The Chase

The Mighty Lion

Agence eureka
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Ephemera: Chasse au lion

Agence eureka's derniers découpages from 1935. Hardly politically correct today.

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Statistics: The Three Most Popular Posts

I just realized, checking in on the stats, that Martin Klasch had a hit post almost two weeks ago - on the 1st of this month to be exact. Sure there were a few comments but not a staggering amount so I had no idea.

The average number of unique visitors a day, over the last two years is 301 but during the same period three (3) posts have created some major traffic - or so I think anyway.



The first and the most popular one was The James Bond title sequences on the 21st of November 2006 - unfortunately those videos are gone from YouTube but most or all the titles can be found if you search for them. Anyway, it generated 8,691 visitors and about 20,000 "extra" visitors all together.



The second peak visible on the chart was small in comparison peaking at 2,087 (approximately 4,500 in total). The post, on the 2nd of February 2007, was this one: Desmond Dekker - Israelites. Oh yes, go ahead - you can still watch and listen to the great Mr Dekker.



And now, finally, the third "top post" and the one I began telling you about in the beginning of this post. The second most popular post ever for this blog is... *drum roll*: Lion in a sidecar! It took in about 7,500 visitors total in one week and peaking on the 1st of August (2008) at 5,065. It seems that MetaFilter was mainly responsible for spreading the word. The other times I believe it was boingboing's fault.



So, how do we wrap this post up? Why have I been reading this, you ask. Is there a conclusion or a moral to it all? Golly, what demands! Well, I don't know, maybe it makes it pretty obvious that a post need not be very elaborate or very good to be a hit. This blog has certainly had more elaborate and some better posts. That's what I think at least. But whether or not you create a hit has a great deal to do with timing and luck. But you already knew that. Thanks for reading.

PS. No I don't think this post will grab a spot in the Martin Klasch hall of fame.

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Vintage Photos: Lion in a sidecar

"This is a picture of people racing in a motorcycle and a go-cart with a sidecar with a lion in it on a vertical wall-of-death."

uploaded by wondrousstrange at
LiveJournal - Vintage Photographs

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Google Docs: The Piraeus Lion

I just had to try this Google service - Google Documents.

Vintage street art: The Piraeus Lion

The Piraeus Lion "...was originally located in Piraeus, the ancient harbour of Athens (Greece). It was looted by Venetian naval commander Francesco Morosini in 1687 as plunder taken in the Great Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire..." / "The lion was a famous landmark in Piraeus, having stood there since the first or second century AD."

"The statue, which is made of white marble and stands some 3 m (9 ft) high, is particularly noteworthy for having been defaced some time in the second half of the 11th century by Scandinavians who carved two lengthy runic inscriptions into the shoulders and flanks of the lion. The runes are carved in the shape of an elaborate lindworm dragon-headed scroll, in much the same style as on rune stones in Scandinavia. The carvers of the runes were almost certainly Varangians(*), Scandinavian mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Emperor who had been sent to Greece to put down a revolt by the local people."

"The inscriptions were not recognised as runes until the Swedish diplomat Johan David Åkerblad identified them at the end of the 18th century." / "The inscriptions are heavily eroded due to weathering and air pollution..." / "This has required translators to reconstruct some of the runes, filling in the blanks to determine what words they represented."

"Erik Brate's interpetation from 1914 is considered to be the most successful one.":

"They cut him down in the midst of his forces. But in the harbor the men cut runes by the sea in memory of Horsi, a good warrior. The Swedes set this on the lion. He went his way with good counsel, gold he won in his travels.

The warriors cut runes, hewed them in an ornamental scroll. Æskell (Áskell) [and others] and ÞorlæifR (Þorleifr) had them well cut, they who lived in Roslagen. [N. N.] son of [N. N.] cut these runes. UlfR (Úlfr) and [N. N.] colored them in memory of Horsi. He won gold in his travels."

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* "The Varangians or Varyags (Old Norse: Væringjar...)" / "...were Vikings, Norsemen, mostly Swedes, who went eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries."

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Quotes from Wikipedia. Images from Wikipedia (the drawn version and the runes copied on paper), Swedish Museum of National Antiquities, (The copy of the sculpture set indoors), mararie's Flickr photostream (The original in Venice)
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