British Blogs Top Ten

Go to Europundit instead

2005-02-28T21:10:00.000Z

David Weman at Europundit will be running a similar list of top Euro blogs every few weeks. The current one is here. (No permalink for this feature, you'll just have to check his blog every now and then). I suggest those of you who were keen on this sort of stuff transfer your attention there.

2005-02-27T20:16:00.000Z

I probably won't be updating the chart again, because this site has served its purpose of providing a bit of publicity for British blogs, and providing some new blogs for us all to look at (as well as giving me a look at how Blogger works). Spending more time on it would be a bit pointless, really.

There is also the problem that a look at referrer logs reveals that quite a few sites get most of their traffic from Google searches - esp. from Google Images - for pictures of actresses and models. If I removed those sites from the chart, the complaint could be made that there are other sites on the chart whose referrer logs are not available, and who knows what sort of traffic they're getting?

But as the site has proved popular, I'll leave it up as a resource for people who may stumble onto it looking for info on blogs. Tim Worstall's weekly Britblog Roundup is also recommended (this week's is here).

P.S. Perry from Samizdata has revealed to me that Samizdata got an average of 9376 viewers a day last week.

Top Ten, Saturday 26 February, 2005

2005-02-26T13:05:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Saturday 26 February, 2005:

1. Andrew Sullivan: 32 774 average daily visits.
2. A Welsh View: 7181
3. *Arseblog: 3937
4. Harry's Place: 2727
5. Normblog: 2347
6. Tim Worstall: 1504
7. No Rock and Roll Fun: 1495
8. Biased BBC: 1438
9. *Plastic Bag: 1354
10. +New Links: 1202

The 10 to 20 chart:

11. The Policeman’s Blog: 1188
=12. *Random Acts of Reality: 1051
=12. *Girl With A One-Track Mind: 1051
14. Beyond Northern Iraq: 1020
15. My Boyfriend is a Twat: 967
16. Daily Ablution: 901
17. Chase Me Ladies: 870
18. Fistful of Euros: 823
19. *Scary Duck: 814
20. Petite Anglaise: 805

And also:

21. Lenin’s Tomb: 730
22. *Parallax View: 647
23. Blissblog: 622
24. Tokyo Times: 599
25. *Little Red Boat: 596
26. An Englishman’s Castle: 575
27. Troubled Diva: 552
28. +EU Referendum: 542
29. *LinkMachineGo.com: 538
30. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 518
31. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 484
32. Edge of England's Sword: 482
33. Cabalamat Journal: 461
34. Call Centre Confidential: 424
35. Blithering Bunny: 409
36. Conservative Commentary: 399
37. *Green Fairy: 382
38. New York London Paris Munich: 374
39. British Blogs Top Ten: 367
40. Naked Blog: 349
41. Shot By Both Sides: 344
42. Virtual Stoa: 317
=43. Eric the Unread: 298
=43. What You Can Get Away With: 298
45. USS Neverdock: 271
46. *Laban Tall (UK Commentators): 265
47. Public Interest: 237
48. Plep: 216
49. Blimpish: 196
50. Emerald Bile: 179

* Sites that use Extreme Tracking rather than Sitemeter (which may undercount compared to Sitemeter).
+Sites that use another type of counter, such as CQ Counter.

Use comments to inform me of omissions or mistakes (I may not have got everyone who left comments or e-mailed).

Notes:

(1) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter of the right sort, you can't be in the game (and yes, I am well aware that there are big blogs out there who aren't included as a result). But you can arrange with me to check your stats periodically. But you have to have Sitemeter, Extreme Tracking, CQ Counter or another approved sort of counter.

(2) Some popular sites have shown me their stats, but I've decided their stats package isn't comparable enough to Sitemeter: Lost Seouls, Copydesk. Clearly these sites are popular, though, and deserve a mention. Well done, fellas. But you'll need to get Sitemeter or something similar to get on the official chart.

(3) It looks like Andrew Sullivan is not a US citizen (according to a bit of Googling), so he's eligible.

(4) I am not being paid by Sitemeter, though if Sitemeter had any advertising smarts they would have set up something similar themselves (so maybe he is being paid by Sitemeter, you're thinking - well, do you think I would really only have three Ferrari's if I was? Wouldn't I have at least four, or even more?)

