Fox (n): carnivore of genus vulpes; crafty person; scavenger; (vb) to confuse; -ed (adj): to be drunk.
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Monday 25 April 2011

Twitching the burqa.

IF I stood on a street corner shouting my thoughts I'd never know what bits people noticed; at least, not until a policeman spoke to me about it.

But after just one week of writing this blog I can see, via the Blogger statistics, that so far 11,000 different people have read my ramblings. Presumably just to see if I was going to break one or all of the 30-odd celebrity injunctions currently in force, but you're all very welcome just the same.

I can see some people found me by Googling "who is fleet street fox?", others via my Twitter and Facebook pages or other websites (all linked on the right), and that two people came across me by doing a search for "Kate Middleton bland" which at least shows I'm not the only one bored by our future queen.

Readers are generally from the UK, but there are a lot in the US, Canada and Australia. Hundreds of hits have come from Belgium, Russia, Israel, France and Germany. There seems to be quite a lot of interest from the Philippines (Sex tourists? Gap year students?) and this week, for some reason, 30 hits from Poland.

But by far the most interesting fact is the 212 people who have read me in Iran.

How did they find me? Are they among the rich elite who have enough internet access to browse, is there a Jeremy Clarkson fan base in Tehran, or is there that much worldwide interest about which famous actor used the services of Wayne Rooney's hooker?

Perhaps it's the Savak secret police creeping about behind the national firewall. Maybe the mullahs are looking for evidence of how corrupt and wicked the West can be and think a female tabloid hack represents all that is satanic in the world.

But I hope a few of them are reading from behind a burqa. I hope a 30-something divorcee in London bumbling around and jabbering on about silly things does something for them, although heaven knows what it might be.

It's probably the Top Gear fan club. But, whether it is or not, if anyone's reading in Tehran - salam, welcome. Take off the burqa and sit down with the rest of us.