A colloquity of bloggers

This week, of my favourite bloggers not only is Wu Wei in Tbilisi, staying in a hotel in a road about 100 metres below my flat, but also Carpetblogger, who is staying in another hotel about 400m along the road from me. Wu Wei reports on life (and very occasionally work) out East and in the UK; Carpetblogger reports on life (and never work) out East - currently she's based in Istanbul and I'm jealous!

It makes me wonder who else I'd invite for my favourite blogger's dinner party in Tbilisi - there'd be Grannyp, who I'd have to rustle from her spot on the sunnier side in life (Tenerife?), and then there's Jessica Duchen, though I'm not sure if I could provide the necessary music background for her (but musical contacts could be arranged by the dozen...). But only if she left her Korngold at home!! And finally, of course, operachic, if we could only prise her out of the opera world gossip scene. There ain't much here, though Montserat Caballe is singing here on Friday - an I'm Not Going! Not sure that we could offer many chic shopping opportunities in Tbilisi - maybe some psychedelic tights, an enamelled cross, or a felt skirt?

Weird. All these people are women. That ain't much fun for a dinner party! Then again, with these women....

What's with my stats?

My reader stats have suddenly increased and doubled today compared to a couple of weeks ago. But I see no new links to my blog anywhere, apart from Wu Wei's blog last week. Not sure why this happened.

Wu Wei arrived in Tbilisi a week ago and seems to have had her head down working all the time (just now she is typing away furiously on her laptop in the hotel a couple of hundred metres down the road from me).....It's funny - we met in Vilnius 6 years ago, have been drifting all over the place since, and now are together again in Tbilisi. It's nice to have a friend around.

What she may need to learn about Tbilisi, and which we only learned a week or two ago, is that what appears to be a Government panic, requiring the consultants to do huge amounts of work and give tons of advice, often over the weekend (the EU does not allow this, thanks!) and in the evenings, is forgotten a couple of weeks later because personnel have changed. 'What is that you are talking about?' their successor asks. Sometimes it's almost good not to do anything - but of course, you don't know that in advance.

Anyway, looking at the details of my stats - I come up with some strange searches. Someone looked for 'porno sauna' which lead them to a book review; someone else looked for 'Lithuanian pussies' which lead them to a story about the miaowing kind in Istanbul. Perhaps not what he had in mind. Quite a few had an interest in 'Turkish men' (don't we all?).

And then there were the usual music-related searches, including a link recently from a blog on the Usher Hall renovation in Edinburgh which picked up on some throw-away comment I had made about the hall's atmosphere during the festival.

Ms Melancholy, on the other hand, seems to have lost some readers from her delightful, and very interesting, blog. Surely they haven't all come here?

Pssst!

A comment along these lines found itself below my post about Balanchine; I realised that I could click on it which lead me here (where you can add your vote!). This website, calling itself 'a fist ful of euros' has me down for the annual Satin Pyjama award, in the category of 'Most under-appreciated weblog'. Thanks, David, for pointing it out to me.

Wow! Not sure how to take it? Does it mean that my blog is wonderful but not enough people read it? Or does it have one of the smallest continuing readership?

And who nominated me? Thanks, whoever it was!