THE BOOK
Some of the ideas discussed in this blog are published in my new book called "The Stonehenge Bluestones" -- available by post and through good bookshops everywhere. Bad bookshops might not have it....
To order, click
HERE

Tuesday 17 January 2012

100,000 hits

I've just noticed that we have gone through the 100,000 hits barrier!  Here is the site meter -- this includes only genuine external hits, and excludes my own visits for reviewing comments, putting up new posts, editing etc.  It's interesting that there are now well over 500 page view hits per day, coming from an average of 243 site visits per day.  Visitors spend an average of over 5 mins per visit, which is I suppose nothing short of miraculous, given the short attention span of the modern human being.  Obviously those who read and contribute to this blog are made of sterner stuff, and are serious in their pursuit of knowledge!

34 comments:

chris johnson said...

Congrats. I manage a few specialist websites for my clients and this is a great achievement. Shame more people do not chip in but this is often the case.

Bubble, bubble, bubble. said...

I only visit for 5 seconds at a time, but I visit at least 300 times a day.
Does that count?

Gary the Goldfish :-)


p.s. Well done ---- now I can't remember what I was on about.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Dear Mr Goldfish -- ah, that explains everything!
Keep bubbling...

Jon Morris said...

Well done! (Wish my blog had that many!)

jon

Tim Daw said...

Congratulations - the first 100,000 are the hardest.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Thanks Tim -- hmmm, mixed blessing. It's good to know that people out there enjoy the blog, but with 30 or more comments coming in on most days (many of which are making exactly the same points over and again) the work involved does mount up...... and as the blog gets bigger I'm finding that many of the points currently raised have already been dealt with at some stage in the period 2008-2011. That's why I try to encourage people to use the search facility.

Fabian said...

Congratulations Brian!
You should now re-write that heretical work of yours with all the latest information from Ixer and Bevins that proves the bluestones were moved by man.
Then you can retire gracefully into candle making with the missus.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Nah -- she wouldn't allow that. I make crap candles. One day I will rewrite the book -- but only when it needs rewriting. Nothing has emerged between 2008 and today to dent my central thesis.

Fabian said...

oh come of it Brian plenty has emerged recently to dent your thesis !!
The candles beckon.

BRIAN JOHN said...

for example?

Anonymous said...

Well, Wikipaedia let us all down the other day with its self-imposed black-out, but Stonehenge Thoughts just keeps on rollin', like Ol' Man River, it just keeps rollin' along. Amen!!

P Robeson

BRIAN JOHN said...

Well, I don't think this blog threatens the security of the state.... or does it?

chris johnson said...

If US lawmakers have their way they will prejudice access to this blog. I thank Wikipedia for bringing the issue to a bigger audience. So, Mr P. Robeson, Wikipedia did not let us down, far from it.

Anonymous said...

Dem stones, dem stones dem.......blue stones, dem stones, dem stones, dem........blue stones (repeat)......ALL DE WAY FROM WALES

So yes, perhaps this Blog does involve State Security (losses of Works of Art to England, anyone??)

Perhaps this calls for a crack espionage team.How's about Geoff & Tim from SPACES,anyone?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Well, as I have suggested before, this is Olympics Year, and the marketing of Stonehenge is a key part of the overall strategy for pulling in millions of foreign visitors with dosh in their pockets. It may be that nasty people like me, who seek to belittle the wonders of Stonehenge, as glowingly described in all the EH literature, might be deemed to be a threat to national security? Or at the very least, a threat to the economic recovery of the nation?

chris johnson said...

I did not realize you are this important. Perhaps your Chinook is ready, you are fully armed with copies of the Bluestone Enigma, and prepared to land in Amesbury with a cover story about looking for a hotel. Or was that the SAS outside Benghazi? Time to take my afternoon nap.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Don't want to over-egg the pudding here. I'm realistic enough to know that all this discussion about Stonehenge is singularly unimportant in the great scheme of things --- but hang on a minute. There's this big helicopter landing on the lawn...... and some fellows in combat outfits running this way.......

Anonymous said...

