22 million metres from Venice, 22 million sq metres of Greek sea, Trump’s ‘$22 million man’, and 22 million blog readers

Saint Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace in Venice … Vienna Cammarota trekked 22,000 km (22 million metres) from Venice to Beijing, following the route taken by Marco Polo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers, and had 22 million hits by 9:30 this morning (20 January 2026). This follows soon after reaching a landmark a week ago with 21.5 million hits by early morning last Tuesday (13 January 2026). At the very end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits shortly after 1 pm three weeks ago on New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), and with almost 2.5 million visitors throughout December (2,423,018). We are less than three weeks into January, and so far there have been over a million hits or visitors for 2026 by mid-afternoon today.

This blog passed the half million mark five times in one month alone last month, hitting the 21 million mark on New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), 20.5 million on Christmas Day (25 December), 20 million mark a week earlier (18 December 2025), 19.5 million the previous Sunday (14 December 2025), and 19 million less than a week before that (9 December).

I began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached within the past week alone. It then took more than another year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. This blog reached the 10 million mark a year ago (12 January 2025), almost 15 years later. In the 12 months since then, another 11.5 million hits have been counted.

Throughout last year, the daily figures were overwhelming on many occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were last month alone, four were last January, and one was this month:

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 146,944 (14 December 2025)
• 140,417 (16 December 2025)

• 122,398 (17 December 2025)
• 116,911 (30 December 2025)
• 112,221 (13 December 2025)
• 106,475 (27 December 2025)
• 106,169 (16 January 2026)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)

The latest figure of 22 million is all the more staggering as more half of those hits (11 million) have been within less than a year, since 12 February 2025. The rise in the number of readers seems to have been phenomenal throughout last year, and the daily figures are overwhelming at times, currently running at about 50,000.

With this latest landmark figure of 22 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 22 million people look like?

• Where do we find 22 million people?

• What does £22 million, €22 million or $22 million mean?

• What would it buy? How far would it stretch? How much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?

Picture postcard images of Santorini in Milton Keynes … Greece plans a new Ionian and South Aegean Marine Park of 22,000 sq km or 22 million sq metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

22 million metres is 22,000 km and 22 million sq metres is 22,000 sq km.

Israel is officially 22 million sq metres (22,000 sq km), but his figure usually includes the occupied Golan Heights (1,200 sq km) and East Jerusalem (64 sq km) yet excludes parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, so that the official figures is around 22,072 sq km.

The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently announced Greece is creating two new marine parks in the Ionian and South Aegean Seas – one in the Ionian Sea and one in the Southern Cyclades. He said that these parks ‘will be among the largest marine protected areas in the entire Mediterranean’ and will allow Greece to reach its target of protecting 30 per cent of its territorial waters by 2030, much earlier than originally planned.

The extent of these parks exceeds the initial announcements in 2024, when Mitsotakis suggested marine parks covering a total area of 22,000 sq km – 14,000 sq km in the Ionian Sea and 8,000 sq km in the Southern Aegean.

Some calculations suggest the longest walkable road is 22,000 km long (22 million metres), from Cape Town in South Africa to Magdan in East Siberia in Russia. There are bridges across the way, but no boat or air journeys are required.

It would take 4,492 hours or 187 days to travel if you walked nonstop . If you take a more realistic pace and walk just eight hours a day, it will take you 561.5 days – about a year and a half – walking through 17 countries, six time zones, and experiencing all seasons and weathers along the way. Needless to say, no one has ever done it, and technically it would be illegal in many places.

It takes about 11 days and 11 hours to drive 22,000 km at an average speed of 80 km per hour.

Vienna Cammarota, an Italian grandmother in her 70s, set off from Venice on 26 April 2022 on an epic 22,000 km hike, following the route taken by the Italian explorer Marco Polo to Beijing 750 years ago. Her extraordinary journey was to promote peace, courage, and cultural exchange followed the ancient Silk Road route.

After more than 850 days, covering 22 million metres (22,000 km), Vienna Cammarota arrived in China with The Travels of Marco Polo in hand, and she reached Beijing on 27 September 2024.

Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election bid, has abandoned a high-profile lawsuit against the Daily Beast, 10 months after alleging the news outlet had defamed him in reporting on campaign expenditures. The Daily Beast has not retracted the story, has made no apology and has not made any cash payment to LaCivita, who quietly dropped his legal action olastn Friday (16 January 2026).

LaCivita’s lawsuit involved a series of reports from the Daily Beast that suggested he had ‘raked in’ huge payments, including a piece by the journalist Michael Isikoff that was headlined ‘Trump in Cash Crisis – As Campaign Chief’s $22m Pay Revealed’. LaCivita said the $22 million figure represented gross campaign advertising expenditures, not personal income. After initial correction demands from LaCivita’s legal team, the Daily Beast modified its reporting, reducing the claimed compensation to $19.2 million and clarifying that funds went to LaCivita’s consulting firm.

The Atlantic reported in November 2024 that Trump furiously questioned LaCivita about the figure while they were both on a campaign plane. Trump told LaCivita: ‘You should sue those bastards,’ and would later teasingly refer to him as ‘my $22 million man’.