Question: Does Extreme Tracking ignore hits from your own machine (or can it be set to do so)?

Top Ten, Friday 25 February, 2005:

2005-02-25T19:24:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Friday 25 February, 2005:

1. Andrew Sullivan: 32 430 average daily visits.
2. A Welsh View: 7199
3. *Arseblog: 3937
4. Normblog: 2909
5. Harry's Place: 2727
6. No Rock and Roll Fun: 1505
7. Tim Worstall: 1496
8. Biased BBC: 1442
9. *Plastic Bag: 1354
10. +New Links: 1208

And also:

11. The Policeman’s Blog: 1175
=12. *Random Acts of Reality: 1051
=12. *Girl With A One-Track Mind: 1051
14. My Boyfriend is a Twat: 990
15. Daily Ablution: 892
16. Chase Me Ladies: 844
17. Fistful of Euros: 828
18. *Scary Duck: 814
19. Petite Anglaise: 786
20. Lenin’s Tomb: 699
21. *Parallax View: 647
22. Blissblog: 618
23. Tokyo Times: 603
24. *Little Red Boat: 596
25. An Englishman’s Castle: 569
26. +EU Referendum: 542
27. *LinkMachineGo.com: 538
28. Troubled Diva: 535
29. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 492
30. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 471
31. Cabalamat Journal: 451
32. Call Centre Confidential: 413
33. Blithering Bunny: 411
34. Conservative Commentary: 392
35. *Green Fairy: 382
36. New York London Paris Munich: 374
37. British Blogs Top Ten: 340
38. Shot By Both Sides: 326
39. Eric the Unread: 297
40. Virtual Stoa: 294
41. What You Can Get Away With: 290
42. USS Neverdock: 266
43. *Laban Tall (UK Commentators): 265
44. Public Interest: 233
45. Edge of England's Sword: 220
46. Plep: 211
47. Blimpish: 191
48. Emerald Bile: 179
49. Charlotte Street: 176
50. Mischievous Constructions: 176

* Sites that use Extreme Tracking rather than Sitemeter (which may undercount compared to Sitemeter).
+Sites that use another type of counter, such as CQ Counter.

Use comments to inform me of omissions or mistakes (I may not have got everyone who left comments or e-mailed. No time to do changes until I get back from the pub).

Notes:

(1) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter of the right sort, you can't be in the game (and yes, I am well aware that there are big blogs out there who aren't included as a result). But you can arrange with me to check your stats periodically. But you have to have Sitemeter, Extreme Tracking, CQ Counter or another approved sort of counter.

Question: Does Extreme Tracking ignore hits from your own machine (or can it be set to do so)?

Another type of stats counter

2005-02-24T12:48:00.000Z

Someone else wants me to use their stats page, which looks like the Clara stats page I use for another of my blogs. Problem is, this stats page gives me figures that are significantly higher - up to 50% higher sometimes - than Sitemeter gives me. This may be partly due to the fact that you can't configure it to ignore visits from your own machine, but it can't just be that.

Anyway, it seems unfair to allow this in, especially seeing as sites that use Extreme Tracking have their visits undercounted compared to Sitemeter. To that, I'm tempted to say "Tough - use Sitemeter as well if it really bothers you", but if I let this new guy's type of stats page in, that really makes it apples and oranges and grapefruits. But then I'd prefer to be inclusive, even if it means some inaccuracy.

Any thoughts? Should I just limit it to Sitemeter sites? Or Sitemeter, ET and CQ Counter?

Top Ten, Thursday 24 February 2005:

2005-02-24T10:52:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Thursday 24 February, 2005:

1. Andrew Sullivan: 32633 average daily visits.
2. A Welsh View: 7154
3. Normblog: 2890
4. Harry's Place: 2727
5. Tim Worstall: 1486
6. No Rock and Roll Fun: 1474
7. Biased BBC: 1432
8. Plastic Bag: 1354
9. New Links: 1187
10. The Policeman’s Blog: 1146

And also:

