Lies, Damn Lies

Extreme weather

I love it when the news covers Britain's "extreme weather" because they start sounding like local news services. There was an earthquake in Kent today, which killed... well no-one. But a woman did get taken to hospital with a minor head injury! A couple of quotes that amused me

Chief Superintendent Ally Hope said: "Given the time this happened and the number of people that were about we should be genuinely thankful that so few people were hurt."

I always like it when something fairly inconsequential happens, and someone says "imagine if it HADN'T been inconsequential!"

Paul Hatton, 38, of Folkestone, said he and his brother Neil initially thought the tremor was caused by an explosion.
He said: "I was upstairs and my brother was downstairs and I heard a bang and thought that a lorry had crashed into something or that there had been a gas explosion.
"I went outside and could smell a bit of gas and there were lots of people outside."

I also like eyewitness reports of these kind of events, because they are incredibly dull. This, story, incidentally, is the big headline on the bbc news website.

EDF Energy said it had managed to restore electricity to most of the several thousand homes left without power in the Folkestone and Dover area.
Ch Supt Hope said that the major transport infrastructure in the area also appeared to have escaped damage.
"The information I have is that the ferry ports are running normally, and that the Channel Tunnel is running normally," he said.

Everything is absolutely fine! I like the way rather than saying that no major services were affected by this, they list various things that are all running fine.

Of course, no news is almost always better than actual news, which usually involves people dying, so I probably shouldn't complain. Still, I think it's pretty funny.

posted by Mr K @ 3:04 pm