(This compo is now closed. The winner will be notified as soon as I've done fourteen other things)

Insanely, I see that the page is heading towards its five millionth visitor. That's pretty much the population of Scotland. A fact that becomes slightly spooky when one considers how large a proportion of both five millions are drunk - perhaps I ought to change the name of the page to Scotland Online.

Anyway, tradition insists we mark the upcoming event with some kind of clumsy and half-hearted giveaway. So ready your excited gasps as I announce the big five-o-o-o-o-o-o-er will receive - free; utterly, utterly free - a copy of the Serbian translation of Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. Obviously, there is one exception: if the 5,000,000th visitor happens to be able to read Serbian, then he or she will instead be lavished - free; utterly, utterly free - with a copy of A Certain Chemistry in Hebrew.

Thereby, in true TMGAIHAA fashion, joining a prize giveaway, a meaningless Internet number, and the twin centres of historic political unrest in a joyous celebratory dance.

As you can imagine, there are probably some rules. Most I intend to make up retrospectively, but one I can tell you now is that this compo can only be won by either the genuine Five Millionth Visitor or someone else. Clever Web technology that a friend of mine understands will email me when the landmark number is reached. Though I will know some verifying things about that visitor - precisely when they visited, for example, and if they had a brief affair with the partner of a work colleague late last year - I won't have their email address: I will rely on this person emailing me (HERE), announcing that they are The One, and telling me where to send the book.

Naturally, this won't happen. The actual 5M bod will almost certainly fail to notice, not be aware they can email me, be so overcome with emotion that they suffer a fatal intestinal prolapse, etc., etc. So anyone who's in the rough area - fifty-thousand this way or that, say - might as well email me and I'll get a mule to pick one at random with its hoof.

OK?

Good.