11. Random Acts of Reality: 1051
12. My Boyfriend is a Twat: 1017
13. Daily Ablution: 893
14. Fistful of Euros: 816
15. Scary Duck: 814
16. Chase Me Ladies: 810
17. Petite Anglaise: 764
18. Foreign Dispatches: 720
19. Lenin’s Tomb: 701
20. Tokyo Times: 620
21. Blissblog: 598
22. Little Red Boat: 596
23. An Englishman’s Castle: 569
24. EU Referendum: 542
25. LinkMachineGo.com: 538
26. Troubled Diva: 516
27. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 454
28. Cabalamat Journal: 431
29. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 425
30. Call Centre Confidential: 414
31. Blithering Bunny: 410
32. Green Fairy: 382
33. Conservative Commentary: 380
34. British Blogs Top Ten: 300
35. Eric the Unread: 299
36. Virtual Stoa: 280
37. What You Can Get Away With: 276
38. USS Neverdock: 265
39. Public Interest: 226
40. Lost Seouls: 223
41. Plep: 219
42. Blimpish: 195
43. Charlotte Street: 193
=44. Emerald Bile: 170
=44. Mischievous Constructions: 170
46. Freedom and Whisky: 140
47. EU Serf: 117
48. Doctor Vee: 111
49. Cage of Monkeys: 108
50. The Cabarfeidh Pages: 75

Use comments to inform me of omissions or mistakes.

Notes:

(1) Most sites use Sitemeter for their stats, but the following use Extreme Tracking: Random Reality, Little Red Boat, Scary Duck, Green Fairy, LinkMachineGo and Plastic Bag. This counter undercounts hits compared to Sitemeter (even using my own method of averaging, which is to take their total figures for last week and divide by 7). Same applies to EU Referendum, which uses CQ Counter.

(2) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter, you can't be in the game (and yes, I am well aware that there are big blogs out there who aren't included as a result). But you can arrange with me to check your stats periodically.

Top Ten, Wednesday 23 February 2005:

2005-02-23T10:55:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Wednesday 23 February, 2005:

1. Andrew Sullivan: 32716 average daily visits.
2. A Welsh View: 7020.
3. Normblog: 2914
4. Tim Worstall: 1484
5. No Rock and Roll Fun: 1440
6. Biased BBC: 1435
7. New Links: 1173
8. The Policeman’s Blog: 1133
9. Random Acts of Reality: 1051
10. My Boyfriend is a Twat: 1047

And also:

11. Daily Ablution: 893
12. Scary Duck: 814
13. Chase Me Ladies: 812
14. Fistful of Euros: 806
15. Petit Anglaise: 752
16. Lenin’s Tomb: 712
17. Foreign Dispatches: 691
18. Little Red Boat: 596
19. Blissblog: 574
20. An Englishman’s Castle: 563
21. EU Referendum: 542
22. LinkMachineGo.com: 538
23. Troubled Diva: 507
24. Cabalamat Journal: 443
25. Call Centre Confidential: 421
26. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 410
27. Blithering Bunny: 402
28. greenfairydotcom: 382
29. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 372
30. Conservative Commentary: 369
31. British Blogs Top Ten: 313
32. Eric the Unread: 296
33. What You Can Get Away With: 267
34. USS Neverdock: 266
35. Virtual Stoa: 260
36. Public Interest: 225
37. Plep: 211
38. Charlotte Street: 192
39. Blimpish: 177
40. Mischievous Constructions: 168

Use comments to inform me of omissions or mistakes.

Notes:

(1) I am now using a different method to get the averages from those sites that use Extreme Tracking (which are Random Reality, Little Red Boat, Scary Duck, greenfairydotcom, and LinkMachineGo.com). I take the total visits from the last week, and divide it by 7. I do this because the "Average" figure that ET gives seems to be an average for the whole time ET has been tracking the site, which may under-report the numbers for those sites who started off low but who gained readers as time has gone on. (If you think this is the wrong way to do it, please leave a comment.) This means that the figures for these sites are considerably up on yesterday. (I did a similar thing for EU Referendum, which uses CQ Counter.)

(2) This is just a bit of silly fun. Popularity isn't that big a deal. Don't get too worked up about these charts (unless you can do so amusingly).

(3)Take the figures with a grain of salt. Different counters use different methods. Some blogs get lots of repeat readers, especially those which have comments. And the traffic of some blogs is mostly made up of Google searches.

(4) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter, you can't be in the game (and yes, I am well aware that there are big blogs out there who aren't included as a result).

