Patrick Comerford
Once more I am overwhelmed by the viewing and reading figures for this blog. These figures reached a total of 51 million shortly before midnight last night (5 September 2026), passing the million mark for the third time within a week. It comes soon after reaching the 50 million early the day before (4 September 2026) and 49 million four days previously (31 August 2026). These figures passed the million mark on three other days last month: 48 million (24 August), 47 million (17 August) and 46 million (9 August).
I continue to find these viewing and reading figures overpowering at times, and this blog continues to reach volumes of readers I never expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 30million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.
Half of all hits or reader figures have been in little more than six months, with 25.5 million hits since 28 February 2026. I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. Throughout this year and last, the daily figures are overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, three were this month (1, 4 and 5 September 2026), three were in May (1, 6 and 14 May 2026), three were the previous month (26, 29 and 30 April 2026), and one in March.
• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 647,187 (5 September 2026)
• 525,719 (14 May 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 407,835 (4 September 2026)
• 356,335 (1 September 2026)
• 344,003 (30 April 2026)
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 322,038 (26 April 2026)
• 318,835 (6 May 2026)
The daily average was about 118,700 hits a day throughout August, and has been about 400,000 a day so far this month. Yet, I recall how 10 years ago, back in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000, or 30,000 a month.
To put this new figure of 51 million into context:
Matias Fernandez-Pardo joined Newcastle United this month on a long-term contract from Lille. The 21-year-old forward arrived at St James’ Park for a reported fee of £51 million.
The figure of 51 million people is associated with an extraordinary, incredible and unbelievable claim by Trump that Vladimir Putin actually fought in World War II. In a claim that seems typical of the man’s fantasism, Trump said: ‘I talked to Putin. He lost 51 million people [in World War II] and he did fight … He fought with us in World War II and everybody hates him.’
Putin was born on 7 October 1952. Nor could Trump have ever fought in World War II – he was born on 14 June 1946, and, in any case, he had ‘bone spurs’ when it came to conscription.
More people than ever are listening to UK radio, with the latest figures reporting a record weekly audience of 51 million people.
51 million sq metres is 51,000 sq km – the size of both Bosnia Herzegovina and Costa Rica – and 51 million km is 51,000 km. The ‘Eastern journey of Nicholas II’ in 1890-1891 was a journey made by Nicholas Alexandrovich – then Tsarevich of Russia – around the greater part of Europe and Asia between October 1890 and August 1891.
His journey by rail and sea took him to Vienna, Athens, Alexandria and Egypt, and on to present-day Sri Lanka, India, Java, Singapore, Siam (Thailand) and China. The 51,000 km journey included 15,000 km by rail and 22,000 km by sea. In Japan, the future tsar survived a failed assassination attempt before travelling on to Vladivostok and back to St Petersburg.
51 million minutes, taking account of leap years, is 96 years, 352 days and 16 hours. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in late 1929.
I retired from active parish ministry about 4½ years ago, on 31 March 2022. These days, though, about 150 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning, or more than 1,000 people each week.
This evening, as this blog passes 51 million hits, I am truly grateful to the real readers among those 51 million hits. In particular I am thankful for the faithful core group of people who join me in prayer, scripture reading and reflections each day.
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