We humans are fascinated by round numbers. The year 2000 was so much more important than 1999 and sparked, as had the year 1000, all sorts of millennial dread and craziness. When a batsman reaches 100 or 150 or 200 it is deemed so much more important than 99, 101, 151 or 199. That is just the way we are. Thus please allow me a short moment of satisfaction at, I guess, around 11.30 today.
I note that the page impressions across the two websites I run TomWinnifrith.com and ShareProphets.com will today hit 15 million. The former is just over four years old and is entirely my work and is at just over 1.8 million. The latter is three years seven months old and around 75-80% of the traffic is for articles written by me so I must share the glory but it is at just under 13.2 million page impressions.
The 15 millionth time someone somewhere reads an article is in itself no more relevant than when someone read an article last week about me wandering around Sainsbury's feeling old and angry with a world going to ruin. But I suppose it is a landmark anyway and, as such, I note it.
And I also look with some satisfaction at the websites I used to run before the asset strippers sripped them out of Rivington, a process that started four years ago last May with them booting me out of the company I founded.
Well Jim Mellon I see that ALL of the website you asset stripped have been closed down. Jim may have one new website to play with but industry data shows that virtually no-one reads it. It would have been far simpler for Jim to have accepted cash bids for those assets back in 2012. It would have been far better for RSH shareholders. Instead Jim asset stripped.
What goes around comes around. As I pass another landmark I shall be thinking of you Jim. Cheers. And have a nice day.