Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The journalist Claud Cockburn was, among other things, famous for having won a competition when he worked as a sub on the Times in the early 1930s for the most uninteresting headline. It was "Small earthquake in Chile, not many hurt". I quote from memory. I always had a sneaking feeling that it was unfair to the southern hemisphere and would have been a lot more interesting if you had been in Chile. Now we have had our own small earthquake. We have a creaking bookcase in our bedroom and were woken by it emitting a continuous high-pitched sort of wheezey-shake which then stopped. I got up to take a look, then went back to sleep. Uninteresting? North Londoners woken by very small earthquake, no way! It must be an omen. Were earthquakes British? I think not. Was this a new value shuddering down the country's spine? Was it a strictly English earthquake? Was it caused by too many immigrants? Will the country ever be quite the same? Will they even be making fun of us in Chile?
Small earthquake shakes UK not many hurt
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Comments
Next time you are shaken in the night Charlie...
OK Ray - just for you.
This is typical, an earthquake that only affects England. No doubt the Scots got to sleep quietly in their beds that we pay for. How typical of Gordon Brown, no doubt he will be claiming this as a great British disaster when it was an English disaster.
How's that?
Ray, you worried me. I've checked the insurance policies, and you are right. There is no cover for a Scot breaking wind. And i've now got a mortgage too via his calmer successor and fellow mortgagees. But as we are all sharing the risk, we'll all be all right, will we not? Especially with this cat which has nae fat, that wisnae me, wha didnae see, for nae being there when he was.
Before they get the chance to let rip again, the only cover left will be a bigger tent, just for all of us and not just some this one lasting time of ours. A mail order catalogue won't serve to get it, even with cash vouchers stamped 'vote here' or devalued, discredited, false promissory manifesto notes.
How about going back to a future of a Confederation of independent nation states, with equal representation at our self-governing levels of country, province, principality, duchy and islands? It could easily evolve from the Council of the Isles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Isles), in recognition and realisation of its aim 'to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands' ?
What could be greater than the sum of those parts, sharing our sovereignty in our mutual interests of kith and kin in our family of nations and nations of families? And a sustainable sovereign peoples fund held by us in trust to us, funded by proceeds husbanded from all the resources of our surrounding seas, and used for the commonweal, much like the community ownership of land and assets should have rendered in the past? Like here for example: http://communitypeople.typepad.co.uk/youscotland_guest_blog/2007/10/index.html
And, of course, there is the folk from the remaining British Overseas Territories (see map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_overseas_territory). Perhaps it might be their settled will too in self-determination to join the Confederation as it replaced the UK state we are in within the Commonwealth (see map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations), serving to promote 'democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism, and world peace'.
Apple pie in the sky or vision? Not Union v Independence, not more Devolution (Gordon Brown maybe) v Evolution, not Home Rule (Wendy Alexander in 2011 if he fails in 2010 at the latest) v Self Rule, not top down, somewhat decentralised power retained to divide and rule Federation, but bottom up, truly decentralised, power sharing (not least Defence & Security) in a Confederation of equals with Independence as a prerequisite. Not a re-arrangement of the deckchairs on the Britannic, but a looser, interdependent arrangement here at home and abroad too as well as party to a similarily confederal EU in a globalised world. A reunifying relationship of all our peoples and diasporas, everywhere.
Not sure? Ask around. Citizens' Constitutional Conventions wrenched from the grasping hands among the self-serving political elites in each of our countries would be the best way to find out what we wish our constitutional future to be: Federation or Confederation in this union state here and union yet without supra national status there. Referenda will be needed to decide the outcome, and to the new Constitutions thereafter, but we will know what we are voting for this time, because we will have written, deliberated, determined and decided among ourselves what it might be, subject to our preferences on the days we chose together.
To get going, we need a Referendum right now on the Treaty before us. We need to say 'no', but perhaps 'maybe' if they get back in 2009 to all of us in Europe with a truly Confederal Constitution Treaty. After all, it's what the EU is. Like it or not, the French and Dutch have already said no to the Federal version. We should be saying no too meanwhile to any sole EU competence: the one at sea is a cap in contradictory handed extra-territorial mugging. And no too to any kind of coercive majority voting. What happened to agreeing to disagree and letting others get on with it if they wish, especially if we might when asked?
Holyrood has already voted for a UK wide Referendum on the Treaty (thinking ahead, Labour MSPs abstained). With the rebirth of democracy at large, Westminster turkeys should be careful what their whips wish them to vote for.
Yes, I've been watching "Primary Colours" again, but thinking rainbow to re-enlighten us all. This cratus of the demos is all that is left and right. Ain't that so Obama? Sovereingty and Confederacy: the antidote to Unions' Blues. Liberty, equality, humanity for all our sakes. And yes, we can.
PS. What was he doing at Market Rasen anyway? Was the epicentre near the racecourse finishing post?
*Sigh*
The earthquake was, obviously, caused by the Labour government's permissive stance on homosexuality. I can't imagine what could lead you to any other conclusion. Apart from reason, logic, and so on.
i think it was scary coz lots of pple could of gt injurd an som could of died .... so mak it stp plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sleepless at 1 am, i was alone blogging when the earth shook for me !
The 3 females next door snored on. I woke them, thoughtlessly thinking we had had a ram raid. Together, behind me, we ventured downstairs on all 8 feet, the humans armed with a floor brush (me) and toilet toll terminator sans the paper (herself). The puppies seemed unconcerned at being fed in the middle of the night.
Nothing, nowt at all.
They went back to bed, yawning to cover their smiles and bonus biscuits.
I sat down at the computer again. An alert told me there had been an earthquake some 100 miles south. I left it 'til morning to tell them and fell asleep.
Moral: If the earth shakes for you in the middle of the night and the herself, dogs and burglar alarm do not go off with the light on, it probably is an earthquake.
How many people were engaged in homosexual activies with an immigrant at the time?
That's what I want to know...
Isn't it a tremor, rather than a quake, and is there any difference really?
I'm sure the Scots are to blame, or someone will tell us that we are!
"Next time you are shaken in the night Charlie…"
I can confirm that I was not engaged in homosexual activities with an immigrant at the time of the quake... alas!
sure it waz charliemarks
i did not feel it im in milton keynes right now
as I said - I wish it was me that caused it...
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