100,000

On January 19, 2009, I must have been rather bored. It was the day that I decided that, rather than just complaining orally about what was in the newspaper, I would put it down in writing:

Auckland, brought to you by Sir Edmund Hillary: Of course, this isn't strictly news but, for some unknown reason, bored people have been writing in to the Letters page with their wonderful suggestions as to how to further honour the most-honoured New Zealander: rename One Tree Hill 'Mt Hillary; rename the airport 'Sir Edmund Hillary International Airport', presumably to commemorate his legendary love of flying; or how about renaming Auckland 'Hillary City'. Hillary fucking City!

The worst part is not, of course, that the man had more honours than any NZer since Ernest Rutherford (a point made recently by Helen Clark - you could almost hear the sigh in her voice while reading her quote), but that he actually said he didn't want any of this. He was fundamentally a humble man who wanted his memorial to be a continuation of his charitable work, rather than wasting money on a statue. So, NZ Herald, for the love of God, enough with the letters!

A couple of weeks later, when I added a visitor counter to the site, I was astonished to find more than twenty people had visited in a day. Back then it was almost entirely my friends - now I have no idea what sort of weirdos and perverts are reading this blog. What I do know is that yesterday Editing the Herald got its 100,000th "unique visit", whatever that means, and it seems like some sort of milestone.

Before I get too self-indulgent, I wanted to thank everyone who comes and reads the blog, who comments on the posts, and who emails me encouragement, abuse or material. A special shout-out to my mystery fan in Bahrain - 111 visits! - and all those who end up here after googling "gay wankers" or "cannibalism 2009".

Now, I'm sure I have something better to write about...