Addendum, with thanks to UBS Arthur Cashin's recent anniversary note:
On this day in 1908, there occurred one of the greatest and certainly one of the most disastrous earthquakes in European history. It caused severe damage in much of the Mediterranean area but nowhere quite as harshly as Messina in Sicily.
Actually, even before the earthquake began, it was not a good day for Messina. Beginning the night before, a pelting heavy rain had arrived along with near gale force wind.
Now with the streets already flooded, a predawn tremor stuck Messina. It lasted about ten seconds. A few rocks fell, a few church bells rang spontaneously, a couple of foundations cracked and several statues toppled. Then the second wave hit. It was a whopping 7.5 (even pre-Richter). At its epi-center off shore it raised a tidal wave over 60 feet high (but more on that later).
This shock toppled stone structures all over town, trapping tens of thousands in the rubble and leaving the rest of the citizens in their bed clothes standing in freezing rain. There was no shelter since the public buildings were among the most devastated. The grand Cathedral collapsed. The town hall collapsed. And the wall of the prison collapsed, thus granting an unexpected post-Christmas furlough to 750 of Sicily's meanest.
Just to prove they were not out of practice they immediately set about looting the corpses; often cutting off fingers to get at the rings. Occasionally they found some people with rings who claimed not to be corpses but they were soon convinced otherwise.
As this merry band worked its way down the hillside, quake survivors fled toward the harbor just in time for the arrival of the aforementioned 60 foot tidal wave. It killed thousands of the ambulatory as well as drowning nearly everyone trapped in the rubble.
Then came the third and largest quake which managed to rupture the gas lines and set the town on fire despite the freezing rain.
Order was restored the next day when three Russian warships, on maneuvers in the area, pulled into port to help out. The Russian sailors followed an old custom of civilization called "shooting the looters" which has the uncanny effect of restoring order. When it was over it seemed the quake, the tidal wave, and the looting had killed over 90,000 people in a town of 130,000. So for 3 decades the people of Sicily referred to Messina as "La Citta Morte" (the city of the dead).
 Weather in Ellicott City, MD
...and in Betws-y-Coed, Wales
A °C/°F switch is at the top of the page.
A few miles west of Betws-y-Coed lies Mount Snowdon, which is the tallest mountain in the background to this webpage. Clicking here will take you to a webcam so you can see for yourself what the weather is like there.
{The webcam is situated at the top of Elidyr Fach, 2600ft (Grid:SH604613) just north of Snowdon, 1000ft higher (Grid:SH610544).
Don't forget to consider time zones; it could be dark in Wales even if it's not where you are}
By the way, you might like this old truism you sometimes hear from local people:
"If you can see the top of Mount Snowdon it's going to rain.
If you can't see the top of Mount Snowdon it's raining already."
I've switched from Puzzles to Stories in this column but if you enjoy the challenge of a good puzzle try my new
Journey of Rhyme and Reason.
Click on the above logo
to see the Astronomy
Picture of the Day
Click on the above logo to go to
WYSAWYG
What You See Ain't What You Get!
This Month's Story:
Brassed Off!
In view of the "Brass Monkey" weather we've been having here lately, I thought you may like to hear this interesting tale...
A man walked into an antique shop. He looked around for a while and then noticed a beautiful brass sculpture in the form of a rat. He picked up the brass rat and asked the shop owner how much it cost.
The owner said, "It'll cost you $100 for the brass rat and $1,000 for the story behind it". The man hesitated for a second and then handed over $100 and left the store with his brass sculpture.
As he left the store he noticed a little furry face peering at him from the gutter. A few paces down the street he saw another furry whiskered face watching him. As he walked further along the street he began to see rats everywhere. They were coming out of trash cans, running out of drains, dropping down from roofs. They were everywhere. He felt like the Pied Piper of Hamelin!
The man began to walk faster, hoping to get away from the rats but soon literally thousands were following him. He started running and tens of thousands followed him, running even faster that he was. He began to panic as hundreds of thousands of rats chased him. Then he noticed that he was approaching a river bank. In horror he saw millions of rats closing in on him and he had no means of escape!
He ran to the river bank and hurled the brass rat as far as he could into the water. He then watched with relief as tens of millions of rats plunged into the water and were drowned!
The man was really quite shaken by all of this, so he ran back to the antique shop and burst through the door. "So," the owner said. "You're back for the story are you?"
"Not really," the man said. "I was just wondering if you happened to have any brass politicians."
What's News:
The DGS "Lost Boys"
The following group of DGS Old Boys stays in contact via e-mails. If you recognise anyone, drop me an e-mail and we'll add you to the list.
