Most popular posts of 2014

Since we’re approaching the end of 2014, here’s my usual list of the most-read posts on this website.

This represents only the material published right here, not things I write for money elsewhere and which have a far higher readership. It doesn’t include traffic to the home page, the about page, or anything else on the site that isn’t an actual blog post.

  1. Updated: Christopher Pyne clearly says the C-word? Nope. Did Christopher Pyne drop the c-bomb in Parliament or not? I first thought yes, then changed my mind. But I’m wondering now whether I want to change it back.
  2. May Reza Berati be the last, Mr Abbott. I was in a mood that night, but I think the writing stands up.
  3. Operation Sovereign Borders, sinister and banal. My reaction to Mick Kinley, acting chief executive officer of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shrugging off concerns that Australia removes safety equipment from the lifeboats we put asylum seekers on before telling them to go home.
  4. Adventures in Identity: Still struggling with Google+, from January.
  5. Guilty of being a teenager in a public place, in which I kick off about the actions of the police in Mosman.
  6. Algorithms and the Filter Bubble, Take 3, being the recording of my guest lecture at UTS in April. This reminds me that I haven’t posted the updated version from the second half of the year. Oops.
  7. Tone-Deaf Abbott no statesman, never will be, my comment on the Prime Minister’s message on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
  8. Announcing 5at5, my new daily email letter, which explains itself.
  9. The 9pm Shire, one of my favourite episodes of The 9pm Edict podcast.
  10. A loving profile of Tony Abbott, which simply embeds the video of American TV host John Oliver’s roasting of Abbott.

And here are the 10 most-read posts of 2014 that weren’t written in 2014.

  1. So this is human sexuality? Dating from 2008, this is just a page full of sexual terms compiled from spam. I guess it’s full of Google juice.
  2. Common Ground run by a dangerous cult? Another one from 2008, triggered by concerns I had about the organisation that runs the Common Ground cafe in Katoomba and, in mobile form, various community events including Sydney’s Royal Easter Show.
  3. Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on! My infamous expletive-laden post from 2011.
  4. More Steve Irwin jokes, a depressing message about human nature from 2006
  5. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way). This amusement from 2007 has made a comeback, now that Julie Bishop is Australia’s foreign minister. This post has always been the number one Google search result for “neocon sex kitten”, which I count as one of my life’s achievements.
  6. Vodafone, I just don’t trust you, a complaint from 2010 that represents a view I had then in relation to certain billing issues, but which I certainly don’t hold now.
  7. What’s wrong with used knickers? What indeed? This is from 2007.
  8. Which are the best Australian political blogs? The question was asked in 2008, but there were few answers. I guess people still ask the question, and this page does have that question on it, hence the traffic.
  9. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000. I know that most of the traffic to this post is generated by military geeks wanting to see the photograph of the Australian SAS soldier standing watch over a MiG-25 Foxbat, one of many found buried in Iraq.
  10. Country music fans have highest suicide rate, being a brief note on some “science”.

If you’d like to compare this with previous years, well, you can.

My selection of what I think are my ten best posts for the year will appear on Wednesday.