Patrick Comerford
They used to warn us not believe everything you read in the newspapers. That saying has taken a new and nasty twist since Trump started to castigate decent ‘newspapers of record’ and reputable journalists of stature as ‘Fake News’.
But, with the exponential explosion in the use of AI, it would be fair to warn ourselves of the dangers of relying on AI, or at least to be cautious or discriminatory in its use.
Have you ever asked AI about yourself and seen the results? Sometimes I am taken aback by the images and supposed facts AI generates about me.
A quick AI search this week also tells me I am ‘an avid, award-winning photographer’, that I participate in local camera clubs and that I have ‘won multiple awards in 2026, including Print Photographer of the Year and the Annual Print competition’. Those awards certainly came as unexpected surprises to me … doubtless, there’s another Patrick Comerford whose skills as a photographer are going unrecognised by AI.
AI also informed me this morning that I am ‘a widely published author who has written, co-authored, and contributed to numerous books, academic papers, and articles.’ But it also tells me I am the author of a number of books that I have not written, including books on patristics and the Desert Fathers and collections of poetries, and neither I nor the actual authors, including Tim Vivian, seem to have any rights of reply or means of correcting this misappropriation.
On the other hand, AI tells me ‘Patrick Comerford’s blog is exceptionally well-read, experiencing a massive surge in popularity’ and that ‘While it took nearly two years after its 2010 launch to reach half a million readers, the blog’s traffic has accelerated drastically in recent times.’ AI adds that ‘traffic is largely driven by its substantial, 16-year backlog of detailed posts covering travel, church history, architecture, and local/family history, making it a highly-visited resource for itineraries and research’.
This blog reached a new record and a new grand total with 66 million hits early today (7 November 2026), shortly after 2 am this morning. This is the second time this month that the figures have passed the million mark, having reached 65 million six days ago, late last Sunday evening (1 November 2026).
Last month’s total number of hits was more than 5.4 million (October 2026), September was the highest total in any single month since I began blogging, with more than 10.4 million hits, and last month was the third highest. At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 45 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone. Half of all these hits or reader figures have been within the past six or seven months, with 33 million hits since (25 April 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, with an average of 175,000 to 180,000 a day last month and so far this month.
Some curious though random statistics may help to put today’s new figure of 66 million into perspective:
In 2012, Barack Obama won both the electoral and popular votes, receiving 66 million votes to Mitt Romney’s 61 million.
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event took place 66 million years ago and wiped out non-avian dinosaurs and roughly 75% of Earth’s plant and animal species. A massive meteorite 10 to 15 km wide struck Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico, creating an impact crater that was 180 km wide. This triggered global wildfires, a multi-year ‘nuclear winter’ and mega-tsunamis. With sunlight blocked, plants died-and entire food chains collapsed, and the reign of the dinosaurs that had lasted 180 million years came to an abrupt end.
With advanced radiometric dating, scientific consensus has shifted the event from a previous estimate of 65 million years ago to 66 million years ago – well, to be more specific, around 66.043 million years ago.
Manchester Airports Group is the largest UK-owned airport operator, with over 66 million passengers a year from Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports, and over 270 destinations across the globe.
Turkey’s museums and heritage sites attracted almost 66 million visitors last year, overnight tourists stays in Denmark last year were almost 66 million, and Italy welcomed almost 66 million people for summer holidays in 2025.
Over €66 million in payments has been issued under the Irish government’s mother and baby home redress scheme.
There are about 66 million Lutherans worldwide, with the vast majority belonging to churches that are part of the Lutheran World Federation, the sixth-largest communion of churches.
66 million minutes is equal to 125 years, 5 months and almost 25 days, which means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in May 1901.
I retired from active parish ministry on 31 March 2022. These days, though, on average more than 200 people are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning, or a ‘virtual congregation’ up to 1,400 people each week. As this blog moves beyond 66 million hits, I am truly grateful today to the real readers among those 66 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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