1½million: Sometime this morning, probably just after nine o'clock or thereabouts, diamond geezer will receive its million and a halfth visitor. Actually that's not quite true, it'll just be the million and a halfth time that my slightly ropey stats package has registered a unique visit, which isn't the same thing at all. And not in the slightest bit correct. Thanks to the relentless rise of the RSS feed, considerably more people read this blog than visit it. But I can't count my feedreaders accurately, so I'll have to stick to counting visitors instead. And there have been one and a half million of them. Blimey, gosh and wow.
Of course one and a half million is nothing really, not when spread over seven years. It's the equivalent of one in every five Londoners looking at my blog, once and only once, at some point between 2002 and today. It's one visitor every two and a half minutes, which is nothing to be sniffed at, but pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It's crap, really. But still wow.
So it's time once again for an update of my regular 'league table' of top linking blogs, ordered by volume of visitors clicking here from there. As usual I've also included details of the 'highest climbers'. I was going to include the highest climbers since my last update (at 1¼ million), but the chart's hardly changed at all since then so I've gone back to 1 million instead. It still hasn't changed much.
Nearly a quarter of my Top 30 consists of blogs that are long dead, but nothing's ever come along to demote them. At least two of the remaining blogs delinked me several years ago. Three of the rest don't have a blogroll, they just linked to me in posts (in one case only once). The only new entry since 1 million visitors is at number 26, leaping into the list with the power of a major publishing company behind it. Other than that I'm increasingly convinced that this 'linking chart' is an irrelevance, whereas it used to be a touchstone dynamic summary.
I assembled this list by updating a spreadsheet, and one thing that struck me was how little the number of incomers had changed since last time. Half a million extra visitors may have turned up since April last year, but only a tiny proportion of them have come from these top linking blogs. Links from other people's blogs used to be crucial for gathering an audience, and now they're almost an irrelevance. You have a blogroll? Nobody cares, not like they used to anyway.
In 2009, people are more likely to create brief transient links to a blog in their status updates. Murmurings on Facebook, mutterings on Twitter, that's where bloglinks appear these days. I've totted up the statistics and, if I'd included them in the list, both Facebook and Twitter would now appear just outside the Top 20. Give it a few more months and they'll be considerably higher. Short snappy mentions can bring in the punters, a handful at a time, and they all add up.
But I've still got a blogroll of my own because I believe it's important (even if you RSS-ers can't see it). About half of my 20-strong blogroll are extremely long established, and the remainder are more recent and fresh. About half of these bloggers I've met in real life, which was nice, and the other half are joys yet to come. And about half are in my top 20 linking blogs, and the other half aren't. No matter. I'm more than grateful for my million and a half, so thank you all for linking and clicking. But I'm not convinced it'll be worth cataloging this list again when, or if, two million rolls around.
Sometimes I wonder if I've got my priorities right.
• "There's an interesting event in town tonight, interested?" "Sorry, I'm attempting to code a table of Jubilee line closures." • "We're all doing drinks in the West End." "I might see you later, but I need to compose 750 words about my local Tesco first." • "You wanna come out tonight?" "Er, no thanks, I'm uploading geotagged photos of the South Coast." • "I think we should meet for sex right now." "No can do, there's a new station in West London needs writing about."
Sometimes I'm too busy blogging about life to actually experience it.
So last night I forgot about blogging and did some useful things instead.
