Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Free DVD With This Post!!!

Having risen consistently throughout my first blogging year, traffic on this site has been on a plateau for three months. It is far higher than I ever imagined it could be, but this is not good enough. I am a junkie, I need hits. I am considering, therefore, a series of tabloidesque, circulation-grabbing devices. The amazing Frank Harris when editing the Evening News said readers wanted 'kissing and fighting.' There was also a joke about every story needing religion, sex, celebrity and mystery. Thus the perfect story was, ''My God,' said the Duchess, 'I'm pregnant. Who dunnit?'' Free DVDs that nobody ever wanted to watch in the first place seem to be the current solution for declining newspaper sales, but it's not working and, anyway, I don't think I can be bothered. I don't have any staggering revelations about Princess Diana and Big Brother seems to be adequately covered elsewhere. I don't go to the right parties so kissing and fighting are beyond me. I do religion and celebrity, but the former too seriously and the latter too flippantly. I don't like to rant because I have few fixed opinions - probably, in fact, none. Politicians I've never heard of - and most I have - bore me rigid. My only message to the world is taken from Hill Street Blues - 'Hey, let's be careful out there!' - and I am widely, though wrongly, regarded as having the world view of Marvin the Paranoid Android - 'I think you ought to know I'm very depressed.' My deepest interests, meanwhile, have all the circulation-grabbing power of a fire at the print works. I am stymied. The plateau - 'There ain't nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop/ And an illustrated book about birds.' - is where I must belong. But, at least, the company consists of none but the best and brightest.

33 comments:

  1. I haven't watched TV for years, but I think you mean Hill St Blues?
    I only clicked through to get the free DVD, by the way -- one more hit ;-)

    (I think if you put phrases like "Paris Hilton" into every blog post, you will get a lot more referrals via Google and millions of those auto searchy robot things that roam the web while we are asleep. But, in an attribution that I shall probably get wrong having made the Hill St Blues comment, Lennon/McCartney said "You're such a lovely audience, we'd love to take you home with us".....smaller might be nicer?

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  2. Thanks, Maxine, I've corrected that. Smaller IS nicer. I just find myself pondering what it would be like to be bigger.

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  3. I suspect the first thing you'd have to do is turn off comments. Which doesn't (to refer to another post) mean the end of interactivity - Instapundit certainly responds to his readers without a commenting facility.

    OTOH, being the home of the PHLF (Paris Hilton Liberation Front) could lead to some interesting invitations to Any Questions...

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  4. "There ain't nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop/ And an illustrated book about birds."

    Great line. Where's it from?

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  5. Much as I enjoy the bird posts, and if one must be a little mad, being mad about birds, well. But given your issues with the cat, you may not embrace the concept of the very long legged Serena/Sera Douglas-Hamilton. There is just something with the way the woman zips round the Kenyan landscape spouting Kikuyu at the drop of a hat, while lassoing lions. That puts a smile on the face.
    Racing tips, might help circulation. At least they offer hope. Cricket, football, tennis, and rugby in recent years, have been designed to plummet the serotonin level of your average Brit. For gawd sake, Ireland beat Pakistan. The thirty or so that play the game.
    If all else fails, then a tour of Islay. Virtual, via Threshers or actual, giving a blow by blow scientific sipping analysis of all.

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  6. Forget the DVDs. Just entitle all posts "Science and Religion", whatever they are about. Or better still, "Science, Religion and Paris Hilton".

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  7. Ade: Meat Puppets. And Nirvana. Come on, you've got Google haven't you? Google means never having to ask such questions.

    Bryan: the easiest way to generate more hits would be to start publishing pornography. Failing that you need to go on telly. Do they never invite you onto Newsnight Review or suchlike?

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  8. Look, commenting on the hilarious Amanda Marcotte and the palimpsest of a fully rounded human being that is Jeffrey Archer did wonders for the number of house guests you received. Now, I'm sure plenty didn't wipe their feet on the doormat and some attempted to show you pictures of their "cute" cats, but if you want to get to even giddier levels of cyber fame , you're going to have to do the same with some others. Go on, have a gratuitous pop at Mark Steyn/Polly Toynbee/Instapundit/Andrew Sullivan etc., etc..

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  9. Not Newsnight Review, Brit, did Newsnight once but insulted the presenter - not Paxo of course. I've done all sorts of TV but not very well.Gratuitous pops may be worthwhile

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  10. 'But, at least, the company consists of none but the best and brightest.'

    And me too, of course...

    You could increase circulation if only you'd ditch your clothes, Bryan. It works a treat for me and attracts many lady visitors each day, and I currently have a thing going with Edwina Curry which is not entirely pleasurable.

