As we come to the close of 2025, it’s worth remembering that this marks the end of the first quarter of a century for our current era. As far as this blog is concerned, we don’t go back twenty years – our first post other than the “Hello World” one you get given at the outset, was on 1st November 2009, so that means that we have now completed 16 years, with the following profile of views and posts made.
| Views | Posts published | ||
| 2009 | 486 | 47 | |
| 2010 | 21,595 | 117 | |
| 2011 | 45,391 | 119 | |
| 2012 | 36,704 | 63 | |
| 2013 | 41,626 | 23 | |
| 2014 | 38,193 | 29 | |
| 2015 | 44,725 | 16 | |
| 2016 | 32,771 | 8 | |
| 2017 | 27,200 | 110 | |
| 2018 | 44,484 | 306 | |
| 2019 | 33,040 | 155 | |
| 2020 | 29,608 | 213 | |
| 2021 | 16,340 | 215 | |
| 2022 | 15,321 | 65 | |
| 2023 | 10,794 | 3 | |
| 2024 | 11,179 | 8 | |
| 2025 | 10,708 | 14 | |
| 460,165 | 1,511 | ||
All of which shows that the site has been negleted for a number of years and therefore the views came right down, but in any case in 2021 when I was posting most days of the year the views halved.
This is probably to do with the fact that the posts were at that time largely connected to the main project of getting my YouTube Channel all repurposed to here and properly tagged up and with the possibility for more discussion. Given that the YouTube material was older and older over time, and technologically lagged behind whta newer, fresher videographers were doing, and also after a while I stopped producing regular content on YouTube as I think I had come to an end of that time of life where I was regularly going to new places (and also I got a new hobby in 2016, namely Ingress, and also the camera I was using for the YT things wore out and I was unable to get a similar one to my liking) one can scarcely be surprised that this channel became less frequently viewed.
That having been said, many thanks to the loyal few who did still maintain a regular viewership, especially those who joined in with comments and discussion and sharing posts with their friends.
I have not given up the idea of putting all of the YT material here, and I will have to pick that up again, but I thought that for the next phase of this blog, to seek to bring it back to life, for 2026 and onwards I woud go for a different daily theme and I thnk I have sahred before the basic idea I have for the different days of the week.
1) Monday Funday – a growing collection of jokes. A light-hearted start to the working week for my viewers.
2) Tuesday Reviews Day – Product and place reviews, recommendations and unrecommendations, including some product links to Amazon which may help cover costs if people click on them. You will note that Google Ads have been taken off the site as there is too little editorial control over them and I think I would prefer to be developing the Amazon influencer side, so you’ll have started seeing soe Amazon ads also on the site. They go straight to the American site whereas I will also include Amazon.co.uk product links on the Tuesday Reviews.
3) Wednesday Essay Day – this is a day for new Essays about various topics, some of them are expected to have a philosophical or Spiritual dimension. The aim will be to work towards a collection of essays of a thought-provoking or enlightening character.
4) Thursday Polling Day – here we will be offering polls for your opinion, and/or maybe some commentary on the news items which are current. Instead of a poll, there could be a quiz, it’s the same software.
5) Friday AI day. The format of the material here will be a converstaion with AI, in which I try to make sense of various topics using AI. The conversation will be shown in full excpet for the bits where te AI asks it’s continuation quastions of what I would like to do next, as these spoil the flow. These will also be tagged “Interviews with a VampAIre” if you want to access the whole collection.
6) Saturday Natterday – this is a day for Language related topics, and among the ideas for Saturday we have a collection of dictation or translation exercises that will grow, and possibly the beginnings of a collection of hymns in various language versions.
7) Sunday is the day in which I would continue to place the historical YT films in the original order tey appeared on the channel, for the simple reason that the project is half way though and I would like to finish it. Clearly there is no rush and at that tempo it may take twenty years to do it, but at least it will be done if God grants me to live that long.
SO I will be using schedulingin order to prepare the material ahead. Maybe time will fail me to keep all these days full of content. My rule will be that for 2025 I will start with the current week and then if I do mor in the same category, place them in the next week.
If you are more interested in one type of content than another, then please look out for the mail that will come to you as a subscriber on that particular day and ignore the others.
I hope that you’ll like this new approach and that you’ll like, comment and share your favourite items.
Just Breaking the Rules: Hockey Ever After, Book 1
$21.83 (as of 22/01/2026 23:05 GMT +01:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
My only disappointment in all of this is the linkage to Amazon.
It would have been encouraging to see the same level of detestation that I have for that company. I often wonder how long it will take before people en masse will see that Jeff Bezos intention from the start (‘get go’ for those preferring the American version of the English language) has been to achieve the goal (so often, and hypocritically, criticised by the corporate world) of ‘monopopy’. If ever other on line companies, let alone high street revival, are to stand a chance the public by their millions need to avoid using or having any association with Amazon products and “services”.
That said I can see the need to help support the ongoing running costs of HTV since infrastructure costs are ever present. Amazon seems to have made itself almost indispensable (always their intention) in this regard.
As far as the scheduling structure is concerned, I like the variety and the interactive elements that have been included and particularly in these days of gloom I think the “Monday Funday” is a welcome touch. In view of the recent death of Tony Harrison, poet, dramatist and playwright I have been reminded of the important rôle poetry has (or should have) in our lives. By this I mean poetry as ‘condensed thought’ not the perky little rhyming couplets variety that seems to deter many would-be readers. So might there be a slot for poetry from time to time ?
Im sure the ‘Huli’ site will continue to be a hamper of hand-picked, honest and handsome handicrafts of literature and thought. A harbinger of hard-hitting comments by the Huli hoodlum. Here’s to the next 16 years.
Many thanks. I know a lot of people have a love-hate relationship with Amazon, but the existance of these large services does at least mean that peoplke know what they are getting. Usually the consumer gets a better deal at the expense of the producer, what might be called the Tesco effect. But in the end there is no obligation for anyone to sell their creations on Amazon.
Bezos is an interesting character. He used to give off leftist vibes all the time and now seems to have become broader, with less pushing of the leftist agenda as if he, out of all of that gang of champagne socialists, had managed to read the room.
As for myself, allowing the Amazon Ads to go ahead is better than just the indiscriminate Google Ads there used to be here. At least these are books and audio books, and at least people will be able to see opinions from other buyers and therefore can buy more advisedly.