For twenty-three consecutive Februaries on diamond geezer I've kept myself busy by counting things. Ten different counts, to be precise, in a stats-tastic 28-day feature called The Count. You therefore won't be surprised to hear that I intend to do exactly the same again this year, indeed you'd be more surprised if I didn't. Expect to read a post of comparisons and contrasts at the end of the month.
I kicked off this annual exercise back in 2003 which means I already have over two decades of thrilling historical data to analyse and this'll be a 24th datapoint. Here's my selected list of ten countables for February 2026.
Count 1: Number of visits to this blog
(Feb 2025 total: 97446) [↑4% on 2024]
Count 2: Number of comments on this blog (Feb 2025 total: 764) [↓11%]
Count 3: Number of words I write on this blog (Feb 2025 total: 38040) [↓3%]
Count 4: Number of hours I spend out of the house (Feb 2025 total: 161) [↑7%]
Count 5: Number of nights I go out and am vaguely sociable (Feb 2025 total: 4) [↑33%]
Count 6: Number of bottles of lager I drink (Feb 2025 total: 4) [↑4]
Count 7: Number of cups of tea I drink (Feb 2025 total: 126) [↑2%]
Count 8: Number of trains I travel on (Feb 2025 total: 163) [↓38%]
Count 9: Number of steps I walk (Feb 2025 total: 427000) [↓6%]
Count 10: The Mystery Count (Feb 2025 total: 0) (again)
I've also been counting something in January, which is how many days I set foot in each of the London boroughs.
| | | | | Enf
7 | | | |
| | | Harr
7 | Barn
7 | Hari
7 | WFor
7 | | |
Hill
7 | Eal
7 | Bren
7 | Cam
7 | Isl
7 | Hack
7 | Redb
7 | Hav
7 |
Hou
7 | H&F
7 | K&C
7 | West
7 | City
7 | Tow
31 | New
28 | B&D
7 |
|
| | Rich
7 | Wan
7 | Lam
7 | Sou
7 | Lew
7 | Grn
7 | Bex
7 |
| | | King
7 | Mer
7 | Cro
7 | Bro
7 | | |
| | | | Sut
7 | | | | |
In a 31-day month that is ridiculous behaviour, sorry. We ascertained earlier that some of you have never been to Havering, Sutton, Barking & Dagenham and/or Harrow, but I've been to all of them exactly seven times since the start of the year! I like to do something mammoth in January - in 2024 it was riding every bus route and in 2025 it was visiting every z1-3 station - so 2026 is fairly tame by comparison. But rest assured I will not be keeping this up into February, it's time to count other things instead.
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