The Unintended Consequences of Checking My Stats

Blogging, humor, lessons learned, Teaching and Education, travel, United States 2 Minutes

It’s only five days into the New Year, but as you might expect, I was curious as to how my stats were doing so far this year (I gave a recap of my 2024 stats a couple of days ago. I realize this is not a promising trend – five blog posts this year, and already two of them are about my stats…)

The first thing I want to say is – people of Ireland – you’ve got to pick up your game. So far this year there is only one view from your wonderful country, one I feel a close affinity to since my background is 100% Irish. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, and if things don’t improve, I may have to resort to some of my social media trickery to get more views from the Emerald Isle.

Second, thank you to to the individual in Burkina Faso who somehow came across my blog. All I ask is that you don’t read my blog hoping you might learn something useful about life in the United States., or anything useful at all for that matter.

But the real takeaway from checking my stats is that I learned about a country I had never heard of. I know I might be showing my ignorance of world geography here, but one of the views of my blog this year is from the country of Jersey.

Now I know the state of New Jersey in the U.S. very well; it’s a 30 minute drive from where I live. But a country named Jersey? Completely unaware.

So I checked, and here is what I found, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Jersey is an island country in Northwestern Europe and a self-governing British Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the largest of the Channel Islands and is 14 miles (23 km) from the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. The Bailiwick consists of the main island of Jersey and some surrounding uninhabited islands and rocks including Les Dirouilles, Les Écréhous, Les Minquiers, and Les Pierres de Lecq.

Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems, and the power of self-determination. Jersey’s constitutional relationship is with the Crown; it is not part of the United Kingdom. The Bailiff is the civil head, president of the states and head of the judiciary; the lieutenant governor represents the head of state, the British monarch; and the chief minister is the head of government. Jersey’s defence and international representation – as well as certain policy areas, such as nationality law – are the responsibility of the UK government, but Jersey still has a separate international identity. 

So who knew that checking my stats could be so educational. I think this makes me want to check my stats even more (if that’s even possible).

Finally, to the person in Burkina Faso – I’d like to think that maybe you learned something from reading this post. But the odds are that you have a much better grasp of world geography that I do, and thus you were already familiar with the country of Jersey…

P.S. Strangely enough, I have heard of the country of Guernsey, which is just north of Jersey, thanks to the wonderful book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

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Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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44 thoughts on “The Unintended Consequences of Checking My Stats”

  9. I’m afraid to say this, but the stereotype view we have of Americans is that they know the square root of diddly squat about other countries and you have just proved us right 🤣

    The Guernsey one is well known here from the lovely movie, which I watched again on Saturday.

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    1. to quote from Kansas from Carry On My Wayward Son:

      “I never claimed to be a wise man.” 🙂

      I’ll fully admit to knowing less than I should about the world outside the U.S. But I’ve gotten better.

      and I think I’ve seen the movie…

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      1. I could probably say the same about myself in relation to the US, to be fair.

        It’s a nice, feelgood movie. Anything that stars Lily James is fine by me.

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      3. Probably debatable! Does knowing that you have taken loads of place names from here and other countries count? 🤣

        Amongst other things, Lily James was in Downton Abbey. She’s rather lovely.

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      4. you seem to know a lot about our current political problems, which seem to be getting worse.

        I have not watched Downton Abbey, so that may be part of the reason I don’t recognize her name. I’ll take your word for it 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      5. It’s a bit difficult avoiding it! And it’s sad to see the way your country is going so rapidly downhill, and will drag the rest of us down with it.

        You only have six seasons and two movies of Downton to catch up on 🤣

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      7. I hope not, but it isn’t starting well and he hasn’t even taken over yet!

        If you don’t want to go for the whole Downton experience the lovely Lily is in other things too: you could try the BBC adaptation of War And Peace which I know has been broadcast there, or the movie Yesterday. Both also highly recommended. Or you could just go for The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Society movie 🤣

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  10. I’m familiar with Guernsey and by extension Jersey due to my mishearing lyrics from the Squeeze song Goodbye Girl. A lot has been learned due to my childish obsession with rock music. I fully accept the criticisms in this comment section of americans being myopic. We are clearly self-centered compared to our brethren in Europe, but this probably has a lot to do with our isolation across the atlantic. However I read BBC news, and therefore know quite a bit about Man Utd.

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    1. nothing like misheard lyrics…

      and yes, a lot of what I know about the world comes from sports.

      that’s why I love watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, where the announcers usually give some fun fact about each country.

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  11. I learnt quite a bit of Geography from this post 🙂 The real question is, have you ever gotten any views from Greenland? It’s the one country I’ve never gotten any views from and I want to know if it’s just me or us all.

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  12. It is interesting to see where our visitors come from that’s for sure. As coincidence would have it I have had visits to my blog from Guernsey, which I had never heard of before!

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