, since 12 January 2025. The rise in the number of readers has continued to be phenomenal throughout this year, and the daily figures have been overwhelming at times. With this latest landmark figure of 21 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 21 million people look like?
• Where do we find 21 million people?
• What does £21 million, €21 million or $21 million mean?
• What would it buy, how far would it stretch, how much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?
Researchers looking at the evolutionary origins of kissing have concluded that the mouth-on-mouth kiss evolved more than 21 million years ago. Their findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, suggest the common ancestor of humans and other great apes probably indulged in kissing. ‘Humans, chimps, and bonobos all kiss,’ according to the lead researcher, Dr Matilda Brindle, of the University of Oxford. From that, she concludes, ‘it’s likely that their most recent common ancestor kissed.’
Chad, Kazakhstan, Malawi and Zambia each has a population of 21 million – depending on who does the counting, and how.
The UK is committing a further £21 million package of urgent support to communities on the brink in Sudan, providing food, clean water, health care, and protection for women and children in areas hardest hit by violence.
Over 21 million people in England are aged 50 or over in England – this is 38% of the population.
A recent study by Cancer Research UK estimates that more than 21 million adults in the UK will be obese by the year 2040.
AllergyUK estimates suggest allergies affect the lives of up to 21 million people in the UK, and the World Health Organisation describes allergic disease as a ‘modern epidemic’. Between 5 and 8 per cent of children in the UK live with a food allergy.
Around 21 million people are struggling to keep up with bills and credit commitments – that’s two in five people.
21 million km is a vast distance, equivalent to about 13 million miles, roughly the distance from Earth to the Moon and back more than 26 times, or about 518 trips around the Earth’s equator. That says something about the massive scales in astronomy or long-haul travel.
The Earth’s circumference is about 40,007 km, so 21,000,000 km / 40,007 km ≈ 525 times around the Earth. The average distance to the Moon is about 384,400 km, meaning 21 million km is roughly 55 one-way trips to the Moon. The Earth-Sun distance is ~149 million km, so 21 million km is about one-seventh the distance to the Sun.
Tom Stuker became the world’s most frequent flyer in 2019 when it was revealed he who had flown 21 million miles – the last million took him only six months. He paid out of his own pocket for every one of his trips, saving his miles to give to family members, charities and others.
Ripley Castle in North Yorkshire has been the family home of the Ingilbys since the early 1300s. It was put for sale recently with an asking price of £21 million.
The world’s largest shopping centre is in Tehran and has 21 million sq ft in total leasable area across seven floors. The huge centre features a traditional bazaar, lush gardens, a grand library, an 18-storey hotel, a theme park, a massive cinema complex, a musical water fountain, and an ice rink.
The Iran Mall also has landscaped Persian-style gardens, several grand mosques, and architectural elements inspired by historic Iranian design with ornate domes, mosaic tilework, intricate tapestries, and vaulted ceilings that reflect centuries of craftsmanship and artistry.
Royal Mail has been fined £21 million by regulator Ofcom over missed delivery targets over the course of the 2024/2025 year. The fine represents the third-largest fine ever imposed by the communications watchdog. Royal Mail only delivered 77% of First Class mail and 92.5% of Second Class mail on time – a figure that fell short of 93% and 98.5% target.
The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe in November over €21 million for major breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist-financing (AML/CTF) rules, marking the first enforcement action of its kind against a crypto-asset service provider in Ireland.
During the 2024 presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed 21 million immigrants are flooding into the US each month. But this fiction was challenged in a report two weeks ago (18 December 2025) by Tom Edgington, Jake Horton and Lucy Gilder of BBC Verify.
The investigation came after Trump installed new plaques appeared under the portraits of former US presidents on his so-called ‘Walk of Fame’ at the West Wing in the White House.
The plaques represent Trump’s attempt to shape any long-term views of past presidents. Each former president has a portrait or photo except for Biden, who is instead represented by a photo of an autopen – a reference to Trump’s claim that Biden’s staff used an automated signature machine to sign off decisions without his knowledge.
The plaque beneath claims Biden took office in January 2021 ‘as a result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the US’ and that Biden ‘let 21 million people from all over the World pour into the US.’
The plaque does not say how these people allegedly entered the US under Biden, but Trump has used variations of the 21 million figure several times when talking about the Biden administration’s record, and earlier this year he claimed Biden allowed 21 million ‘illegal aliens to invade our country.’ Needless to say, Trump has never provided a source for any of these claims.
And 21 million minutes is approximately 40 years or 14,583.33 days. If this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would have taken about 40 years to reach this 21 million mark.
So, yet again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.
Once again, a continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 90-100 people each day, with similar figures for my daily Advent Calendar postings and Christmas Card postings.
It is almost four years now since I retired from active parish ministry, but I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 600 to 700 people twice a week.
Today, I am very grateful to all the 21 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.
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