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Caroline Dutton  RSS Feed RSS feed | About
We’re a nation of drama queens

SO DID the earth move for you on Wednesday? Me too.

Although, I've got to admit, not enough to persuade me to actually open my eyes to investigate what on earth was making the handles of our bedroom chest of drawers rattle like crazy.

"Go back to sleep, it's nothing," I sleepily told my boyfriend, secretly thinking "What a drama queen" after he'd sat up in bed and declared there was an earthquake and he was going to turn the light on to check if everything was OK.

He had the last laugh the next morning when we switched on the news and were greeted with the "Earthquake hits Britain" headlines.

Mind you, the way everyone's been harping on about it, you'd have thought we were in California's San Fernando Valley where residents bolt down everything that moves, not in Lancashire where most of us experienced a few seconds of vibrations and nothing more traumatic than a knocked-over ornament.

The media wasn't any better. It was obsessed, with every single national newspaper screaming earthquake-related pun headlines on its front page.

The Sun typically found a couple who said they were having a "sexy cuddle" at the time and felt the earth move.

You've got to admit it, though, our collective reaction to Wednesday's earthquake was nothing if not typically British.

For when it comes to natural phenomena we are a nation of over-reacters of the highest order.

Thanks to our position on the globe, we Brits enjoy pretty consistent weather conditions all year round.

Compared with the rest of the world we have mild winters and cool summers, plenty of rainfall, green fields and the odd spot of sunshine if we're lucky in the summer. No extremes either way.

But when something out of the ordinary does happen, boy does it knock us sideways.

A little bit of snow and we're floored! Cars skid all over the show, schools close for the day and fools who try walking home from the pub with no coat on almost freeze to death.

I bet our Canadian cousins are laughing their snowboots off at us.

Over there, when temperatures drop to the minus 20s and snowdrifts leave 4ft of snow piled up against their front doors, they just shovel a path, dig their snowchains out of the garage for their cars and get on with it. No bother.

We're the same with hot weather. The first glimpse of sunshine and you see men stripped to the waist and girls in bikini tops on the streets.

Forget sunblock, our milky flesh hasn't seen the sun since last June in Tenerife and we'll be damned if we're wasting this opportunity, third degree burns or not.

As the saying goes, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Be it natural disasters, weather conditions or whatever you like, us Brits are such drama queens.

While our European cousins accept their fate with a shrug and a shot of espresso, we panic and go over-the-top.

Still, our way is more fun. At least it gives us something to talk about.

2:51pm Saturday 1st March 2008

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Posted by: Nostradamous, B/burn on 11:30am Tue 4 Mar 08
Hey you!who do you think you are calling a drama queen?..lol

Your dead right though..
Posted by: Nostradamous, B/burn on 11:35am Tue 4 Mar 08
BTW Caroline have you been reading Shuiab's blog..lol..i think you nicked this one,you do put it over slightly better though..lol
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