Patrick Comerford
This month is proving to be an exceptionally busy time on this blog, with a continuing, steady and often overwhelming rise in figures for viewing and reading. These figures reached 54 million earlier late last night (10 September 2026), passing the million mark for the sixth time since the end of last month.
The figures reached a total of 53 million hits two days ago (9 September 2026), 52 million hits two days before that (7 September), 51 million late last Saturday (5 September), 50 million the day before (4 September) and 49 million four days previously (31 August).
These viewing and readership figures are still overpowering, 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 33 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.
This means half of all hits or reader figures have been within the past six months, with 27 million hits since 12 March 2026 March 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, the daily figures have often been overwhelming. Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, seven of them were in this month alone (1, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 September), two were in May (1 and 14 May) and one was in April (29 April):
• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 671,341 (10 September 2026)
• 647,187 (5 September 2026)
• 618,234 (8 September 2026)
• 563,301 (9 September 2026)
• 525,719 (14 May 2026)
• 513,725 (7 September 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 407,835 (4 September 2026)
• 356,335 (1 September 2026)
The daily average so far this month is almost 490,000 hits a day. Yet, I recall how 10 years ago, back in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000, or 30,000 a month.
Some curious though random statistics help to put this new figure of 54 million into perspective:
Iran’s parliament has debated legislation to pay $54 million to any individual or entity that kills Donald Trump.
Myanmar and Colombia have populations of about 54 million each.
54 million viewers tuned in across Canada, Mexico and the US for the opening matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026 featuring the three host nations.
At its closest, Mars is about 54 million km from Earth … although sometimes it is over 400 million km from Earth – that’s how huge space really is. The closest distance to Mars from Earth was recorded in August 2003.
Friarsgate, a planned shopping and leisure scheme in Lichfield, was axed in 2018 after the local council voted against funding the development. Friarsgate was highly anticipated but could not attract a private backer to meet its £54 million cost which left Lichfield District Council having to decide whether or not to fund the scheme itself. The Birmingham Road Site, including the old bus station and former Tempest Ford garage, has since been broken down into smaller, phased regeneration plans rather than one large single development.
54 million metres is 54,000 km, and 54 million sq m is 54,000 sq km. Indonesia has a coastline of over 54,000 km, the third longest coastline in the world after Canada and Norway.
Nyerere National Park in Tanzania is East Africa’s largest park, and one of the world’s largest wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. It extends to over 54,000 sq km.
The Saharan halophytics is an area of seasonally flooded saline depressions that is home to halophytic (salt-adapted) plant communities. The Saharan halophytics cover 54,000 sq km, including: the Qattara and Siwa depressions in northern Egypt, the Tunisian salt lakes of central Tunisia, Chott Melghir in Algeria, and smaller areas of Algeria, Mauritania, and the southern part of Morocco.
54 million minutes is equal to 102 years and 9 months. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back at the beginning of 1924.
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 moves beyond 54 million hits, I am truly grateful to the real readers among that 54 million. 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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