Patrick Comerford
The viewing and reading figures for this blog continue to overwhelm me. These figures reached the 37 million mark today shortly before noon this morning (8 May 2026), having reached 36 million six days ago (2 May 2026) and 35 million last Friday (1 May 2026). The figures have passed the million mark three times so far this month, having passed that mark four times last month: 34 million (29 April), 33 million (25 April), 32 million (19 April) and 31 million (8 April).
These viewing and reading figures have been overwhelming in these recent weeks and months and this blog continues to reach a volume of readers that I could never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (18.5 million) have been within less than six months, since 27 November 2025. The total hits in March 2026 were the highest monthly total ever (4,523,648), followed by 4,365,464 hits for last month (April 2026).
At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 16 million hits or visitors in 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 continue to be overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog, two were this month (1 and 6 May 2026), three were last month (26, 29 and 30 April 2026), three were in March, two were in February, and two were in January 2025:
• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 344,003 (30 April 2024)
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 322,038 (26 April 2026)
• 318,835 (6 May 2026)
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
The daily averages were about 145,000 or more hits a day last month; ten years ago, in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000.
To put this figure of 37 million into perspective:
Greece broke all its tourism records last year (2025), with almost nearly 37 million visitors (over 36.7 million) and generating €23 billion in revenue. The surge was driven by strong demand, with 14 regional airports managed by Fraport Greece handling over 37 million passengers. Germany and the UK were the top source markets, and the record figures highlight a successful move to promote year-round tourism in Greece.
Of the 37 million people who came to Staffordshire in 2024, around four million stayed overnight.
The Japanese capital Tokyo, where I was a student in 1979, is now the largest city on Earth, with a population of 37.4 million people. This makes Tokyo which is over four times the population of New York City, and it means that around one-third of Japan's population live in the Tokyo region.
Last year Donald Trump said he had received a contribution of steel worth $37 million from a ‘great steel company’ as a gift to him to use in his project to build a $400 million ballroom at the White House. A senior executive at the steelmaker ArcelorMittal in Luxembourg has confirmed in recent weeks that the company made this gift of steel.
At the time, a White House official denied that ArcelorMittal received anything in return for the donation. But days after the president’s remarks, made at a White House event for donors to the ballroom project, the US adjusted its tariffs in a way that could benefit ArcelorMittal, according to a report in The New York Times, by slashing by half tariffs applied to automotive steel exports from its Canadian plant.
The use of a foreign steel company to provide materials for the White House flies in the face of Trump’s pledges to support the US steel industry and his boasts about ‘saving’ the industry.
The Iranian regime’s crackdown, internet shutdowns, digital blackouts and instability are causing Iran’s economy an estimated $37 million per day in losses.
The Empire State Building has an internal volume of 37 million cubic ft.
37 million minutes is about 70 years, 4 months, and 5 days. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 70 years, from early January 1956, to reach today’s latest figure of 37 million.
I retired from active parish ministry over four years ago, on 30 March 2022. These days, though, about 120-140 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. A similar number have been reading my current series of postings on churches and local history in Staffordshire, and were reading my recent series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 800-1,000 or more people each week.
This afternoon, I am truly grateful to the real readers among those 36 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I am thankful for the faithful core group of 120-140 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each morning.
