Hello again blogosphere….it’s been quite a while since I last did a posting. I kind of lost my writing mojo after my youngest brother passed away. Trying to produce some amusing and opinionated pieces just didn’t seem important for a while. But time heals as they say, my brother’s children are getting on with life brilliantly and several kind folks have asked me to get back on the ranting horse. So here I am back in the saddle with some fantastic news for a change….
Well I know my writing on the blog has slowed in the last year. It’s not that I’ve lost interest, far from it, nor that I’ve run out of subject matter – I’ve got more stuff half-written and saved in the draft facility than you can shake a stick at. It’s just that my time seems to be taken up on family and work matters now that we’ve moved back here more or less permanently. But I’m delighted to know that whilst the postings have slowed the blog continues to attract a constant audience of loyal readers which is just terrific. You might have noticed that recently we went through the 200,000 views mark, which is pretty staggering. It doesn’t seem 5 minutes since I did a recorded video posting (‘and now for something completely different’) thanking readers for their 100k viewings. And now we’ve doubled that somehow. It still amazes me. Many thanks folks.
Not a word that most folks in the know would associate with me I suspect. Overly-assertive, opinionated and critical are just three of my wife’s favourite descriptors. And she loves me, so you can imagine my detractors’ personal descriptions. But today this sad little grumpy old man’s rant site achieved another milestone – its 150,000th visitor. How many? Just the ….
You can see why humble is not a word which naturally attracts itself to my description. But then again I am a bloody appreciative blogger – or blagger for short.
And I’m pretty sure this amazing total’s not down to my wife’s visits, who thinks I’m bloody boring and full of waffle. At least that’s what I pretend to think she said. Ah well I guess C gets the rambling verbal version of most of this stuff before you guys get the oh-so-crisp edited editions. Anyway I’m very grateful to all the readers who come by and simply look and read, and especially grateful to those who actually comment on the postings – particularly those members of my extended family who seem to be my most assertive, opinionated and critical commentators. I wonder if there’s something in the blood-line?
Thank you one and all – I’m grateful for every single visit. Truly.
Do you want to know which postings have driven the most visits since I started this blog? Thought not but here they are anyway:
| Home page | 19,737 |  |
| pretty woman | 3,895 | |
| Ants! | 3,513 | |
| syrups, it’s a pity! | 2,775 | |
| dress sense…or not | 1,665 | |
| great grass, man | 1,661 | |
| effortlessly cool | 1,610 | |
| palazzo ricci | 1,563 | |
| just jules | 1,431 | |
| it’s the little things that are so annoy | 1,135 | |
| incomprehensible lyrics | 1,006 | |
Would you have figured that? Nor me. Though it does suggest a lot of people check out the home page and decide to go no further. Oh come on folks; it’s only some opinion. I don’t really bite.
Anyway I seem to be full of the writing muse (not quite C’s words) at the moment so please keep checking in and I’ll try and write something worthy of your effort and interest. And if not it’ll be the same old, same old rants and ravings and ….rubbish.
Thanks a 6.7th of a million folks
pp
Well this is the first posting in a while. We’ve been so busy over the last few weeks – moving house within London, getting a new car sorted out, heading back to Italy to get the olive crop picked and any number of business issues tidied up and trying to make progress on my projects with existing and new clients. I’ve also tucked in a flying visit up north to see a client and catch up with my folks and we had a lovely week-end down in Cornwall with old friends Cindy and Keith plus spending any spare time with our grandkids and daughters and son-in-laws. I’ve got so much to write about I hardly know where to start but I think I’ll start with a rant (and some praise too conversely) about customer service standards. Not very sexy or stimulating I guess but a subject that’s really got me going recently. More in the next posting but in the meantime it’s good to be back in blogland again.
pp
pp
I’m now regretting giving myself a target of 50 new postings on the blog during December. It’s the 7th today and I’ve done 8 so far. Given the distractions later in the month and work commitments now turning heavy (hoorah!), I need to be doing at least 2 a day to keep pace with the challenge (oops). So I need to write 6 postings tonight just to keep up with the pack. Ooh er. If only I had dozens of interesting strings of thoughts going on in my head. But it’s Friday night and I’ve had a couple of glasses of very chilled white wine….
I wrote in an earlier posting about my fascination with numbers and the particular pleasure I derive from seemingly random cases of precise numbering (you’d better go read ‘figure this’ under the travel category for an explanation). Well this week the above sequence of numbers popped into my view. As Rolf Harris’s accountant might have said, can you tell what the numbers refer to yit? It would be nice to think that they are sterling figures for my consultancy services – hourly rate, typical monthly fee and this year’s earnings. More accurately it could be number of creditors, typical monthly credit card bill and total debts. I jest of course. We owe lots more than that. Continue reading
Pasta Paulie 