I mentioned the other day that I was closing in on two million pageviews, and I was planning a big celebration involving a very large cash prize to the person viewing that two millionth page, but then I got distracted by some irritating but lucrative legal work and missed it. I apologize, forever-anonymous-but-still-heroic-and-greatly-appreciated viewer of the two millionth page.

Just to pick someone to honor at random, which unfortunately does not qualify for the very large cash prize, I will say thanks to the reader who visited just now from Christchurch, New Zealand, where it is already what we in the U.S. would call "tomorrow," December 3, 2010, at 9:31 a.m. his or her time.

According to Google Analytics, most visitors to this site are, unsurprisingly, from the U.S. and other countries with a historical relationship to England (including England). But visitors have come from no fewer than 201 of the world's nations, although I would be willing to concede that at least the visitors from Djibouti, Tajikistan, Mali, and maybe the island of Diego Garcia (all 1 visit each) probably got here by accident. (It looks like the mystery visitor from Vatican City was here on purpose, though, because he visited three times and actually stayed for a while. He might have been doing research.)  At this point, it seems that only the people of the Republic of Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Niger, Mauritania, Western Sahara (disputed), Eritrea, Somalia (failed state), Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, the ice-choked Arctic islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen and the medieval hermit kingdom of North Korea have been spared entirely.

Wherever you may be from, thanks for reading.