Patrick Comerford
This blog continues to reach more and more readers, and has reached yet another staggering today, with 19 million hits withing the past hour (9 December 2025) and almost 400,000 readers so far this month, with over 396,000 hits by 6 pm today.
I first began blogging back in 2010, and the 18.5 million mark was reached less than a fortnight ago, at the end of last month (27 November 2025), having passed the 18 million earlier that month (2 November 2025), the 17.5 million mark the previous month (18 October) and the 17 million mark less than three weeks earlier (30 September 2025).
The latest figure of 19 million is all the more staggering because half of all those hits (9.5 million) have been within this year, since January 2025. The rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal throughout this year, and the daily figures have been overwhelming at times. With this latest landmark figure of 19 million readers today, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 19 million people look like?
• Where do we find 19 million people?
• What does £19 million, €19 million or $19 million mean?
• What would it buy, how far would it stretch, how much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?
Official estimate earlier this year show Romania has a population of 19 million, and São Paulo in Brazil has a population of 19 million, making it the 19th largest city in the world.
A report earlier this year shows over 19 million people in Yemen need humanitarian aid due to conflict. There 4.5 million people who internally displaced people in Yemen with major humanitarian need.
By the end of March 2025, East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region hosted some 19 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 5.7 million refugees and asylum-seekers, or a total of 24.7 million displaced people. The internally displaced persons are mainly in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Burundi, while the majority of the refugees and asylum-seekers are in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan.
Central Macedonia, the largest region of Greece, has a land area of 19 million sq metres (19,000 sq km) and a population of 1.8 million. It is the second most populous region in Greece after Attica, Thessaloniki – the city of Alexander the Great and of Aristotle – is the capital and largest city of the region, and Mount Olympus (2,918 m) is its highest mountain.
Central Macedonia is fourth-most-popular tourist region in Greece and the most popular destination that is not an island. The Chalkidiki peninsula has 550 km of sandy beaches, including 85 Blue Flag beaches. Chalkidiki is also home to Mount Athos, one of the most important centres of pilgrimage in the Orthodox world.
According to a recent report from Family Carers Ireland, Irish family carers provide 19 million hours of unpaid care every week.
A £19 million scheme is underway to transform Wolverhampton city centre, with works focused on Lichfield Street, Queen Square, and Darlington Street. The improvements, which began early this year, are expected to take 24 months, and aim to create wider, safer streets with new street furniture, tree planting, and improved event spaces. The project is fully funded by the UK central government.
Lichfield District Council submitted a bid for over £19 million in ‘levelling up’ funding in August 2022 to help deliver a new leisure centre and other regeneration projects. This specific bid was not entirely successful, but a new leisure centre project is progressing.
The fossil fuel industry poured more than $19 million into Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accounting for nearly 8% of all donations it raised, according to analysis published in July, raising concerns about White House’s relationship with big oil.
Altogether, Global Witness identified $19,151,933 in donations from fossil fuel-linked donors. That number is probably an underestimate, it says, as it does not include contributions from unverified energy-linked donors, or from diversified investors and businesses that do not work primarily in oil and gas. Trump’s profile of inaugural fund donors starkly contrasts with that of Joe Biden, who banned contributions to his fund from the oil and gas sector.
Following the stock market crash in October 1987, Trump claimed he had taken no losses and sold all his stock a month before. But SEC filings show he owned large stakes in some companies during the crash. Forbes calculated that Trump lost at least $19 million related to Resorts International stock, while the journalist Gwenda Blair noted $22 million from stock in the Alexander’s department store chain.
Your blood can travel 19 million metres (19,000 km) a day, which just goes to show how hard your body is working for you. And 19 million minutes is 13,194.45 days or about 36.12 years.
Once again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.
A continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics continues to be the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 80-100 people each day, with similar figures for my daily Advent Calendar postings at noon. It is almost four 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 or totalled 560 to 700 people twice a week.
Today, I am very grateful to all the 19 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.
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