It’s a funny thing, but I really do think I’ve been near to top form this week. And during that week, my current Twitter identity followers have dropped from 93 to 84. This might tell us all something about Twitter, I fancy.

It’s not a problem for me, as the original account (still active, but I’m not allowed to access it – only copy to it) stands at just over 2,800 people. Those followers remain extraordinarily loyal: I’m not entirely sure why, but it does point up one of the ever-present features of being an Internet Voice: churn.

‘Churn’ is the net difference between new users who arrive, and all users who leave. Most people fail to appreciate just how fluid one’s “following” is on things like Facebook, a blog, or Twitter.

For example, at The Slog there is a fairly steady following of, at a minumum, 7,000 readers; but on certain subjects – notably paedophilia, geopolitics, climate change, genuine scoops, and The Coming Crash – hits will shoot up to 20-30,000. The interesting thing is that additional readers dragged in by those topics slip away very quickly: even when the story develops and one is ahead of the herd, the interest dissipates with alarming speed.

For folks like me concerned to persuade others that ‘radical’ need not mean bonkers revolutionary syntax, fickle readers aren’t of much interest: most of them, it seems to me, are news junkies with little interest of thinking above and below the news. Their interest is in gaining an advantage, not wondering WTF is really going on…and what the ramifications of those Goings On might be.

It’s with that motivation in mind that I remain more than content with the regular 7,000 – growing at roughly 8% per annum – who never miss At the End of the Day as The Slog’s most permanent feature. Those posts are usually about natural science, personal failures, the disasters of everyday life, and – every now and then – some philosophy on the subject of vaguely Existential dilemmas. (I use the word vague there because, by definition, Existentialism is even vague about what Existentialism is…apart from the fact that it exists).

I don’t really know what one does with this information, other than offer some advice to anyone about to start up a website: screw the hits, be true to yourself – and the hits will follow.

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This morning here it was 5 degrees centigrade. For the first time since April, socks were required. But days like this make me extraordinarily happy, because they mark the transition from one season to another. When the Buddhists aver that “All things are in transition”, they are not wrong.

Sadly, this is a lesson of certainty that most human beings simply refuse to accept. As a species, we crave a life in which change is minimal and dérangement banished. A very close American friend of mine told me a few years ago, “John, Armageddon doesn’t happen”. But it does.

Every year, dozens of species here suffer Armageddon, or survival Heaven. Snails and moles are everywhere one year, and absent the next. This year, Daddy Longlegs have covered almost every wall, shield bugs ave buzzed around every bedroom, and biting flies have been at every ankle: last year, we hardly saw any. Yet our own species is convinced that these rules to do not apply to Homo sapiens. For we are ‘sapiens’, and thus above all that Jungle stuff.

Bollocks.

Our primary predators are far from defeated. Flies are immune to our insecticides, infections are immune to our antibiotics, and viruses like Ebola will spread if not enough people pay attention.

But sod all that tonight, because there is an exquisite ultra-light blue sky, devoid of clouds, mingling with our nearest star to produce a horizon first of all painted a slate grey mixed with tangerine, and then 90 seconds later a sloe-vodka slipping into darkness. Turner baby, eat your heart out.

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I leave you tonight with this flippant thought.

An anagram of eurozone is oo, un zero.

Connected at The Slog: Why Big Process really is a crock compared to Small Creative