Meanwhile, YouTube has agreed to pay Trump $22 million to settle his 2021 lawsuit, which he filed after YouTube suspended his account following the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021. Driving the news: In addition, YouTube will pay $2.5 million to the other plaintiffs on the case, which include the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf. According to the court filing, Trump’s $22 million gains will go into a trust to help fund his White House ballroom renovation project, which has an estimated $200 million price tag.

And 22 million minutes is almost 15,278 days or 41.8 years. In other words, if this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would take almost 42 years to reach this 22 million mark.

So, yet 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.

Once again, a continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 700-900 people each day.

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 totalled 500 to 600 people or more each week.

Today, I am very grateful to all the 22 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The longest walkable road is 22,000 km long (22 million metres), from Cape Town in South Africa to Magdan in East Siberia

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 27, Tuesday 20 January 2026

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … walking through the fields in Farewell, near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II, 18 January 2026), with readings that continue to focus on the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist, one of the three great Epiphany themes, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Wedding at Cana.

Today is the third day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, from 18 to 25 January. This year’s theme is ‘One Body, One Spirit’ – from Ephesians 4: 1-13 – which was prepared by the Armenian Apostolic Church, along with the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical Churches. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Richard Rolle of Hampole, Spiritual Writer, 1349.

Later today, I have another rehearsal with the playreaders in Stony Stratford as we prepare for our readings in this year’s Stony Words Festival, with a sense of fun and enjoyment of life. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘He entered the house of God … and ate the bread of the Presence’ (Mark 2: 26) … 12 loaves of bread in two rows of six (see Leviticus 24: 5-9) in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in Kazimierz in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 23-28 (NRSVA):

23 One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ 25 And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26 He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ 27 Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … grainfields near Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (Mark 2: 18-22), we heard a wedding feast being used to illustrate a debate about feasting and fasting. That debate about the detailed interpretation and application of faith and practice continues in today’s reading (Mark 2: 23-28) about eating and the Sabbath.

We saw yesterday how feasting and fasting, food and ascetism, are important themes in the three Abrahamic faith – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Today’s reading (Mark 2: 23-28) begins when Christ is bypassing the grainfields and the disciples make their way through the fields. The religious law of the day accepted that as long as they are plucking the heads of grain and not harvesting it, they are allowed to do this, and there is no question of any theft (see Deuteronomy 23: 24-25).

We have all done something like this in a field: picked fruit growing on hedges or on trees; or we have done something like this in the kitchen, pouring cereal into a bowl and snatching a few lumps before even sitting down to eat breakfast.

So, what concerns the Pharisees in this story is not theft. They are worried that the disciples are gleaning on the Sabbath, and they challenge Christ about this. They claim this behaviour ignores the command to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy (see Exodus 20: 8; Deuteronomy 5: 12). Perhaps they thought the disciples could have prepared food the previous day to take with them.

Jesus disagrees, not because he is trivialising the laws about the Sabbath, but because he sees the Sabbath in a different light. He turns to a story about David when he is fleeing Saul who is plotting to kill him (see I Samuel 21: 1-6). David takes consecrated bread that was supposed to be part of the 12 loaves reserved for the priests (see Leviticus 24: 5-9) and feeds it to his followers who are on the journey with him.

By meeting the needs of David’s hunger, the priest sustains the life of a weary traveller and contributes to David’s quest to fulfil his calling to be the king anointed to replace Saul (see I Samuel 16: 1-13).

Why, in this story, does Jesus identify the priest who assists David as Abiathar? The Old Testament account (I Samuel 16) names the priest as Ahimelech. Who is mistaken in this passage … Jesus? Saint Mark? An unknown and unidentifiable redactor?

There are details here that are not in the original story: David was not explicitly acting from hunger, and he does not enter the house of God to eat the bread of the presence.

I have read many attempts to reconcile this Gospel account and the story of David, most of them setting out with the premise that the ‘inerrancy’ and ‘infallibility’ of Scripture must be defended at all costs, without seeking to debate the literary genre found in this passage.

Instead, I understand in this reading that Christ is displaying a sense of irony and a sense of humour. In a perfect example of what lawyers know as he loaded question, he asks his protagonists: ‘Have you never read what David did … when Abiathar was high priest?’ (verses 25-26).

If they say no, they show they have not read this story; if they say yes, they show are not truly familiar with the details of the story.

Christ then offers a legal opinion derived from scripture itself. He argues that sometimes certain demands of the law are rightly set aside in favour of greater values or needs, especially when those needs involve someone else’s well-being, and this can bring God’s blessings.

With his subtle sense of humour, Jesus challenges us when we are too straight-faced and humourless, and puts our minor interpretations of petty values before the real needs of others, and their sense of fun and enjoyment of life.

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … walking through cornfields in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 20 January 2026):

The theme this week (18-24 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Freedom Theologies’ (pp 20-21). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Dr Thandi Gamedze, poet, theologian, and senior researcher at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 20 January 2026) invites us to pray:

God of truth, we pray for the Anglican Church in South Africa. Strengthen its leaders and communities as they serve you and act as bold witnesses to your love.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, ow and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … summer fields in Chicheley, near Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org