Not to worry, that large helicopter that landed at Brian's was just GeoCur, Special Envoy for Scotland's Alex Salmond, for a wee chat on The Next Step After Devolution And Then How To Re-Write Prehistory.

B CONNOLLY

Alex Gee said...

Congratulations Brian

I'm off to hide underground. We have space for other heretics.
Just bring your own baked beans.

Geo Cur said...

There are group of stones at Lampeter Valfrey that have major and trace element compositions identical to the dolerites of the Carnmenyn area ,they are either erratics or humans transported them there , either ways nobody seems to bother .You can't seem find a pic on the web even glaciologists seem to ignore them .Similarly I don’t believe that realising that glaciation may or may not have moved some stones from Preseli to somewhere in Somerset could somehow belittle Stonehenge .

BRIAN JOHN said...

Anon -- that sounds like a cruel fate. I think I'd rather have the US marines.....

BRIAN JOHN said...

Geo -- not sure why there is all this fuss about some stones at Lampeter Velfrey. Why should we be particularly bothered about them rather than about any of the other erratics identified by Griffiths, Cantrill, Strahan and (dare I say it?) HH Thomas?

Geo Cur said...

Brian , because the major and trace element compositions of the dolerite rocks at Lampeter Valfrey stones shows that they are very close to the SH33 group of Stonehenge orthostats .

BRIAN JOHN said...

What reference are you citing here, Geo?

Geo Cur said...

geological sources and transport of the Bluestones ....etc : OWT et al .

BRIAN JOHN said...

Er, yes, Geo. What's your point? Olwen and the others confirmed Strahan etc who thought that the erratics around Lampeter Velfrey had come from the eastern end of Preseli. Entirely reasonable. Are you suggesting that these stones are not erratics after all?

Geo Cur said...

The 1991 paper showed that the dolerite components at lampeter valfrey , sourced from Carnmenyn were "chemically identical to Stonehenge dolerite mononliths " .It's not as if they are just a bunch of erratics from Preseli , a big advance on Strahan , a group of erratics from Carnmenyn found 17 Km south of their source chemically identical to orthostats at Stonehenge . What would be the response if a group of rocks were found 17 Km from Craig Rhosyfelin with an identical signature to parent rock and orthosats at Stonehenge ?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Yes, I agree that's interesting -- but not surprising. And it would also be interesting -- but not surprising -- if some erratics from Rhosyfelin were to be found south or south-east of the Preseli ridge. This is all part of a continuum of more and more accurate provenancing -- and I think it's a great pity that there aren't more geologists out there doing the work.....

Geo Cur said...

"What's your point? "
My point is from my first post on this thread .
"There are group of stones at Lampeter Valfrey that have major and trace element compositions identical to the dolerites of the Carnmenyn area ,they are either erratics or humans transported them there , either ways nobody seems to bother .You can't seem find a pic on the web even glaciologists seem to ignore them .Similarly I don’t believe that realising that glaciation may or may not have moved some stones from Preseli to somewhere in Somerset could somehow belittle Stonehenge ."

BRIAN JOHN said...

Not sure we can descri=be these stones at Lampeter Velfrey as a "cluster" -- from what Olwen and the others say, they looked at erratics cleared from the fields, and found some dolerites (matched to the Carn Meini area), some rhyolites, some unknown pyroclastic rocks, and some Palaeozoic sandstones. We may simply get an impression of a cluster because that is where they happened to look, because of the fact that Strahan and his colleagues had also looked there before 1920. So there is bias in the sampling -- as usual with field studies, you find something and then you study it.....

Ben C said...

Fascinating blog. Im not surprised by the number of hits.

Anonymous said...

Well done I had the same idea of Stonehenge being glacial erratic.
And most of it is a natural phenomena. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

I also think if we meshed the depths of the sarson sockets in the chalky sedimentary layer .they would all be at the same level .which might be some solid proof.

Anonymous said...

hear are some natural stone circles at the bottom of a glacial paste them in to goggle earth
64°24'10.26" N 51°17'14.24" W
64°24'23.02" N 51°17'24.28" W
64°24'16.05" N 51°18'45.93" W