�OF COURSE YOU KNOW CERTAIN SCEPTICS NOTE THAT PERHAPS 10,000 OF THE NATION�S MOST ELITE HIGHWAY PATROLMEN ARE OUT THERE WAITING FOR US AFTER WE START� I went up to Hammersmith this evening for the first time in years: Living here, or rather existing here, you forget how big London is and how beautiful it can be. I don't normally pay too much attention to the counter stats for this page but I do occasionally take a peek and find it interesting to see who's been visiting and from where. I can keep track of the people who come here regularly and the people who spin in from odd searches � some of those searches are very odd. Mostly though people seem to surf in here because they�ve been here before so either find what I have to say, or link to, interesting or perhaps just annoying enough for a return visit. Just recently a couple of old friends got back in touch for the first time in years and it seems I'm pretty easy to find via Google and other lesser search engines. I�m the 4th hit on Google if you search for just 'Mike Atherton'. Maybe in another year I'll have knocked that sporty bastard from the top (I guess having more on my site than just a bunch of fucking useless cricket statistics will help). I now get hits from the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and Japan. And some from just up the road. Just tonight someone stumbled across me after doing a search for 'Automan'. Nice. People who have flung abuse at me come back a lot too, which I find a little odd. They seem to lurk, perhaps waiting for me to say something that will get their heckles up or simply just to contradict myself � like the time I said Bush would make a great President... kidding. People still find me after doing weird and wonderful sex related research too. Some people tell me they come back simply to try and work out which movie I�m quoting from at the head of each post. And then there are the Tom Sizemore fans... The number of other sites that link to me for one reason or another has also increased so I should say thanks to the other bloggers for the good word-of-mouth and sense of community. In fact, I�ll say thank you to everyone reading this right now... strange to think so many people are paying me attention... silly sods. Anyway... By the end of the month I'll have had well over 10,000 hits. Not too shabby considering the counter hasn�t been active all the time. The blog itself, 'Visible Monsters', will be one year old at the end of next month. I was never sure it�d last this long. In fact, what I never told anyone about this site is that I only ever intended to run it for one year - part experiment, part writing exercise - just to see where it led and what happened. It's had an interesting run to say the least and is now very much the focal point of the site. After much deliberation this evening I decided that I would keep it running for at least another year. I�m going to keep it active only for as long as its fun and seems to be developing. If nothing else it serves as an excellent distraction at 4am when I have nothing better to do. I�ve also met and been in touch with a whole bunch of people that I never would have come across otherwise... ahh blogging. Who knew it could be this interesting? As always, thanks for being on the other side of the screen. Mike is blogging to: The Alphabet Bombers