By the standards of the big boys this is nothing but more than 1,000 hits in a day (790 unique visitors) is a first for me. If you want to boost your traffic, it seems you should write in support of the right to bear arms. My quite mild piece on the subject has led to the two biggest days in this blog's history, with the bulk of the visitors (to whom I bid a hearty welcome) coming from The Corner at National Review and Conservative Grapevine.

How embarrassing then, that I have had to post a factual correction to the piece in its comments thread. Not one correction in fact, but two - complete with apology. Isn't that just my luck? I make errors and everyone comes to read them. Some of the comments out there were quite entertaining:

"... a blog, by some pillock who thinks just because he mentions Tom Paine that gives him some sort of gravitas."

"Yawn.  Utter bullshit from an utter tool."

"...the looney internet blog ramblings of some disaffected 50-year-old fart..."

"If the nitwit actually read the report he'd find that the other loony blog assertions are equally worthless garbage. I suspect that he prefers unreality, however..."

All these just from The Talk at the Guardian Unlimited site. I have been called worse, and I have a long way to go before I compete with Polly Toynbee in attracting abuse. In fairness to the comrades concerned, these comments did cause me to reread a Home Office report I had cited. That's where I found footnotes which revealed the errors I had made. As I said, it's all about community, not the individual blog.