What the devil...?

In September last Melancholicus installed on Infelix Ego a device called NeoCounter.

This device is one of many handy tools that measure and log internet traffic such that one has some idea where one’s visitors are from.

Noticing today that one of his most recent visitors pushed the number of countries from which his blog has been browsed since September up to the grand total of 60, Melancholicus waited eagerly to see the identity of the new country.

To say that it surprised him when he found it would be an understatement.

Which country would that be, then?

One that isn’t a country.

Look at the image to the left, paying particular attention to the spotlit area.

Just what is that, between Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates?

Since when, gentle reader, is Europe a country, any more than Africa or Asia or, for that matter, Antarctica are countries?

This is most sinister.

But wait, there’s more! The flag accompanying this ‘country’ is a circlet of twelve gold stars on a blue field. This is the flag of a political, economic and increasingly judicial entity known as the European Union.

So is this just an error on the part of NeoCounter? For the European Union is not itself a country. It is not a state, although the officials presiding over its institutions are tirelessly striving to elevate it to statehood. It is a legal construct composed of twenty-seven separate and independent member states. These twenty-seven states are the countries, and all except Luxembourg, Lithuania and Slovenia have registered hits on Melancholicus’ counter.

So what is this ‘Europe’? The EU has no right to statehood alongside its twenty-seven members, much less to statehood at their expense.

Melancholicus has not so far tracked down the origin of that (so far) isolated visit, but would not be surprised if it proceeded from an IP address in some bureaucratic office in Strasbourg or Brussels.

But if this is indeed an indication that the commissars are trawling the blogs and indentifying troublesome commentators advocating unwelcome right-wing views—as has been threatened—would they not do better to keep their surveillance secret?

They’ll catch more baddies that way.