WEEKEND FOUR

Here is the news:

1. Some people (one person, really, but I dare say others are just being polite) have pointed out a temporal anomaly with respect to le Pen and Hitler. I should go back and fix this today, and I might, but there has been a washing machine crisis and the house smells of old fish tank. This is not a smell I am familiar with, but it was the description given by a friend. Might bale out the foetid water with my housemate's favourite mug. If that doesn't improve my mood, I don't know what will.

1.5. If I don't do it by lunchtime, I will not find time today, because I have guests this afternoon.

2. In news from Analytics: the UK is still the king of the swingers, as far as Mary Sue's readership is concerned. Second place is a battle royal between Japan, USA and plucky little Canada, who has maintained her lead due to a burst on Friday. France has stopped reading, for reasons passing comprehension, but Germany remains reliable. Belgium has indicated that there might be some small interest, and I'm pretty confident of her progress up the charts. I've always really like Belgium. Vietnam visits seldom, but stays a while. Finally, there was an Irish reader, but he or she took one look and left. The numbers involved in all these statistics are tiny.

3. In more news from Analytics: incomers from Google 'leapt' yesterday, so I did some more research. The most common search term getting readers to the site is "Milly Chen", predictably. For "Milly Chen", Mary Sue has a current google number of eleven. I would like to see her on the front page, but what can you do?

4. Gripped by google numbers, I typed in "Cathy Calloway". Mary Sue's google number this time was six, behind the North Carolinan interior decorator. "Rollo Price" sees Mary Sue at 20, after many things to do with a guy who wrote a book called "After Desert Storm." Surprisingly, "Miss Smallbone" threw up a google number of 3. Since Miss Smallbone is a Bond homage, and the web is full of Bond sites, I was both shocked and gratified. There is another Miss Smallbone also. She coaches netball at Sacred Heart College in Western Australia (Always Striving Upward To You Our God).

5. I love the fact of having readers. It is slightly a struggle not to spend too long thinking about Mary Sue, which I literally cannot afford to do.