The Chinese Menace Revisited

I woke up this morning and, as I usually do, made it my first job of the day to check the web traffic. The numbers were quite high or, at least, higher than they've been recently, so I smiled and felt better about the world. A wash, a shave, a spot of breakfast later, I checked again and this time cast my eyes down the list of visitors. I began to wish I hadn't bothered to shave. My visitors were from the UK, then Germany, then China, then the US, then China, then China, then China, the US, China, China, Malta, China, China, the UK, the US, China, China, China... About half of the morning's visitors were from China. They've clearly not blocked me, despite my constant support for a free Tibet and taking every opportunity to mock their leadership. How many times must I mention that Xi Jinping likes to wear pink knitted sweaters and ballet pumps?

I don't have a problem with Chinese visitors reading my blog but I know these hits aren't from real Chinese visitors. Actually, now I come to think about it, I *never* get real Chinese visitors. These are Chinese computers hitting my server for reasons unknown and which makes me suspect that these machines up to no good. I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again: China is already at war with the rest of the world. It's just that the rest of the world haven't been told by their respective governments.

Even as recently as a few years ago, Chinese SPAM was relatively rare. Russia was the main culprit. The last twelve months, though, China seem to have become the most maleficent force on the internet. I'm beginning to wonder if governments shouldn't actively get together and sever China's connection to the rest of the internet. In the meantime, I'm stuck adding blocks of IP addresses to my website's firewall to block further traffic. I know my statistics will plunge and will make me consider, yet again, quite why I bother writing a blog read by so few people, but this can't go on. The Chinese are playing a terribly cruel trick: they're making me think this blog is almost popular. Those evil devils!

No cartoons today. I've drawn three but now I have The Gag Machine working, I've been churning out good ideas and I intend to send a few off this week to see if I can get any of them published. Until they get rejected, they won't appear on the blog.