(5) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter, feel free to send in an daily average at some stage for inclusion in the "Self-Reporter's Chart", which will appear now and then. (Send in a single figure only, though, not a range). Or else allow for me to have access once a week (as eventually this chart will become weekly).

Extreme Tracking's averages period

2005-02-22T23:04:00.000Z

Is the "average" figure for Extreme Tracking the average for the whole time since Extreme Tracking has been tracking? (I can't find any description of how it works)

If so, this makes it a bit unfair to compare it to Sitemeter (as people have been saying). For example, for Random Acts of Reality, Extreme Tracking gives an average of 449, but he's had well over 1000 a day for the last week. Sitemeter, on the other hand, seems to mainly average over the last few days.

Should I maybe use the figure for "Last Week", which Extreme Tracking puts up, and divide it by seven? (There aren't that many sites using Extreme Tracking, so this shouldn't be that big a task).

Any thoughts?

Top Ten, Tuesday 22 February, 2005

2005-02-22T11:13:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Tuesday 22 February, 2005:

1. Andrew Sullivan: 32483 average daily visits.
2. A Welsh View: 6915.
3. Normblog: 2914
4. Tim Worstall: 1450
5. No Rock and Roll Fun: 1430
6. Biased BBC: 1417.
7. New Links: 1153
8. The Policeman’s Blog: 1126
9. My Boyfriend is a Twat: 1038
10. Daily Ablution: 873

And also:

11. Chase Me Ladies: 836
12. Fistful of Euros: 796
13. Petit Anglaise: 727
14. Lenin’s Tomb: 719
15. Foreign Dispatches: 670
16. An Englishman’s Castle: 562
17. Blissblog: 560
18. Troubled Diva: 489
19. EU Referendum: 473
20. Cabalamat Journal: 440
21. Call Centre Confidential: 428
22. Scary Duck: 412
23. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 406
24. Blithering Bunny: 394
=25. Conservative Commentary: 368
=25. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 368
=27.greenfairydotcom: 311
=27. Little Red Boat: 311
29. British Blogs Top Ten: 298
30. Eric the Unread: 292
31. LinkMachineGo.com: 273
32. What You Can Get Away With: 257
33. USS Neverdock: 255
34. Virtual Stoa: 241
35. Public Interest: 220
36. Plep: 199
37. Charlotte Street: 192
38. Emerald Bile: 176
39. Blimpish: 171
40. Mischievous Constructions: 165

Use comments to inform me of omissions or mistakes.

Notes:

(1) The following sites use Extreme Tracking, rather than Sitemeter: Little Red Boat, Scary Duck, greenfairydotcom, LinkMachineGo.com. This counter undercounts hits compared to Sitemeter, which is what most people's stats are based on.

(2) EU Referendum uses CQ Counter, which may undercount hits. New Links uses my.statcounter.com.

(3) This is just a bit of silly fun. Popularity isn't that big a deal. Don't get too worked up about these charts (unless you can do so amusingly).

(4) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter, you can't be in the game (and yes, I am well aware that there are big blogs out there who aren't included as a result).

(5) If you don't have a publicly available stats counter, feel free to send in an daily average at some stage for inclusion in the "Self-Reporter's Chart", which will appear now and then. (Send in a single figure only, though, not a range). Norm from Normblog has, for instance.

(6) If anyone has strong feelings about why British expats who live overseas, and who don't blog about Britain much (eg. Sullivan, Foreign Dispatches, Petit Anglaise) shouldn't be included, let fly in comments. But "It means I'm lower than I want to be" doesn't count.

Update: Normblog has give me access to his Sitemeter stats, so he's been added, and most other people have been moved down a notch.

Update 2: Eric the Unread was added (turns out he is read).

