Wouls that be a white tornado? Can you still get Ajax cleaning fluid in Birmingham?

(for our younger readers, a reference to a very old television advert).

David Carr writes:

" initial estimates put the cost of the damage as high as £7.50."

I do wish people would stop giving WWF and Greenpeace easy publicity by quoting such outrageously inflated figures without qualification.

I have it on good authority that the total is far nearer £6.99.

Other sources are saying it caused up to £5,000 of improvements.

I blame Bush.

I hope the tornado didn't come to any harm.

One white tornado(Link) (third down)

I'm sorry people were hurt, but it sounds like it was only an F2(Link), be glad you don't get 'em like this:

Shortly before 3:45 pm CDT on 27 May (Link)97, a violent tornado struck portions of Jarrell, TX, killing 27 directly, and doing damage officially rated F5 on the Fujita Scale -- the most extreme level of tornado damage. This tornado blew some houses completely off the foundations and swept away the disentegrated remains. It also scoured asphalt from roads, killed and dismembered hundreds of cattle, stripped bark from trees and uprooted them, and bounced vehicles for up to half a mile from their parking places.

Here's a pic(Link) of one of the formerly asphalted roads

£7.50? That's more than 2 family-sized bottles of SunnyD!

On a slightly less humorous note, the scenes of people's houses being blasted looked rather more costly than, 7.50!

No-one appears to have been seriously hurt, which is a minor miracle. Tough bunch, Brummies.

Thank you Johnathan, for a post that didnt desend in to brummie bashing. As a b'ham local I can tell you that the after effects, (road closed etc) are still been felt. but as we brummies would say; "doh worrrriieeee bout it maaaate"

The sub-header was 'Frightened children'...

No! Really? Damn, I wish I was a professional journalist so I could write things like that.

Next Thursday is when we need a tornado thereabouts. Incompetent bugger, God.

So has that nice "moderate" Iman blamed Blair yet? I am shocked there are no comments about "Allah's wrath" from him either.

Wasn't tornado Cherie, then?

ADE

The Tornado was obviously Britain's response to the words of the Grand Cleric of Birmingham who called Tony Blair a liar and said that all 8 of the suicide bombers were probably innocent civilians. Unfortunately, the tornado was 'faulty' and failed to cause any damage to this man.

How long before someone blames Global Warming?

Quite remarkable that the BBC didn't work it into their report, really.

Snide: we can't have the children frightened. Something Must Be Done for the sake of the children.

Interesting blog you have.

It was a tornado of peace.

It was Haliburton's fault. They heard that their were anti war groups living in the area so they diverted a Tornado from their native Texas.

Jonathan - I'm not from Birmingham, but the callousness exhibited here is rather sickening. Out of 19 mean-spirited comments, you have been the only voice for compassion. People's homes and businesses were destroyed. Why is that comical?

Tornadoes are horrifying forces of nature and terribly frightening, apart from the havoc they leave in their wake. Those smart-ass comments were repulsive.

Right on, Verity!
This is either a sort of British humour I don't understand, or condescending callousness by the smart young worthless set. I could imagine a Sloane Ranger laughing, but am surprised at finding this on Samizdata.

You have tornados in Great Britain? I thought they were pretty much exclusive to large areas of relatively flat land with temperate climates (USA, India, China, etc.)...

What tastlessness from what I suppose your contributor thought was a "joke".

Actual damage: £7.50

Total insurance claims: £7.5 million

'Twas ever thus.

By now you've probably seen the damage it actually DID do.
Not really all that funny.

I guess from now on Samizdata contributors or editors should have to make the point of [WARNING: Potentially Black Humo(u)r Ahead, Commentators of a tender disposition may want to click away from this post].

It was harmless poking fun at Brummies, who I am quite sure have a reservoir of Tornado jokes/comments far nastier than posted above.

Julian Taylor writes:

"It was harmless poking fun at Brummies, who I am quite sure have a reservoir of Tornado jokes/comments far nastier than posted above."

As a Londoner (complete with the obligatory plate of jellied eels) who also spends a lot of time in the West Midlands, I can confirm what Julian Taylor speculates.

It is entirely reciprocal and very, very funny.

Each tribe gives as good as it gets. But woe betide the bastard who bombs either of us.

In the US, trailer parks seem to irresistably attract tornados .....

Is there some kind of correlation between US trailer parks, and this Birmingham place?

Seriously, congrats on getting through with zero casualties ... in the US, even a class 1 will manage to kill some poor schmuck by collapsing a roof on him.