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Never forget

I ain’t even made this picture myself. I nicked it off Imgur.

Yeah, our giant megahellstorm was a bit of a fizzle. It was a pretty good blow — and heavier up toward London, where there were a few fatalities — but for these parts, it wasn’t even the worst storm of 2013.

Poor, poor journalists — they had a cool name picked out and everything. The St Jude’s Day storm! See, today was the feast day of St Jude, who is the patron of lost causes. Awesome, amirite?

The overreaction and consequent razzing are all down the to the Great Storm of 1987, which was the most powerful storm to land here in centuries (which had hurricane force winds but was not technically a hurricane, as those bastards are tropical). The size of the storm caught everyone by surprise and the Met Office has overreacted ever since (same thing happened in Rhode Island after the Blizzard of ’78).

There were casualties and disruption, but the main thing people remember is the trees. Brits like their trees, and millions and millions of them were lost in the storm. Including ancient and wonderful trees, like six of the seven oaks in Sevenoaks.

I hear people bring up that storm all the time. But mostly, I hear them bring up Michael Fish, who gave this forecast before the storm. He’s never lived it down. It’s one of Britain’s favorite memes.

I know, I know. A completely unremarkable moment, even in light of the storm, but you have to understand: the English.

October 28, 2013 — 9:21 pm
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