Top Ten, Monday 21 February, 2005

2005-02-21T14:53:00.000Z

The Top Ten for Monday 21 February, 2005:

1. Biased BBC: 1358 average daily page visits
2. Tim Worstall: 1316
3. New Links: 1127
4. Policeman’s Blog: 1085
5. Daily Ablution: 817
6. Chase Me Ladies: 814
7. Fistful of Euros: 743
8. Lenin’s Tomb: 704
9. An Englishman’s Castle: 563
10. EU Referendum: 472

And also:

11. Troubled Diva: 452
12. Cabalamat Journal: 420
13. Law West of Ealing Broadway: 394
14. Blithering Bunny: 380
15. Conservative Commentary: 364
16. JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary: 354
17. What You Can Get Away With (Nick Barlow): 241
18. USS Neverdock: 240
19. Public Interest: 217
20. Emerald Bile: 197
21. Plep: 190
22. Charlotte Street: 187
23. Virtual Stoa: 171
24. Mischievous Constructions: 164
25. Blimpish: 159
26. Cage of Monkeys: 136
27. Freedom and Whisky: 132
28. British Blogs Top Ten: 108
29. Doctor Vee: 103
30. EU Serf: 101

Use comments to inform me of omissions. (There were some sites that were recommended to me for which I couldn't find a counter, eg. Scary Duck and Little Red Boat).

Notes:

(1) This is just a bit of silly fun. Popularity isn't that big a deal. Don't get too worked up about these charts (unless you can do so amusingly).

(2) Pootergeek and Stephen Pollard's figures are now unavailable.

(3) Normblog tells me he has a certain amount of traffic, but until that figure is publicly accessible, it will only feature on the "Self-Reporting Top Ten" chart, which will appear now and then. Same applies to Bloggerheads.

(4) The figure for the "New Links" blog was gauged from their monthly averages, with unique visitor totals added to returning visitor totals. (If this is the wrong way to do it, let me know).

2005-02-21T10:47:00.000Z

mmChronic said...

Isn't the point to make the stats available to the public rather than people just reporting a number as they could just say anything? Not that I'm casting any doubts like! ;)

Also if you have a frequently updated blog (like New Links) aren't page loads a valid count? We have visitors coming back repeatedly during the day to see if there are (and there there usually has been) any updates.

Mind you I'm also happy to be counted by unique visitors as we do alright in that
department too.

The "official" list will only be from publicly available stats. I'll also post a "self-reporting" top ten now and then, but that won't be where the main game is.

Repeat visitors count.

It should be noted that you can (I think) set up Sitemeter so that your visitor numbers show, but not your referrers, so if you don't want your referrers showing, you can still have your numbers out there.

Tim Worstall said:

There is a way to automate this. No, I don’t know how to, but NZ Bear at TTLB does. He takes sitemeter stats but looks at the average of the last seven days. Pretty sure that if you write to him he’ll explain the code.

I'm like a recovering alcoholic with anything involving programming. I just can't touch the stuff at all, otherwise before you know it I've been up til 5 every morning for weeks on end and my life is falling to pieces. Anyway, if I do it manually it'll be crappier and thus more controversial, and so more fun. And it wouldn't be fair to use NZBear's code.

2005-02-21T09:59:00.000Z

Bah! Sitemeter is down.

Thanks to those who e-mailed about blogs I've missed.

Apologies to the Cage of Monkeys guy for the lame jokes (and for getting his name wrong - it's Andy).

2005-02-21T09:47:00.000Z

Sitemeter's count will be averaged from the beginning of Sitemeter install.

Yes, but Sitemeter's averages seems to be heavily weighted by the last few days.

2005-02-21T09:46:00.000Z

Jonny B says:

Interesting project, but I don't envy the work involved...

Troubled Diva - 452
Scaryduck - 411
er - me - 354
Little Red Boat - 311

(hope that HTML comes out)

And that's just a quick sample off the top of my head. Naked Blog does 700-800 page views a day. Random Acts of Reality I think gets around 5000 readers a day.

Good luck.

Actually, there won't be that much work involved, now that I've got together a list of those blogs which have stats - quite a small proportion of all the blogs out there. I'll just check the more popular ones now and then.

If a new blog has stats, they can let me know. Or if an obscure blog suddenly becomes popular, they can also let me know.

2005-02-21T09:43:00.000Z

Phil Hunt says:

I've just become aware of your list of British blogs at
http://britishblogs.blogspot.com/

Can you add mine, Cabalamat Journal? I typically get about 400
visits per day, according to Sitemeter.

--
Philip Hunt, zen19725@zen.co.uk

2005-02-21T09:41:00.000Z

Tim Ireland says:

A slow day at Bloggerheads amounts to about 1,200 individual visitors (to the main blog, i.e. not counting any of the other pages on the site)

A normal day runs at around 1,700-2,500

Busy days go to 3,500 and up.

