The House of Lorraine Has Never Flown So High

I'm feeling a little embarrassed right now.  I've just written yet another birthday greetings, my fifty fifth since I started this blog.  However I titled it "Birthday Greetings #54".  Why?  On going back through my blog entries over the years I found that I had given two separate birthday greetings to Francis of Lorraine of all people.  Francis wasn't even a spectacular failure like Nero.  He was just a mundane failure of the type you can run into anywhere.

Nevertheless I inadvertently saw fit to grace him with two birthday greetings while genuine talents like Marcus Aurelius have had to make do with one.  Fortunately I didn't contradict myself otherwise people may well have doubted the quality of my research on these little biographical pieces.  Allow me to assure you that my research is as good as wikipedia can make it with the added assistance of some broad but not particularly coherent reading.  If there any any mistakes I can assure you that they are simply due to laziness, disinterest or an outright desire to deceive.

Nevertheless doubling up on Francis has brought something slightly unpleasant to my mind.  None of you noticed!!  Is anybody reading this blog?  In my more fanciful moments (most of them) I like to think that people source my blog when studying history, or politics or environmental science or at least the prevalence of mental illness in today's society.  According to the hit counter there have been over thirty thousand hits on my blog since its inception only about half of which are mine.  Thirty thousand isn't actually a lot for a blog that has been going for several years and now it appears that even the handful who do read it (hi Mum) aren't actually paying close attention.

One of the most popular entries I've written in recent times was actually a write up of the latest Jurassic Park movie which I entitled "Dinosaur Snuff Porn".  I was a little surprised that this struck such a chord with the internet community until I worked out that a lot of people had googled "snuff porn" and had been directed to that blog entry by mistake.  On the one hand, thanks for the hits.  On the other hand, eww!

Still it does give me an idea.  After each movie I watch from now on I will write a blog entry with a title referring to some deeply disturbing sexual practice.  The blog hits should explode.  I just hope none of the readers can trace me.  In the meantime I will just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that I have given Francis of Lorraine probably more publicity than he ever expected and certainly more than he warranted.  Hopefully my Order of Maria Theresa is in the post.