Skip to main content

Window on the World

It is always interesting checking through the viewing stats for this blog.

I see the IP address of several friends- Steve G, Steve T, Simon M and Andy W know who they are!

Tristan has left several interesting comments, as has Andrew Montford- apologies for the delay in posting some of these, I had failed to notice that they were not being e-mailed automatically for review.

On the other hand I see IP addresses from all over the place- those from the Baltic Countries are especially welcome- notably my old friend Igor, who I look forward to sharing a drink with the next time I am in Tallinn.

The latest set is particularly interesting: many from Latin America with Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico and Colombia all being represented. I have regular readers in the US, Canada (a country close to my heart as a former student there) Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Poland, Italy, Luxembourg, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium.

In the UK I see readers from Parliament and several Universities- Imperial, UCL, and various Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, York, Durham, Napier, Edinburgh and many others. Since they seem to return, I hope that they are finding something of interest! I see several colleagues in City firms and a variety of Scottish IP addresses.

Since this blog is now approaching 5000 individual page loads, I hope that this fairly small but diverse group of readers have enjoyed the rather varied mixture of my thoughts- I shall seek to refine them and hopefully make them more readable as this blog develops.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop...
Post a Comment
Read more

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Hard Frost

  After a week of slush and damp, tonight there is a hard frost in Tallinn. The general election campaign has started with the parties submitting their lists of candidates and announcing their programs. The polls seem to show a polarization of views. Although the Liberal Reform party of PM Kaja Kallas is set to remain as the largest party in the 101 seat Riigikogu, the steady rise of the far right EKRE seems to place them firmly in second place, replacing the Social Liberal Centre Party, who seem set to lose several seats. In addition to the Conservative Isamaaliit and the Social Democrat SDE, there is a fair likelihood that a new party will join these in Parliament, namely the Business/Green minded Eesti 200. The Greens and the Libertarian "Right wingers" look like they will struggle to gain seats. A Moderate Reform/SDE/E200 coalition would be a good outcome, but the numbers will have to fall just so, otherwise there remains the chance of another Centre/Isamaa/EKRE coalition...
Post a Comment
Read more