Cheers

Tim Ireland
www.bloggerheads.com

PS - Make sure your submitters don't get page views (eg views of individual posts) or hits (ie no. of files downloaded) mixed up with unique visitors to the main weblog.

The figures I've provided here do not take views of individual posts into account (such as the 11k peeps who have read my Crazy Frog post, but have gone no further).

If I took these visitors into account, the figures would start at 3,500 per day and then go up on busy days.

Blog storm!

2005-02-21T00:56:00.000Z

Seeing as people are actually looking at this silly blog, I've enabled comments. Please post your considered comments. I'd like to see some left-right rapprochement, and mutual understanding. (Nah, bugger that. Let the venom flow! But remember that what you say may one day have you up before some Standards Board, and if I'm heading it, you're toast).

Cultured Dave wrote:
>The Magistrate's Blog, Emerald Bile (Ulster), and
Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry could all make the
list.

Thanks Dave. I missed the Sitemeter icon at The Magistrates Blog, because it was right at the bottom. Don't know how I missed the one at Chase Me Ladies. Didn't think to check out ol' Ball Bag. Good spot.

Mark Kaplan wrote:

>I'm currently averaging about 120 hits per day, but perhaps you average the figures over the year?

Christ, how would I manage that? I mean.... yes of course I do, using my sophisticated mathematical knowledge, and year-long preparation for the research behind this blog.

Seriously Mark, let me know the name of your blog. Your name rings a bell, but after looking at thousands of sites I'm all shagged out mentally.

Mark at Cage of Monkeys tells me that he gets 138 hits a day. But I also see that he's Welsh. 138 hits from your Mum doesn't count, Mark. (Actually, looking at Mark's stats, they're almost all Google and Yahoo searches. What the hell's the story there, fella? Mum gone mad?)

Thanks also to the tons of people who e-mailed today. I shall update tomorrow, rather than next year as I originally planned. And I shall try to be accurate*, despite the frivolous tone of this blog.

PLUS Stay turned for Normblog revelations!

*Except where this conflicts with the demands of humour.

P.S. It's Andy at Cage of Monkeys, nor Mark.

The British Blogs Top Ten

2005-02-20T13:27:00.000Z

This blog will chart the most popular British blogs, based on their stat page figures. This means that those blogs who don't have publicly accessible stat pages don't make the chart. Which means Samizdata, reputedly the most popular British blog, won't appear, and tons of others won't either. All I can say to them is, if you want to be in the Top Ten, put your stats up, or make them publicly accessible. (Try Sitemeter, for example).

Here's the current Top Ten, as of Sunday 20 February, 2005:

1. Biased BBC: 1331 average daily readers
2. Policeman’s Blog: 1082
3. Tim Worstall: 1071
4. Daily Ablution: 786
5. Lenin’s Tomb: 727
6. Fistful of Euros: 683
7. Englishman’s Castle: 569
8. EU Referendum: 469
9. Stephen Pollard: 426
10. Pootergeek: 408

And the next 15:

11. Blithering Bunny: 401
12. Conservative Commentary: 348
13. Nick Barlow: 222
14. USS Neverdock: 220
15. Public Interest: 213
16. Plep: 186
17. Virtual Stoa: 169
18. Mischievous Constructions: 165
19. Blimpish: 141
20. Freedom and Whiskey: 129
21. Doctor Vee: 101
22. EU Serf: 93
23. Scottish Independence: 90
24. The Cabarfeidh Pages (Highland Warriors): 70
25. EU Realist: 54

If you know of any British sites that have bigger figures than this, which I've missed, let me know.
Mail: britishblogs-at-yahoo.com

The point of this site, I should add, is not so much to create a fuss about viewing figures, because popularity isn't everything, but to provide a convenient and interesting place where new UK blog readers might start from.

Note: Although I couldn't access The Policeman's Blog or Pootergeek's Sitemeter figures, these figures were listed at Truth Laid Bear.

Speaking of Truth Laid Bear, why not use the ranking-by-links method that Truth Laid Bear uses? Two reasons: (1) That system seems to unfairly favour those who got into the blogosphere early. In fact, many dead sites are still ranked highly on this method, because estalished bloggers rarely update their blogrolls. (2) I can't be bothered.