“Come on Australia! You can’t lose this one.” My work colleague’s face was a picture of hope and despair. She desperately wanted the Aussies to beat England in the Ashes cricket, but she was clearly worried at their capitulation. It looked as though they were about to completely fall apart. And they did. However, I was surprised at her attitude. Because she is South African, not Australian. So why should she care?

Apparently, she has a soft spot for Aussies. Despite living and working in England, it seems as though she has yet to develop affectionate feelings for my country folk. Charmed, I’m sure.

Another workmate had the same favouritism for the Aussies. And he is a Kiwi! Aren’t they meant to be bitter rivals? Apparently, he was showing Southern Hemisphere solidarity. I see.

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The ATM was beeping when I approached it. DO YOU NEED MORE TIME? Er, well no, I haven’t even taken my card from my wallet. Then I realised that there was already a card inside the machine, even though there was no-one around. Someone must have checked his/her balance and rushed off in a hurry, absent-mindedly leaving the card in the machine. I had full access to someone’s bank account! What would you do in this situation?

For me it was simple. I pressed the ‘no’ option and the card ejected. I went straight into the bank to hand it in to the clerk. I’m not a thief. I then went back outside and took my own money, out of my own account. It’s not as though I didn’t need the money; I wasn’t exactly flush.

When I arrived at work, I told my colleagues about what had happened, expecting nods of approval and pats on the back for doing the right thing. It’s not as though I did it to gain approval, but I know that there are people in this world who would take advantage of such a situation.

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Just recently I wondered exactly how many of my subscribers did read my posts. Whilst it seems as though I’ve been building a loyal reader base over the last few years, how true is that? Clearly I have no realistic way of finding out if my email subscribers are still opening emails and clicking through to read. Unless I sent them a rather pathetic, lonely message, asking if they still loved me.

What I could do (and did), is check if my WordPress subscribers still exist. That is, whether they still use their blogs or not. If they don’t, then they are unlikely to be checking back here to see if I’m still alive. I also left a few comments, to see if any reciprocate.

What I found is that 22% of subscriber blogs no longer exist and 46% have no posts within the last month, with many showing much longer breaks in publishing posts. I guess that this is hardly surprising, given the expected rate of attrition for new blogs. Most last less than a few months. Continue reading →