Earthquake!

Oh, the horror. Oh, the devastation. Oh, the human tragedy. This morning, at around 1am, an earthquake hit the East Coast of England. Somewhere in Lincolnshire, actually. It measured 5.5, making it "Moderate" or "able to cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At most slight damage to well-designed buildings."

Which is pretty accurate. On the new the morning, there were terrible scenes of houses whose chimney had fallen from the roof. There were bricks in the street for god's sake! Some even landed on cars! Oh, I've never seen such horror.

Of course, I jest. Yes, it's terrible for the insurance industry who'll have to pay to make good the minor damage across a small area, and for those people whose premiums will go up as a result, but the way the media are reporting it you'd think it was the Great San Francisco quake of 1906. I mean - get a grip people, there (according to Wikipedia) around 800 of this size quakes a year. And almost 200 more powerful.

One VoxPops said "I was watching TV in the lounge when I heard a big bang and a the house started to shake. I rushed outside and other people felt it too. We thought it was an earthquake. I checked the house but it was okay. I thought it might have been a terrorist attack at first."

WHAT??? Firstly, what were you watching at 1am. There's bugger all on except for XXXHousewives. And secondly, a terrorist attack? You're in Hull. No offence to anyone from Hull, but a residential street in a small provincial town on the east coast of England at one in the morning is hardly the sort of high profile target that today's terrorists look for, is it?

It's media hype gone mad. I blame Climate Change.

As for me, did I feel it? I'll admit that I didn't. I was tucked up in bed sound asleep-until Mrs Nobbs woke me to tell me she thought the next door neighbours were going at it a bit too vigorously because the floor was shaking. I think it was a hint. I went back to sleep.