Every morning I check my Residua website’s statistics on Google Analytics. There are many numbers to look at, and my attention shifts hither and thither from day to day. Today I was surprised by the countries that appear on the first page of the geographical report, which lists them in terms of the number of visits. Croatia comes first. It is followed by the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. Amazingly, Pakistan and India come next. They are followed by Serbia, Italy, Slovenia, and Denmark. These are the first ten out of thirty-eight countries. All together, there are one-hundred and fourteen cities, too. Now, this is the first time that Pakistan and India come so close to the top. God only knows what it is that attracts Pakistanis and Indians to my site, but their interest is still noteworthy. While I am at it, it is worth mentioning that China also appears on the list of countries. It is close to the bottom of the list. Only one visit, coming from Guangzhou, is in question. It lasted less than a minute, as well. At least my writings do not appear to be banned there, but the interest is surely lagging behind the rest of the world.

Addendum (March 20, 2016)

Having bumped into this piece by chance, I immediately checked the latest Google Analytics statistics. Not surprisingly, Croatia still comes first on the list of twenty-seven countries. It is followed by the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark, France, Italy, Serbia, Germany, Belgium, South Korea, Malaysia, and Turkey. These are countries with more than one visitor over the last month. And there are no surprises among them, for the list does not change very much from month to month. Interestingly, Pakistan and India are missing from the list. Entirely. And so is China. It pops up here and there, but only rarely. All told, there are fifty-six cities on the list, as well. In short, both the number of countries and cities has dropped appreciably over a bit less than five years. Back then, I was still writing my letters to the editor of The Economist, which published a selection of them, as well. As soon as I stopped writing these letters, which was at the end of 2011, the number of visitors to my Residua website dropped markedly. Which is perfectly fine with me, I hasten to add. Wrong visitors are worse than none. Farewell, sweethearts!