The day I took on an England fast bowler

Exclusive! Watch me face a ball from England fast bowler Glynis Hullah, as I reported in 1976 on the England Women's (or Ladies' as we used to say in those days) cricket team's preparations to face the Australians https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-16021976-england-ladies-cricket-team-practising-edgbaston

Brexitwatch: MPs - you're out of excuses. Time to resume your jobs

It is the duty of MPs to act in the interests of the UK. Many, perhaps most, regarded this duty as suspended after the Brexit referendum. Though the vast majority knew leaving the EU would damage the UK, they decided to obey the result of the referendum, even though it was explicitly advisory and non-binding, and even though it was set up and conducted in a thoroughly undemocratic way.

Readers of this blog will know I disagreed profoundly with this analysis. But if you agreed with it, the referendum result committed the government to one thing only: that we should ‘leave the EU’. That was the only thing we voted on. That duty has been discharged. We left on January 31, and MPs, therefore, no longer have any excuse for ignoring the national interest.

Any version of Brexit makes us poorer than we would have been if we had stayed in the EU, but the most damaging way to leave is ‘no deal’ – without any agreement. (No doubt worried that people were beginning to realise this, Johnson and Cummings have rebadged ‘no deal’ as an ‘Australia-style deal’. Australia has no trade deal with the EU.) 

A no-deal Brexit, according to the government’s own figures, will cost us around £30bn a year. That’s equivalent to about three-quarters of what we spend on schools. How disappointing then that our MPs have shown so little interest in the Conservative government’s dilatory non-negotiations with the EU, characterised by shouting slogans designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the most extreme Brexiters.

Come on MPs! This is not good enough. You can’t go on hiding behind the referendum result. It is your duty to your country to prevent a no-deal exit and to ensure the damage from Brexit is minimised as much as it can be.

The shipwreck that launched the shipping forecast

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight…..the Shipping Forecast is 150 years old today.

Its weather warnings began life as a response to the wreck of the Royal Charter off Anglesey on 26 October 1859, in which 450 people lost their lives. The disaster happened during what is considered the worst storm of the 19^th century in the Irish Sea. Altogether, 69 ships were wrecked at a cost of nearly 800 lives.

The iron-hulled steam clipper was bringing emigrants and gold back from the goldfields of Australia to Liverpool. As the ship reached Holyhead, it ran into 100 mile-an-hour winds.

The captain tried to anchor the vessel, but at half past one in the morning, only hours from the end of its long voyage, the Royal Charter was dashed onto rocks and broke in two just 50 yards from land.

As people watched from the shore horrified, an able seaman, Joseph Rogers, leapt into the waves. Three times he was beaten back, but on his fourth try, he was able to tie the vessel to a rock. Twenty-eight local men formed a human chain and managed to rescue 41 of those on board.

For more, see A Disastrous History of Britain.

Europe: stay or leave? Focus on Fact - 3

One of the curious things about the UK's EU referendum is how the anti-Europeans claim to be patriotic. In fact, not a single ones of our allies and friends abroad want us to leave Europe. The only people who want us to leave are our enemies – ISIS and President Putin.

These facts are particularly inconvenient for the Brexiters because they claim that once we have dumped Europe, we can cosy up to the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Good luck with that one. All those countries have told us we need to stay in Europe.

If they manage to drag us out of Europe, the anti-Europeans load most of their hopes on America. So how are they preparing the ground? By insulting President Obama, and telling America to shut up. There is a worrying bullying streak to some of the Brexiters, particularly Boris Johnson and the disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox, who try to silence anyone who says anything positive about Europe.

Now they have told Obama that he must not dare express his views on the subject. I trust we can count on the president to ignore the bullies.

Diary Date - flood talk October 9

I'm giving a talk entitled 'Are floods getting worse? at Swiss Cottage Library on October 9 at 1830, based on my book Flood: Nature and Culture.  Admission free.  All welcome.   

Last year, the UK’s Environment Agency issued a record number of flood warnings, while also in the last few years, Pakistan has had its worst monsoon floods in eight decades, Thailand suffered one of the costliest inundations in history, Colombia and Brazil experienced the severest in living memory, and Australia’s prime minister declared the Queensland floods perhaps the worst natural disaster ‘in the history of our nation’.

So are things actually getting worse? I will be revealing that floods are the natural disasters humans are most likely to experience, and that some of the most ambitious structures ever built have been put up to defend us against them.

I will also be telling how stories like that of Noah’s ark, about an apocalyptic flood which almost wipes out humanity, feature in dozens of religions all over the world. Floods caused by rain, melting snow, storms, tsunamis, tides, the failures of dykes or dams, or deliberate act of war all feature.

The talk will also look at the way floods have been portrayed in films, literature and art.

Deadliest ever balloon accident?

A couple of years ago, I took a flight at dawn in a hot air balloon over Cappadocia in Turkey.  It was an unforgettably beautiful and thrilling experience, but you were always conscious that you were being kept in the air only by a roaring flame just above your head.

Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong on a flight 1,000 feet over Luxor in Egypt this morning, when a balloon caught fire, exploded and fell to the ground, killing up to 19 tourists.   Two people are thought to have survived what may have been the deadliest balloon accident ever.

An eyewitness in another balloon reported seeing people jump out of the stricken craft.  There are suggestions that it may have hit an overhead power line. 

In 2009, another balloon came down over Luxor after hitting a communications tower, but accidents are mercifully rare.  Until today, the deadliest ever was probably the mid-air collision over Alice Springs in Australia in 1989 which brought one balloon to earth with the loss of 13 lives.

The world's strongest earthquake

This day……..51 years ago saw the most powerful earthquake in recorded history, with a reading of 9.5.   Its epicentre was close to the city of Canete in Chile about 560 miles south of Santiago.

It caused tsunamis that battered the Chilean coast with waves up to 80 feet high.   Hawaii was also hit, and 35 foot high waves were recorded as far away as Japan and the Philippines.    Australia and New Zealand also experienced tsunamis. 

Chile had already suffered a smaller earthquake the previous day, and the government was trying to organise a relief effort when the big one struck.   Some coastal villages disappeared completely, while about 40 per cent of the houses in the city of Valdivia were destroyed, leaving about 20,000 people homeless.

Estimates of the total number of people killed range as high as 6,000, including more than 60 in Hilo, the main town on the ‘Big Island’ of Hawaii.    The death toll in Japan was more than 140.  

Sri Lanka - another forgotten flood

One month ago today (Jan 6, 2011), I blogged about the Philippines floods, which had been forgotten as the world watched what was happening in Australia. The world also seems to have overlooked the current monsoon floods in Sri Lanka.

At least 14 people have been killed, and more than a million have had their homes flooded. A quarter of a million are now living in shelters provided by the government. Roads and fields are under water across the east, centre and north of the island.

Those areas were also hit by floods caused by heavy rain last month, when 43 people were killed. The United Nations appealed for 51 million dollars in emergency aid to help the victims.

Perhaps the deadliest monsoon flood of all time was the one that struck India in September 1978, and was made even more disastrous by a cyclone the following month. An estimated 15,000 people were killed.

Philippine floods

While the eyes of the world have been drawn to the floods in eastern Australia, those caused by heavy rain in the Philippines seem to have passed almost unnoticed, even though at least 18 people have lost their lives.

Nearly 90,000 families have been hit in 19 provinces, and there has been severe damage to crops. The rains have also caused mudslides in four regions, and five villages in Compostela Valley have been cut off.

With further heavy rain expected, the situation could get worse. Some observers see this extreme weather as another effect of global warming.

*Full house for my talk on London’s Disasters at Shoe Lane Library in the City of London on Tuesday! Thanks to all who came.

Boat people

The deaths of at least 28 people, and possibly many more, in the shipwreck on Christmas Island is a reminder of the lengths to which people desperate to leave their country will go. A flimsy wooden boat carrying suspected asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran was dashed onto jagged rocks in very high seas.

More than forty people have been rescued, but it may be that the boat was carrying more than 100. It is believed it may have been on its way from Indonesia to Australia. The engines seem to have failed, and the craft was quickly smashed to pieces. It seems to have managed to evade detection and the alarm was raised only when local residents heard screams from the passengers.

Perhaps the biggest unofficial exodus by sea ever mounted was by the Vietnamese boat people. During the late 1970’s, an estimated 2 million fled South Vietnam as the Communists took over.

Apart from the usual hazards of taking to the ocean in small and often unseaworthy vessels, they had to run the gauntlet of pirates, and even if they made it to refugee camps, they were often ill-treated there too. An estimated half million died.

Arson

Police in Australia are questioning two men in connection with the bush fires that have killed at least 180 people, though it is not clear whether they are under suspicion of arson or looting. If many of the fires turn out to be arson, this will be one of the worst cases in recent years, though probably not as deadly as the incident on February 18, 2003, when 198 people died on an underground train in Daegu, South Korea.

The arsonist was an unemployed former taxi driver, who was apparently unhappy about the medical treatment he had received following a stroke, and the fire may have been a failed suicide attempt. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but died in gaol a year later.

A more novel punishment was handed out to an arsonist in the fourth century BC, who destroyed the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The young man was named Herostratus, and apparently did it so that, in the words of a Roman historian, “his name might be spread through the whole world”. Not only did the authorities execute Herostratus, they also forbade anyone to mention his name under pain of death. The fact that we are still writing about him 2,300 years later suggests this latter penalty was not altogether effective.

The very worst acts of arson, of course, have been committed by armed forces in wars. The Luftwaffe tried the tactic of creating a firestorm – notably in Coventry, where they killed more than 500 people. The same method was adopted with even more deadly effect by the allies, who killed more than 40,000 at Hamburg, a similar number at Dresden, and perhaps 140,000 in Tokyo.

