Fifteen million hits!

15,000,000 hits!

The AI bots may still be the major contributors to the total number of hits my blog has received  … but today - whilst I was attending COW2026 - my blog achieved fifteen million hits!

• Fourteen million hits: 6th June 2026
• Thirteen million hits: 16th May 2026
• Twelve million hits: 10th April 2026
• Eleven million hits: 3rd March 2026
• Ten million hits: 3rd February 2026
• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

As ever, I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the regular blog readers who continue to read and comment on my somewhat eccentric blog posts. Long may you continue to do so!

---

I am giving serious thought to only writing a blog post about the number of hits my blog has received when that number reaches twenty million. Mind you, at the present rate that will be sometime in October or November!

Fourteen million hits ... and six thousand posts!

14,000,000 hits!

The AI bots are still at it … and last night my blog achieved fourteen million hits!

• Thirteen million hits: 16th May 2026
• Twelve million hits: 10th April 2026
• Eleven million hits: 3rd March 2026
• Ten million hits: 3rd February 2026
• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

---

It is also interesting that passing one milestone took place as another was also reached.

6,000 posts!

At least this achievement has nothing to do with AI bots! This blog post is the six-thousand and first blog post that I have written sone I began this blog on Thursday 18th September 2008. I have not idea how many words that is ... but it certainly must be quite a few. The blog has also had almost 50,000 comments, half of which have been my replies to comments made by blog readers.

As ever, I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the regular blog readers who continue to read and comment on my rambling blog posts. Long may you continue to do so!

Thirteen million hits!

I almost missed the fact that the number of hits achieved by my blog had passed yet another milestone.

---

13,000,000 hits!

The AI bots seem to have been at it again … and earlier today my blog achieved thirteen million hits!

• Twelve million hits: 10th April 2026
• Eleven million hits: 3rd March 2026
• Ten million hits: 3rd February 2026
• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

Yet again, I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to my regular blog readers. I know that not all the hits are down to AI bots and that you are continuing to read and comment on my blog … and long may you continue to do so!

Investigating my recent blog hits

I recently mentioned that there didn't seem to be much let up in the number of hits my blog was receiving ... so I did an investigation.

Over the past three months, my blog appears to have been 'visited' by people from the following countries:

This makes for interesting reading. For example, I don't believe that 183,000 Vietnamese, 164,000 Brazilians, and 138,000 Singaporeans have – over the past three months – been motivated by my random thoughts and deathless prose to be bothered to read my blog. So, I must assume that most of the hits from these countries – along with those from India, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, and Iraq – are the result of AI bot activity.

Is this what one of my regular blog post readers looks like? Judging by the above data, the answer is 'Yes'!

I suppose that the above isn't much of a surprise ... but it did set me wondering how much money I might have earned if I had chosen to monetise this blog, something that I have always resisted doing ... and will continue to resist.

Twelve million hits!

Whilst I was on my recent cruise, I did not have the opportunity to see how many hits this blog had received. It was therefore something of a shock to discover that there seems to have been no let-up in the number of hits it has been receiving each day.

Is it down to AI bots? I have no idea if it is or it isn't ... and I keep expecting there to be a sudden and rather drastic change in the daily hit rate sometime soon.

---

12,000,000 hits!

It was only the at the beginning of March that my blog’s hit counter reached ten million hits … and yesterday it passed twelve million!

• Eleven million hits: 3rd March 2026
• Ten million hits: 3rd February 2026
• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

For what seems like the umpteenth time over recent months, I would like to extend a very big THANK YOU to my regular blog readers. Without you continuing to read and comment on my blog, I am sure that I would never have reached these many hits.

Here's to reaching thirteen million hits … which at the current rate, could be sometime next month!

My top three blog posts

In light of the recent massive increase in hits my blog has achieved, I decided to see which are my three top blog posts. The results were somewhat surprising. They were (according to the blog's stats summary):

• Thursday, 16 July 2015: Le Chant L'Oignon (The Onion Song) lyrics (41.8k* or 50.6k*)

• Saturday, 20 February 2016: Simulating gunfire in naval wargames: Fred Jane and Fletcher Pratt (13.7k* or 18.4k*)

• Tuesday, 25 April 2017: Travel Battle: A review of the latest offering from Perry Miniatures (10.1k* or 20.9k*)

If the upsurge in hits was purely down to AI bots 'visiting' my blog, I would expect the peaks in the above graphs to all be towards the right-hand side (i.e. the past few months) ... but my second most read blog post peaked when it was written and has not experienced a recent spike.

Interesting ...

