For a change, I had all sorts of ideas about what to put into this blog but they’ve all been pushed aside by a mystery – which I’ll share with you. The observant among you will have noticed that I’ve added a tracker called feedjit. It puts little red dots over the world map and shows how I’m progressively colonising North America, the UK, bits of Europe and tiny pockets of land in Asia and Australasia. But it also has a real-time option, which tells me more about my visitors, what drew them to me and how long they spent in my company. And this is where the mystery lies.
Forgive me now giving you a list of places but it’s part of the enigma. So, in the period I’m sampling for this posting, I had 2 visits from Scotland (Airdrie and Johnstone) and 12 from England (Manchester, Preston, Keighley, Kidlington (4 visits) and London (5)). The 12 English visits were balanced by 12 from the USA (Bronson (3) and the wonderfully named Nacogdoches (2) – both in Texas, Brooklyn (New York) Hayward and San Francisco (California), Missoula and Plains (Montana), Seattle and Tampa). There were 4 from Australia (Hunters Hill and Greenwich – both in New South Wales and one of whom, bizarrely, was sent here in a search for Gary Corby), and 2 visits from Elwood, Victoria, which I mistook first of all for a name and wondered whether I’d ever met a Victoria Elwood. And last, but definitely not least, came people from Bombay (Maharashtra), Makati (Manila) and 4 visits from the truly exotic Minnertsga, Friesland.
OK, you say, so what? Well, to begin with, rather than being drawn here by my magnetic personality, infinite charm and quiet desperation, many came simply in search of an answer to the question ‘What makes a good novel?’ which was the title of one posting. But, dear friends, that’s merely an aside because it’s the 5 visitors I haven’t yet mentioned whose details hint at the central mystery.
The first came from Birmingham (UK) and stayed for a mere 26 seconds. The next was from the City of London and stayed slightly longer (42 seconds) and the third, from Riverton (Wyoming) was here for 51 seconds. If I ever meet the final two, I owe them a drink because they stayed long enough to read something. The one from Amsterdam, Noord-Holland lingered a whole 3 minutes 11 seconds but the champion came from Englewood, Colorado and wasted an enormous 6 minutes 37 seconds of his/her life in my company.
Again, so what? Well, this is where my crime writer’s observational skills come into play. I know the time and date the last 5 arrived, and when they left. But what about all the others? The ones in the first list? I know when they arrived BUT THERE'S NO INDICATION THAT ANY OF THEM LEFT. SO THEY MUST STILL BE HERE.
But where? What are they doing? Some have been here for days. What are they eating? How are they surviving? Are their bosses and families missing them? It’s a huge responsibility for me to know that my wit and wisdom have ensnared so many. That idle comment I made about being a guru has come back to haunt me. I’ll have to start leaving plates of biscuits here and cans of some sort of beverage. And what if the influx continues? We’re all aware of the dangers of overpopulation. What if Oxfam and the Red Cross start sending food parcels and medical supplies? Can Médecins sans Frontières operate inside a blog?
Don’t get me wrong. My blog welcomes immigrants but, for their own safety they need to be led towards the more seemly locations – the jokey bits not the bits about existentialism. I don’t want them to be hi-jacked by some rogue philosopher who’s camped there and may force them to consider Aristotelian syllogisms day after day or read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
So, if you’re there and you’re reading this, let me know and we’ll see if you can’t be repatriated or transferred to a blog whose sanity is uncompromised, where laughter, poetry and common sense prevail. Now let me think. I’m sure I’ve visited such a place recently.
