Tuesday, February 09, 2010

The Woolfoot Decade?

I've just had a look at the Cluster Map, the little widget at the bottom of this page, that shows, roughly, the location of visitors to this blog. You know, it's that teeny world map with the little dots showing that makes the world look like it has measles.

I saw a Cluster Map on someone else's blog a couple of years ago and decided I needed one too if I was going to keep track of the global location of the 5-10 people a day who typically stumble in here.

Anyway, I had a gander at my Cluster Map today, and I find I need to have a word with you people from central Asia, Africa and most of South America. You are really not holding up your end when it comes to visiting my blog. I'm not happy about it.

Vast tracts of planet Earth, populated by hundreds of millions of human beings, and not one of you could be arsed to stop in here in the last few months? I am getting the idea that unimaginably broad swathes of humanity are not interested in reading about my trips to the dentist, or reports on the latest cracked plate I have acquired, or the funny things my kid said.

So I am here today to ask, just once then I will let it drop, what is wrong with you people of central Asia, Africa and South America? How do you think this ostentatious absence of yours makes ME feel?

Before you start composing your responses, be advised that I don't want to hear (and won't publish) a lot of lame excuses like, "oh, but I do not speak English," or "my village has electricty only two hours a day," or "there is a civil war here" or "the authorities will not allow it," or "I have river blindness" or, worst of all, "I am not interested in anything you have to say."

I'll bet whereever you are on the aforementioned continents that you managed to procure cooking oil and some form of starch today. So??? How much harder would it be to have a look at a few posts at this web address?

The cold fact is that I, like all writers of this sort of material, require validation. The more the better. Being ignored is hurtful. Even if you Asians, Africans and South Americans would just zip in here and zip back out again I would get a new pock mark on my world Cluster Map.

Let's see what you can do.

I'll be watching.

How do you say: "don't let me down" in Kazak?