Patrick Comerford
This blog reached yet another new peak at lunchtime early this afternoon (10 March 2025), totalling up 11.5 million hits since I first began blogging almost 15 years ago, back in 2010.
Once again, I find this is both a humbling statistic and a sobering figure that leaves me not with a sense of achievement but a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.
After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013; 2 million in June 2015; 3 million by October 2016; 4 million on 19 November 2019; 5 million on 27 March 2021; 6 million on 1 July 2022; 7 million on 13 August 2023; 8 million by 30 April 2024; and 9 million on 21 October 2024.
But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal in the past two months or so, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), and 11 million a month ago on 12 February 2025.
Indeed, January 2025 was the first month this blog ever had 1 million hits in one single month – or even within a fortnight – with 1 million hits by mid-January, in the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025).
In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions, and nine of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog have been in January 2025 alone, and the other one of those ten busiest days was last month:
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 64,077 (14 January 2025)
• 55,344 (25 January 2025)
• 52,831 (27 January 2025)
• 42,946 (26 January 2025)
• 36,465 (19 February 2025)
• 35,574 (24 January 2025)
This blog has already had over 2 million hits this year, almost 18 per cent of all hits it has received.
With this latest landmark figure of 11.5 million hits by today, over 1.4 million hits in January alone, and over half a million hits within the past month, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 11.5 million people look like?
• Where do we find 11.5 million people?
• What would £11.5 million, €11.5 million or $11.5 million buy?
• How far away would 11.5 million miles be?
Countries with a population of about 11.5 million people include, Belgium, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Cities with a population of about 11.5 million people include Moscow, the most populous city and the capital of the Russian Federation, according to official Russian statistics.
In Germany, the large metropolitan area of Rhine-Ruhr has about 11.5 million inhabitants in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and other centres.
Across England and Wales, there are 11.5 million full-time students and schoolchildren out of a total 56.4 million residents, according to census figures.
There are about 11.5 million Christians in Côte d’Ivoire, or about 40 per cent of the population.
Over 11.5 million people have been displaced in Sudan, including over 3.5 million people who have fled to neighbouring countries, so that Sudan remains the world's largest internal displacement crisis.
The Irish aid and development agency Goal reached 11.5 million across the world last year.
About 11.5 million people are held in prisons and penal institutions throughout the world, according to the World Prison Population List, with countries around the world building new jails to house them, as the Guardian has reported this morning.
Lichfield District Council has plans that involve spending £11.5 million on new leisure facilities across Lichfield and Burntwood.
The emissions from burning oil and gas produced by Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Chevron until 2050 could cause an estimated 11.5 million additional premature deaths due to heat before the end of the century, according to an analysis by Global Witness.
The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents – or 2.6 terabytes of data – published since 3 April 2016.
At its height, the Second French colonial empire extended to 11.5 million sq km in 1920, with French territories on every continent.
And, within the category of items of useless information that become useful in table quizes, 11.5 million hours is equal to 1,275,000 days, or a little over 3,400 years, and 11.5 million minutes is a little over 5 years and 3 months.
One of the most warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows how my morning prayer diary reached by an average of 80 people each day in February. It is almost three 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 averaged 550-560 people a week.
Today, I am very grateful to all 11.5 million readers and viewers of this blog to date, and for the small core group among them who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.
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