Some of the cool cats over on the Lib Dem Blog aggregator are posting blogs looking back at their top ten most viewed blogs of the year. I seem to be following on from them like a sheep. Looking back though it is clear that more people visit my blog for non-political reasons than they do politics but as Kel would say ‘awww here goes’
The most popular blog of the year was Nick Halling leaves Sky Sports NFL coverage with over 23,000 views in 2011. Nick Halling had been on Sky Sports NFL coverage for an eon and his departure led to many people googling why. He is now on staff with Sky as part of their boxing coverage.
Next up we have Don’t be naughty in the University of St. Andrews toilets – you have been warned which saw over 21,000 views. This post went viral and was even cited in a Freedom of Information request. A university prank that translated into global news.
The curious case of Mark Bolton comes next with over 10,000 views as the departure of Mark Bolton from Sky’s La Liga coverage shocked everyone. When I wrote the blog entitled Channel 4 announce Athletics commentary and presenting team – I’m not impressed it started off with a few views. One of those views was from John Rawling who was hired to be the main commentator. When Ortis Deley really sucked though the piece saw several hundred views a day throughout the World Athletics Championships.
Next up we have the post that seemingly announced myself to the Lib Dem blogosphere and got me nominated for Lib Dem Blog Post of the Year. Ken Clarke – A trial by Social Media. A reaction to the uproar about Ken Clarke’s comments on rape on BBC Radio 5live. It might not be the best piece I’ve written this year but it is the one I’m most known for without a doubt.
When Channel Four did the only thing they could do and axed Ortis then I wrote Ortis Deley axed as Athletics front man at Channel 4 and that got enough traffic for #6 on my roster for 2011. A rare piece on the trials and tribulations on Portsmouth Football Club came seventh with a piece called Steve Cotterill set for Nottingham Forest job and Pompey fans don’t seem to care which is pretty accurate. His departure for Forest didn’t lead to the locals being too unhappy. The fact that Forest stink under Cotterill is also truly hilarious.
Politics returns at #8 with That Ed Miliband interview – video and comment after that interview where the Labour leader kept saying the same thing and the poor pool journalist was slowly losing his mind. This ‘Keep F1 on the BBC’ e-petition rubbish didn’t go down well as I was repeatedly told in the comments that I knew nothing and roundly off the top ten we see ‘Boycott all News International products. It’s the only way they’ll learn.’ – Nah I don’t think so….
A special mention for the piece entitled Lib Dem election candidate Holly-Ann Battye in sexy photo ‘storm’ which would have made the top ten but it was posted whilst I was moving the site from WordPress to my own server therefore a lot of it’s stats aren’t counted in my current stats counter. All in all the site saw just under 100,000 views since the Spring which isn’t bad going. 2012 will see more of the same mixture of politics and random stuff that enters my brain when I’m sitting in front of the PC or the laptop.
To keep up to date you can always Like The Rambles of Neil Monnery on Facebook. Doing this means whenever I update the site it will show up in your Facebook feed. You can always subscribe to e-mail notifications in the top right hand corner of the blog. Obviously you can also add the site to any feedburner that you may use. Thank you for all your support and comments in 2011. I know there are some that don’t agree with me a lot but I hope that what I write is at least interesting to them. Here’s for a good and interesting 2012 where I might have one or two surprises for all of you…
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Thank you for all the posts Neil. Always enjoy reading your views – and didn’t realise how many comments you got on some of your posts over the last year.
I look forward to reading more in 2012.
All the best.
Daniel