The following is an absolutely true story.

Last year for 1st April I published a photograph of a yellow swan on Wyenot News. Despite my retraction a week later however, to this day people still arrive in Ross looking for 'General Custard'. Today, Monday 3rd April 2006, I was walking the riverbank photographing kingfishers and other wildlife when a couple, I guess in their late fifties / early sixties, noticed my interest in the wildlife and approached, asking me if I have ever managed to spot the yellow swan.
'There is no yellow swan,' I replied, 'that was my April 1st joke last year.'
'You're kidding me,' said the man. We've spent a whole year looking out for it!'

Remembering the tale of the boy who cried wolf, perhaps at this point I had better point out that the Ross-on-Wye otters and all of the other nature articles are absolutely genuine.

The tourist season is obviously on its way with visits to the 'Accommodation' page of Wyenot.com taking off in a big way, as is expected during the month of March. It has returned to being the second most visited page of the site after the home page.

Below I have shown a summary of visitors to the web site for the past twelve months plus a separate summary for the month of March 2005. As can be seen, visits doubled during March 2006 compared to the same month in 2005 and this has been a trend since I first put the web site on line - visitor figures have at least doubled every year so far. March 2006 showed well over half a million hits and over one hundred thousand page views. Over the past twelve months the site has shown 5.38 million 'hits'.

The annual renewal rate by advertisers on Wyenot.com has remained at 100% with advertisers reporting significant business as a direct result of their advertising pages. Many have told me that Wyenot.com has proved to be not only the most cost effective but by a long way, the most successful form of advertising they have taken.

'Wyenot News' was the third most visited area of the site during the month, followed closely by the A to Z Index, Pubs, Street Map and Shops pages.

On the average day during March, 3,248 pages of the web site were viewed by 1,216 people!

Althuogh I otfen mkae msitkaes mesylf, I thnik that sepllnig is vrey imptroant, othrewsie poelpe canont raed waht you hvae wriettn.

Having evolved over millions of years, the human brain is a remarkable machine and provided you have seen a word written down before and know it, as long as the first and last letters are in the correct place, the brain can sort out the letters in the middle without too much difficulty. They do have to be the correct letters, of course.

tHE sHaPe OF a wOrD is alSo IMpoRTaNt, sO tHIs sENTenCe iS pRoBaBly mOrE DiFfIcUlT tO rEAd tHAn tHE fIRsT.

If you have a local news item or story of local interest which you would like to appear on Wyenot News you are very welcome to submit it by email, telephone or by post.

Please advise as early as possible if you would like me to photograph your local event so that I can put it in my diary. This service is offered strictly on a first come, first served basis as some days, especially during holiday weekends, can get extremely busy.

Contacting Wyenot News:

Email: please click here.

Telephone: 01989 763217

Postal address: Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY

Although it is fine to submit if you are submitting an event taking place in a pub / shop / restaurant etc., please make sure that your story does have real news value and is not simply an advertisement for your business. It would be unfair to those who support Wyenot.com and Wyenot News by advertising to publish blatant advertisements disguised as editorial material.