---

As I write this blog post on Saturday evening, the number of hits are as follows:

• Today: 20,656 hits
• Yesterday: 56,694 hits
• This month: 194,457 hits ... which is a daily average of 27.780 hits
• Last month: 998,902 hits ... which is a daily average of 35,675 hits

This would seem to indicate that the recent upsurge in hits is beginning to tail off ... a bit.

---

* What I do not understand is why each of the blog posts featured above seems to generate two different view totals. On the summary, each has a total that indicates the number of views it has generated ... but when one looks at each post separately, that figure is higher. I have looked on Blogger for a reason for this, but I could not find anything to help me resolve this conundrum.

I don’t believe it! A million hits in twenty-eight days!

I looked at my blog's hit counter this morning ... and suddenly realised that it had gone past eleven million hits! This means that my blog has had a million hits in twenty-eight days ... something that I find very, very difficult to believe!

Have those pesky bots been at it again? I certainly can’t find any evidence that they have, so why has my blog become so popular? All I can assume is that it might be down to AI in some way.

Whatever will happen next?

---

11,000,000 hits!

It was only the at the beginning of February that my blog’s hit counter reached ten million hits … and it has now just passed eleven million!

• Ten million hits: 3rd February 2026
• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

Yet again, I would like to say a very big THANK YOU to my regular blog readers. Without your interest and comments, I doubt that I would ever have reached anything like these many hits.

Here's to reaching twelve million hits … which at the present rate, could be very soon!

Ten million hits!

10,000,000 hits!

It was only the middle of last December that my blog’s hit counter reached nine million hits … and it has now just passed ten million! This means that my blog has been read by approximately 25,000 people per day!

• Nine million hits: 16th December 2025
• Eight million hits: 4th October 2025
• Seven million hits: 26th July 2025
• Six million hits: 6th September 2024
• Five million hits: 20th January 2024
• Four million hits: 8th November 2021
• Three million hits: 6th December 2018
• Two million hits: Unsure
• One million hits: 25th December 2015

I would like to record a big THANK YOU to my regular blog readers. Without your interest and comments, I doubt that I would ever have reached anything like ten million hits.

Here's to reaching eleven million hits!

Nine million hits!

9,000,000 hits!

This blog's hit counter hit eight million back in early October this year, having reached seven million in July. The sudden increase between July and October seems to have been due to web bots as other wargame bloggers also noticed this phenomenon affecting their hit counters. I was therefore surprised to see that my blog's hit counter has just passed nine million hits!

When I started blogging back in 2008, I never expected to reach more than a few thousand hits ... but it appears that my random thoughts have found an audience, and it is that audience - my regular blog readers - that I want to say a big THANK YOU to. Without your interest and comments, I doubt that I would ever have continued to blog after the first month or so.

Here's to reaching ten million hits!

Back from a cruise to find the blog has just achieved eight million hits!

Sue and I have been away on a cruise to the Baltic for the past fortnight and came back yesterday … and when I looked at the hit counter on this blog, I discovered that it had just passed the eight million mark!

It only achieved seven million hits in July and I can only assume that the rapid rise in hits is down to the phenomenon that I mentioned in a blog post in the middle of September. I’d love to think that it was down to my deathless prose and somewhat eclectic approach to blogging, but suspect that it’s really due to Internet web bots!

I hope to write about our cruise over the forthcoming weekend … but first we have to do the unpacking!

Seven million hits!

Yesterday my blog has achieved over seven million hits!

The blog was started on Thursday 18th September 2008, and achieved a million hits by December 2015. It reached three million by December 2018 (I missed when it achieved two million hits), four million by November 2021, five million during February 2024, six million hits in October that year … and now, it’s reached seven million!

Six million hits!

6,000,000 hits!

Recently my blog has achieved over six million hits!

The blog achieved a million hits by December 2015, three million by December 2018 (I missed when it achieved two million hits), four million hits by November 2021, five million during February this year ... and now it has passed six million hits.

---

I started this blog sixteen years ago on Thursday 18th September 2008, and since then I have written over 5,600 posts, had approximately 45,500 comments, and attracted 420 followers. I don't think that's bad for something that I described back in 2008 as being 'self-publicising, self-centred, self-indulgent'!

Five million hits … on the right day!

5,000,000 hits!

I just realised that my blog has achieved over five million hits! The blog achieved a million hits by December 2015, three million by December 2018 (I missed when it achieved two million hits), four million hits by November 2021 ... and now it has passed five million hits.

