Patrick Comerford
Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers, and had 21.5 million hits by about 6 am this morning (13 January 2026). This follows soon after reaching a landmark at the end of 2025 with 21 million hits shortly after 1 pm on New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), and with almost 2.5 million visitors to this blog throughout December (2,423,018). We are less than two weeks into January, and there have been almost half a million (+492,000) hits or visitors for 2026 by early this evening (13 January 2026).br />
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 in just xxx days this month 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. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were last month alone and four were in January:
• 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)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 94,824 (12 December 2025)
The latest figure of 21.5 million is all the more staggering as more than half of those hits (11.5 million) have been within the past year, since 12 January 2025. The rise in the number of readers seems to have been phenomenal throughout last year, and the daily figures have been overwhelming at times. With this latest landmark figure of 21.5 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 21.5 million people look like?
• Where do we find 21.5 million people?
• What does £21.5 million, €21.5 million or $21.5 million mean?
• What would it buy? How far would it stretch? How much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?
An average 21.5 million people have been displaced each year since 2008 by weather-related disasters such as floods, storms, wildfires and extreme temperature. Thousands of others flee their homes in the context of slow-onset hazards, such as droughts or coastal erosion linked to sea level rise.
The number of climate refugees continues to rise, and the projections suggest potentially billions displaced by 2050. Scientists believe climate change, combined with other drivers, is going to increase the displacement of people in the future.
There were 21.5 million victims of a massive US government data breach in the OPM Hack in 2015. The Office of Personnel Management data breach exposed the sensitive information, including Social Security Numbers, of about 21.5 million individuals, including government applicants and their families, in one of the largest US cyberattacks.
21.5 million people in the UK, a large proportion of the population, need financial support. Royal London research late last year (2025) indicates 21.5 million people could benefit from ‘targeted support’ for accessible financial guidance, addressing unmet needs in retirement and savings.
The Moscow Metropolitan Area in Russia has around 21.5 million, making it Europe’s most populous metropolitan area. Cairo in Egypt also has 21.5 million people – depending on who’s counting – and it’s a growing, expanding megacity. São Paulo, the megacity of Brazil and the Americas, has 21.5 million people living in its metropolitan area.
The Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language with 21.5 million words is the largest and most comprehensive historical linguistic project. The 127-volume dictionary, published at the end of 2024, was the culmination of a seven-year project involving 500 researchers and 200 proof-readers, and covering 351,000 historical citations from 11,300 linguistic roots.
Donald Trump’s mansion on St Martin, Le Château des Palmiers, is a luxury beachfront estate on Plum Bay, bought in 2013. Trump’s mansion on the French Caribbean island had a price tag of £21.5 million, but after a tropical storm he reduced the selling price to £13 million. Le Château des Palmiers is still listed today and unsold, and it lingers as a lesson in how luxury, politics, and weather can undo even the most gilded portfolios.
The special counsel Robert Mueller filed additional charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a business associate in 2018. The filing added allegations of tax evasion and increased the amount of money Manafort was accused of laundering through offshore accounts to £21.5 million ($30 million).
21.5 million metres is 21,500 km and 21.5 million sq m is 21,500 sq km.
Steph Devery set off from Gibraltar in June 2021 on a solo cycle tour through Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She became the first Australian woman to cycle through Saudi Arabia, she experienced war in Sudan and took shelter with a family for 10 days before she was evacuated by the French military, arriving in Paris without her bicycle or many of her possessions. But she was determined to continue. Her trip eventually took her to the very tip of Southern Africa at the Cape of Good Hope and a total distance of 21,500 km (21.5 million metres) through 40 countries over 2 years and 7 months.
The Peloponnese at the southern tip of the Greek mainland is 21,500 sq km (21.5 million sq m) in area and is the southernmost part of mainland Greece. The peninsula is connected to the rest of the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth. Its name, Πελοπόννησος, comes from the legend in which the hero Pelops conquered the region.
The Peloponnesian War was the great struggle between Athens and its maritime empire with Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnese between 431 BCE and 404 BCE. The archaeological sites I have visited in the Peloponnese include Olympia, Mycenae, Sparta, Mystras and Epidavros, and the cities and towns I have visited there or stayed in include Pyrgos, Corinth, Nafplion and Spárti.
The Greek War of Independence began in the Peloponnese when rebels took control of Kalamata on 23 March 1821. The Corinth Canal, finally completed in 1893, makes the Peloponnese an island, technically speaking.
The theatre in Epidavros … the Peloponnese extends to 21,500 sq km or 21.5 million sq metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)And 21.5 million minutes is approximately 14,931 days or 40.88 years or 14,583.33 days. In other words, if this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would take almost 41 years to reach this 21.5 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 21.5 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.
