I was teased, with good humour, about my predilection for blogging yesterday and as a result I realised that this blog is now celebrating its eighth anniversary, its first post being in June 2006.
Since then I have published 10,938 blogs. That's an average, near enough, of 3.75 per day every day over that eight year period, assuming I blog 365 days a year, which is not quite true (although at least one has been written on Christmas day).
All told we estimated that's about 3.2 million words over that period, or plenty enough for forty books.
That does not include comments. There have been 63,300 of these - although I suspect I am by far the most prolific author of them too. And, for the record, I suspect I have deleted fewer than 3% of all comments offered for publication over that period.
As for readership - its almost exactly 6.5 million reads from 4 million individual visits, with every year seeing significant increase over the prior one (a trend that may not be repeated this year though: tax is not as high on the agenda as it has been and I spent some time below par with reduced output in April and that is likely to happen again before the year is out).
Thanks for reading.
But most of all, thanks for helping effect change. That's why I write this blog. The motive is not to just share thoughts, or (whatever they might think) to irritate a regular stream of commentators (even though it undoubtedly does that). The intention is to effect change, and that has happened. I'm not going to discuss details because in itself that is almost irrelevant in this context. What I set out to do was catalogue, almost relentlessly, the need for tax reform. That need still exists, but some has happened and more is on its way. I make no claim to distinction in saying that, but it's been good to play a part.
And I have every intention of carrying on doing that for as long as I am able. This is not an epitaph.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
A fantastic achievement and long may it continue from a regular reader!
Thanks
May I echo Keith’s sentiments, you do a tremendous job Richard thanks.
Another regular reader.
Richard
Keep truckin’!
The work you do is at least as, and sometimes more, important than the output of
most UK think tanks. It’s a crusade – if we don’t get tax right, many of the
other worthy ambitions that good people have for us all, fall by the wayside.
May the wind fill your sails until you reach your port.
Thanks
Apologies for the delay in spotting this blog, Richard, out of communication on Friday and sailing yesterday 🙂
But anyway, just wanted to add my voice to those above and say what an achievement, and thanks for keeping at it. As a regular reader since 2011 I’ve gained a great deal from reading your work, and indeed, on some days when I’ve got my own stuff to write but find getting going a bit “sluggish, reading (and commenting) often sets me off for the day.
Cheers!
And thanks to you, too
Your comments have helped