Keeping a blog is bringing out all my trainspotter tendencies. For instance, I spend a probably unhealthy amount of my time looking at my web statistics to see how many hits the blog has had, and so on. The bit that really fascinates me though is the referring searches that bring web surfers to the blog. A cursory look today shows the usual Google searches for 'Charkin' and even for 'Charkin blog', which just goes to prove that new-fangled ideas like 'viral marketing' really do work. But it also reveals the interests so common to us all right now - for example the number of searches on 'e-books' or 'digital publishing'. Perhaps more interestingly it conclusively proves that cricket is the new football with searches for 'Wisden' rating highly. One lone search saddened me to my boots, though - the one looking for 'Elsevier mission statement.' But I guess the most disappointed searchers will have been all those looking for 'condom.'