I started my blog on Thursday 18th September 2008, and since then I have written over 5,350 posts, had more than 43,250 comments, and attracted over 400 followers. I don't think that's bad for something that I described as being 'self-publicising, self-centred, self-indulgent' back when I started!

---

Something odd happened to this blog post. I wrote it on Monday 19th February and set it up to be published on Tuesday 20th February … but then it appeared to have been published on 13th February, which is six days BEFORE I WROTE IT!

I have no idea how or why this happened. I wrote this blog post on my iPad, and as I was setting up the publication date and time, the iPad suddenly stopped working. Its battery power dropped from 40% to 2% in a matter of minutes before it switched itself off and all I can surmise is that this scrambled the date and time set up … but why did it choose to apparently publish it on 13th February? Who knows? I don’t … and I suspect that no one can explain it.

Five million hits!

5,000,000 hits!

I just realised that my blog has achieved over five million hits! The blog achieved a million hits by December 2015, three million by December 2018 (I missed when it achieved two million hits), four million hits by November 2021 ... and now it has passed five million hits.

I started my blog on Thursday 18th September 2008, and since then I have written over 5,350 posts, had more than 43,250 comments, and attracted over 400 followers. I don't think that's bad for something that I described as being 'self-publicising, self-centred, self-indulgent' back when I started!

Four and a half million hits!

Yesterday my visit counter hit a new high … four and a half million hits!

I wrote my first blog post on 18th September 2008, and at the time I had no idea of the impact blogging was going to have on my wargaming life. Now, some fourteen and a half years and over 5,100 blog posts later, I’ve passed another major milestone.

Back in 2008, when I started this blog, I was still working: now I am retired, and have been for nearly nine years. In that time I’ve written or co-authored well over twenty books, most of which are wargame-related, and suffered from colon/bowel and prostate cancers. I’m still going strong (although I am a bit slower getting up and down stairs!) and hope to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I’m now looking to break the five million ‘hits’ barrier … so keep visiting my blog and I’ll try to keep writing blog posts that will be of interest.

Four million hits!

Over the weekend I suddenly realised that my blog had achieved over four million hits!

The blog reached a million hits in December 2015 and three million in December 2018 (I seemed to have missed when it achieved two million hits …) and now it has surpassed four million hits.

I started my blog on Thursday 18th September 2008, and since then I have written over 4,750 posts, had more than 36,000 comments, and attracted just under 400 followers.

Not bad for something that I described as being 'self-publicising, self-centred, self-indulgent' back then!

Three million page views!

This blog recently reached a major milestone ... three million page views!

When I started writing this blog back in 2008, I had no idea how much it would become part of my life, nor that ten years on I would have written more than three thousand eight hundred blog entries. (This is actually the three thousand eight hundred and thirty third blog entry I have written!)

My first blog entry was written on 18th September 2008, and was entitled SMALL BEGINNINGS. In it I wrote the following:

After much prompting ... and not a little reluctance on my part ... I have decided to take the plunge.

I have now joined the world of the self-publicising, self-centred, self-indulgent blogger.

I intend to share my thoughts on wargaming (and other related matters that crop up) with a wider audience ... probably much to the relief of my wife and wargaming colleagues. So watch this space ... and come prepared to be bored!

In truth, blogging has completely changed my enjoyment of wargaming. Through it I have made a whole new bunch of wargaming friends, and it has helped to keep me motivated, even when things were less than optimum (i.e. when I was suffering from a visitation by the 'Black Dog').

The self-imposed discipline of 'I ought to write that on my blog' has helped me to finish projects that I otherwise might have let drift, and it has motivated me to turn some of those projects into books. Blogging helped me to become a writer ... something I'd always wanted to be, but had never quite got around to.

A Merry Christmas ... and one million hits!

I would like to wish everyone who reads my blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Greenwich Park in the snow, 2011. We aren't having a white Christmas in London this year ... but this photograph will serve to remind us of what one can look like!

---

Due to an amazing increase in the number of 'hits' registered a few days ago, the visit counter I added to my blog on the 11th February 2009 has been ticking closer and closer to 1,000,000 ... and it reached that magic number today.

When I began blogging back in September 2008, I never expected that it would have such a profound effect on my life in general and my wargaming in particular. It has helped me to achieve numerous goals that I might otherwise not have reached (writing on your blog that you are going to do something rather publicly commits you to do it!) and it has brought me into contact with a huge number of friendly, imaginative, creative, and innovative wargamers.

It has taken nearly six years for me to reach one million hits. I don't know if my blog will ever achieve two million hits ... but I hope I will have fun finding out if it will!