Forest fires (3) + it's only money (3) + cricket, lovely cricket

The authorities in Australia are now saying that at least 173 people have been killed in its worst ever forest fires, but the toll seems certain to rise as the emergency services search the more remote areas. Many of those who died were trying to escape the blaze in their cars, but they were outrun by the flames which were whipped along at terrifying speed by powerful winds.

Police report some of the fires were started deliberately – crimes that amount, says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to “mass murder”. The revelation comes as a new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology says that every year more than half of the country’s 20,000 forest fires are the result of arson.

Bunch of bankers. Even though they have brought the economy close to destruction by their incompetence and greed they still want to pay themselves huge bonuses. The Royal Bank of Scotland, bailed out by £20 billion of our money wants to hand over £1 billion of it to its staff. Whose achievement was what exactly? To run the bank so incompetently, it is now broke.

Still bankers must be quaking in their boots. Labour has got tough! It’s going to, er, set up an inquiry into bankers’ pay. And this is the really scary bit – the inquiry will be chaired by – wait for it – a banker! Nor is there going to be any hanging about – if all goes well, Sir David Walker will be reporting his findings....by the end of the year. How many billions of our money will have gone down the bonus drain by then?

Not sure how much Labour was planning to spend on Sir David’s inquiry, but I’m prepared to do the job for a fiver, and I can report right now. No bonus of any description should be paid to any person working in any bank bailed out by the taxpayer until all the money has been repaid.

Cricket, lovely cricket. If you’re still smarting from England’s dismissal for 51 at the hands of the West Indies, see my blog of January 28th.

Forest fires - 2

The death toll in Australia’s forest fires (see yesterday’s blog) has now reached at least 93, making them the deadliest in the country’s history. Not surprisingly, many firefighters are exhausted, and police say they some suspect some of the fires were started deliberately. Some towns have suffered severe damage, with one burned to the ground, and hundreds of homes have been destroyed.

As I noted yesterday, the number killed, mercifully, is well below that seen in some American forest fires. Apart from the worst of all at Peshtigo in Wisconsin in 1871, up to 1,000 people perished in Minnesota and Wisconsin in October 1918, and perhaps 800 died in 1894 in fires that raged over 160,000 acres of Minnesota, destroying six towns.

Forest fires

Firefighters in Australia are battling dozens of forest fires across Victoria and New South Wales, spawned by one of the worst heatwaves the country has ever seen, with temperatures set to reach 117°F (47°C) this weekend. (I wrote on Monday about the deaths the heat had caused http://disasterhistorian.blogspot.com/2009/02/heatwaves.html.) The fire service is using water bombs from the air, and thousands of volunteers are helping them on the ground.

Australia’s worst forest fires came 26 years ago on 16 February, 1983 – “Ash Wednesday”, killing 47 people in Victoria and 28 in South Australia. The dead included 17 firefighters. Over 300,000 sheep and 18,000 cattle also perished.

Perhaps the worst forest fire of all time was the one that devastated Peshtigo and other lumber towns on the banks of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, USA on October 8, 1871. Because the blaze happened on the very same night at the Great Chicago Fire, it has tended to be rather forgotten, but more than 1,150 people were killed and Peshtigo was burned to the ground. For the story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Heatwaves

At least 20 people – mainly elderly – have been killed by the heat in Australia. Victoria and South Australia had seen the thermometer rising above 40°C (104°F) for days on end, though now temperatures seem to have subsided.

It’s often forgotten that in Europe, heatwaves are probably the deadliest weather events we get. In August 2003, when the UK recorded its highest ever temperature of 38°C, it’s estimated that up to 50,000 died from the heat across the continent.

In France, where perhaps 15,000 perished, the deaths caused a political storm. Because the heatwave attacked in August, much of the country was already shut down, with doctors and government ministers off on holiday. Families were accused of abandoning elderly relatives who were only found dead alone in their apartments when neighbours noticed the smell. The director-general for health resigned, and the health minister lost his job the following year. For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Cheering photos....if you feel the need to be cheered up, see this photo collection:-

http://www.flickr.com/groups/globalworldawards/discuss/72157613123377117/

End of a civil war + cricket "disaster"

Some observers believe that the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers is nearing an end after a series of successes for government troops over the last few weeks, including the taking of Kilinochchi - the Tigers’ political and administrative centre. The Red Cross is warning that the fighting is causing a humanitarian crisis with over a quarter of a million civilians fleeing their homes. Altogether about 70,000 have been killed in the conflict over the last three decades.

On this day.....in 1887 – a sporting disaster. England were bowled out for 45 by Australia in Sydney – their lowest ever test score. George Lohmann, coming in at 9, was top scorer with 17. It proved an important contribution. Australia made 119 in their first innings. Then England replied with 184, leaving Australia needing just 111 to win, but they were dismissed for 97. Astonishingly, England had won by 13 runs. Lohmann took three wickets in each innings.