Frothed up the sink to do several days worth of washing up. Recycled last week's newspapers (not all of which I ever got round to reading) Caught up on far too many emails I should have sent to far too many people (far too long ago) Recharged my camera battery (because I appear to have used it a lot lately) Attempted to complete my income tax form online (started with good intentions, gave up) Sat on the sofa (unheard of!) to watch FlashForward(yeah yeah) Glared through the curtains at my new neighbours (who insist on smoking regularly on the balcony outside) Tried getting a ticket for some arty event in the Kingswaytramtunnel(woo, got a ticket!) Filed away some paperwork (I really must get better at filing away paperwork) Actually, replying to emails is a real time-killer, isn't it? (and still three to go)
A new station opened in London yesterday. It's close to the Thames in Chelsea, on the West London Line branch of the London Overground. It's in Zone 2. It's called Imperial Wharf. [see 6 photos]
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. It's right next to the enormous Imperial Wharf luxury development, and a significant proportion of the station's funding was provided by the developers. It's also right next to the existing Chelsea Harbour luxury development. Geographically speaking, "Chelsea Harbour" would be a much more helpful name for describing the station's location, but they didn't fund it, so the station's not named after them. Before luxury developments came along, pre-sponsorship, this part of town was called Sands End. Not a hope of the station being called Sands End, obviously.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. And about time too. It's been scheduled to open for years, but never quite has. Plans were first mooted in the mid 1990s, but it wasn't until 2001 that estate developers St George agreed to help pay for construction. By 2004 the station was being included on the London Connections rail map, in the expectation that it would be "opening summer 2005". But then it disappeared again, until Hammersmith and Fulham Council managed to wheedle some more cash out of the developers in 2007, and construction finally began last summer. Hey presto, after a protracted 15-year journey, one new station.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. The station plugs one of the gaping holes in inner London's rail network, in riverside Chelsea, by (cheaply) piggybacking a new station onto an existing railway line. Before yesterday the Sands End area was linked to the tube network only by bus, and residents of these shiny riverside towers aren't really the sort who take buses. Taxis are far more their style, and black cabs swarm around the area in large numbers. It's yet to be seen whether the provision of a shiny new station will ever prise the majority of locals away from their preferred four-wheeled alternatives.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. Some might wonder why TfL bothered, because the station has a desperately infrequent level of service (by inner London standards, at least). During the rush hour London Overground are putting on three trains an hour (some of these now to/from Stratford), whereas off peak and at weekends it's only two. Southern Trains generally run one additional train an hour, specifically linking Milton Keynes to East Croydon, but that's your lot. Hardly a turn up and go service, more a turn up and wait.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. I made the mistake of trying to arrive by rail from Clapham Junction, and suffered an even worse than usual weekend service. All that was scheduled was one northbound train at five past and another at ten to, with a gaping train-free desert inbetween. By quarter past there were already 30 bored-looking folk waiting on the platform, and by half past nearly a trainful. My wait, by the time the train finally departed, had been ten times longer than the four minute journey to Imperial Wharf. Remember folks - just because the Overground appears on the tube map doesn't mean that using it will be a speedy experience.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. Several of the passengers embarking and disembarking from the occasional trains looked genuinely local, and only a few looked like the sort of blokes who visit stations on their opening day to take lots of photos. The platforms were gleaming and new, obviously, with streamlined canopies and tangerine roundels. I noted that the cretinous TfL "next train indicator" installers had been busy and had ensured that a same-height security camera precisely blocked information about the next northbound train from the furthest half of the platform. Access to ground level is by lift, or for the more energetic via a bright white staircase winding around the central elevator shaft. This makes Imperial Wharf an official step-free station (from street to platform if not from platform to train), although it's not marked on the latest tube map with a big blue blob (which is nice).
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. It's going to act as a driver for a lot more housing in the area, notably on the former gasworks site to the northwest of the station at at the former Lots Road power station to the east. It's going to open up additional transport possibilities, and commuting possibilities, and shopping opportunities (Westfield in 9 minutes flat). It's a great example of how London's rail network continues to infill, increase and improve. And that's why Boris will be along tomorrow to open the station officially, ahead of a bumper crop of station openings next year on the DLR and East London Line. But don't expect to see anything new opening in the first half of the next decade, because the only funding now is for network maintenance, not network expansion. Chelsea's new station may be very late indeed, but it's slipped through just in time.
A new station opened in London yesterday. It's close to the Thames in Chelsea, on the West London Line branch of the London Overground. It's in Zone 2. It's called Imperial Wharf. [see 6 photos]
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. The station plugs one of the gaping holes in inner London's rail network, in riverside Chelsea, by (cheaply) piggybacking a new station onto an existing railway line. Before yesterday the Sands End area was linked to the tube network only by bus, and residents of these shiny riverside towers aren't really the sort who take buses. Taxis are far more their style, and black cabs swarm around the area in large numbers. It's yet to be seen whether the provision of a shiny new station will ever prise the majority of locals away from their preferred four-wheeled alternatives.
Imperial Wharf station opened yesterday. Several of the passengers embarking and disembarking from the occasional trains looked genuinely local, and only a few looked like the sort of blokes who visit stations on their opening day to take lots of photos. The platforms were gleaming and new, obviously, with streamlined canopies and tangerine roundels. I noted that the cretinous TfL "next train indicator" installers had been busy and had ensured that a same-height security camera precisely blocked information about the next northbound train from the furthest half of the platform. Access to ground level is by lift, or for the more energetic via a bright white staircase winding around the central elevator shaft. This makes Imperial Wharf an official step-free station (from street to platform if not from platform to train), although it's not marked on the latest tube map with a big blue blob (which is nice).