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  11. Bryan: Size is not important and, of course, you punch above your weight.

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  12. Thanks, David. In fact, it occurs to me this issue would be resolved if you all kept clicking refresh repeatedly when you were on the site. Tee-hee

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  13. Okay, who's Telewest blueyonder something or other?

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  14. Using Windows with Opera browser

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  15. Well, you did tell me to keep pressing refresh... :o)

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  16. David, you seem to have accounted for something in the region of 3000 hits. Your wrist must be tired.

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  17. Does this mean you're now above your plateau?

    If you install Opera (quite a good browser, though not quite as good as the new Windows Safari), it has an 'auto refresh' option when you press right click on any webpage.

    Disappointed it was only 3000. I was going to leave it going all night. Still, glad it made you smile and not sue.

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  18. I should add that I'm not the other David... Though I agree with all that he said.

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  19. Hi, Bry-- Just checking in to boost your ratings.

    And Nige, did you ever read my post about nasty -- indeed, murderous -- swans? Not all birds are nice. I don't know what Yeats was going on about with those wild swans at Coole. I've seen a few that would as soon rape you as look at you. Kinda like the one Leda encountered in another of his poems.

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  20. I will be above the plateau by the end of the day. Twice before a US site called avantgo has done something similar, knocking up 25,000+ hits. Both times it was a Sunday for some reason.

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  21. 25,000 hits?! I've gone weak at the knees if that means page views or unique visitors.

    Stats are very misleading. 'Hits' usually refers to individual files loaded from your server. So, if a page has background graphics, logos, style sheets, etc., one pageview can easily produce 100 hits. Of course, one visiter can produce multiple pageviews.

    All of which is why the TV news always report hits, not knowing what they really mean but they sound really impressive. They usually think they mean page views or visitors, which are quite different.

    And before you say it: I know I should get out more.

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  22. No, I missed that one, Susan - which post was it on? Swans are such paradoxical birds - all outward serenity and grace, but seething with fury within (and their nasty black feet up to all sorts of things under the water)... I suspect Yeats's swans were probably not the knobby-orange-beaked Mute Swan but the rather more sleek-beaked and pacific Whooper Swan - but I' ve never checked this out. The one Leda encountered must surely have been a Mute!

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  23. about half my blog's visitors want pictures of ladies in the altogether, and believe i have such wares on offer, probably because i choose provocative & irrelevant post titles.

    Quite a few of my readers, i suspect, are Nazi types.

    Others come via searches like "does Appleyard really kill chav with his fist" and "Appleyard vigilante thug van for chav genocide".

    So it's worth writing some bigoted stuff for the Nazi types, and persecuting people more famous than yourself. And calling all your posts 'Britney XXX' etc.

    you should appear on that reality tv show '24 hours with...' where you get to spend 24 hours locked in a room with the improbably tall Jamie Campbell. Chicks dig that stuff. See Appleyard go mad! On national TV!

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  24. Swans are such paradoxical birds - all outward serenity and grace, but seething with fury within

    Unhappy monogamy can do that to you. I'm not saying they should allow divorce, but they could be more tolerant of separation in many cases.

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  25. Yes indeed - that'll teach them to pair for life. There's a wonderful phrase of Dr Johnson's about such unhappy situations - 'the dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint and too numerous for removal'.

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  26. And the black tongues! I still have a terrifying memory of being pursued by evil swans at Lake Kir in Dijon, France. They were sticking out their tongues and suddenly I understood how it is that birds are related to reptiles.
    I think they hoped to nail me with their tongues, as frogs zap flies. Ick, ick, ick.

    Another thing: They're not white up close, but grubby & grey. Swans look best at a distance, a mon avis.

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  27. Swans? Swans? What are these swans? I don't recall inviting swans on to this thread.

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  28. Yes, but think what they're doing for your hits.

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  29. What about me? All my contributions here, and my poor newly born blog could do with a fwe hits.

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  30. Clearly the evening news editor missed a trick: sex, celebrity, religion, mystery and swans.

    Chippy's right. And I notice a fair amount of poetry working its way in there too. People just can't help it; they're only human.

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  31. you need to have a look at the competition, Bryan. Weekly themes are very popular amongst bloggers, like Willy Wednesday where once a week you post a photo of your privates in humourous situations. Gets them in and keeps them there.

    Of course, if you've developed moobs you could join in in Braless Thursday on Boredhousewife.com.

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  32. The most popular post on my own blog is one I wrote absent-mindedly about an unknown American racing driver who killed himself at Indy in 1982. I get countless hits from people typing search terms such as 'Gordon Smiley scalped' into Google. So people having accidents also sells.

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