Peter Bradford—USA
Bert Collins—UK
George Craggs—UK
Peter Denton—UK
Alan Farrer—UK
Peter Fittock—UK
Dave Fox—Canada
Keith Freeman—UK
Mike Gray—Canada
Ron Hickson—UK
Graham Luck—Australia
David Mitchem—UK
Peter Newton—Australia
John Pope—UK
Brian Warren—UK
Bryn Wootten—Canada
Take a look at
some of the more
notorious quotes from
former Vice-President
Dan Quayle
To see another
bunch of quotes,
take a look at
the web page of
Aussie Fibromyalgia
sufferer
Ricky Buchanan
Bet you'd just LOVE
to know what the strange
British custom of
Swan Upping
is all about.
I don't wholly concur
with Charlton Heston's
views on gun control,
but his views on freedom
in general, as spelled out
in his
Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum
are well worth a look.
Check out some
of the work
of the new
Poet Laureate
HM The Queen
recently appointed
Want a good laugh? Check out
recent winners in the
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
If you're Welsh,
Irish, Scottish
or English, and
can take a joke,
check out my
W.I.S.E. Remarks
Talking of the Irish, are you aware that my father-in-law, Justin, wrote a book on the History of the
Naval Armed Guard?
YOU CAN NOW ORDER THIS BOOK IN PAPERBACK
And talking of the Welsh,
have you heard of
the village in Ynys Mon
(The Isle of Anglesey)
that is fifty-eight
letters long?
Click here to see it.
And do you know what this is?
It's a Welsh Lovespoon, traditionally carved by a young man and presented to the girl he wishes to be his bride. Note the chain links and the ball in a cage, yet the whole thing is carved from a single block of wood!
Click to see a selection of lovespoons
RECIPE ROUND-UP
"I Could Write a Sonnet" about
Simnel Cake,
an Easter favourite in Britain.
Spend "Salmon-chanted Evening" with
"Salmon in Shrimp Sauce,
"The Science of the Lamb"
is applied in my recipe for
Shepherd's Pie,
Here's one that isn't Welsh
and contains no rabbit!
Welsh Rabbit,
one for
Coq au Vin
and one for
Scotch Eggs
Here's another version that doesn't require deep-frying
Baked Scotch Eggs
After our Paris trip we've become
hooked on crepes. Here's
a recipe for a lovely dessert
Crepes with Nutella
And here's a recipe for another
Summer Pudding
Finally, here's a recipe
for the "World Famous"
Cornish Pastie
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Croeso! Welcome!
Hi, everybody! I'm Peter Bradford, thanks
for dropping by..
Now Playing:
 'Butterfly'
Chris Bradford & "Hag" Stephenson, Speckler Records 
About Me—Hey, it is my page, after all!
If you're somebody who knows me you can check out the stuff to the left, and a few of the links I add from time to time.
If you're somebody who thinks you might know me, but aren't sure if I'm the right Peter Bradford, the following paragraphs will give you all the clues you need, together with an update on what I've been doing for the past several years.
If you neither know me nor think I'm that long-lost somebody you're looking for, just feel free to surf, learn a thing or two, send me a message and move on.
I am ?? and have been very happily married to Pat, the woman of my dreams, for twenty-seven years. (I've just realised that at ?? I've now lived in ? different decades—from the ?0s to the 10s!). I work as a tutor at Mathnasium, a wonderful learning centre for kids who want to hone their maths skills.
We have five children between us; Chris, Justin(Jay), Kathi, Brett and Mark. Kathi and Chris live in the UK; Kathi in the Oxford area with her wonderful husband, Jon; and Chris lives in Southampton, not far from the New Forest, with his delightful girlfriend, Kirsten.
Jay, Brett and Mark all live in the USA; Jay, near us in Maryland; Brett with his wife, Lori, his son Jack and his daughter, Olivia, in Northern Virginia; and Mark with his wife, Annie, and their two sons, Dylan and Daniel, in Brooklyn, New York.
Jay and Mark each have daughters that live elsewhere; Haley, who lives with her mom, Amy, in Park Ridge, Illinois, and Kayleigh, who lives in Lisbon, Maryland.
The only other members of my close family, my sister, Pauline, and my brother-in-law, John, live near Salisbury, in England.
Pat was born in Texas and, like every Texan I've ever met, she's "Damn proud of it!" She's with the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. The Johns Hopkins Hospital has recently been named #1 Hospital in the USA for the 20th consecutive year
by US News & World Report.
I was born in the UK, part English part Welsh—the Welsh part is my heart. I was educated at Days Lane Primary School, Dartford Grammar School, The University of Nottingham and later at the University of London, where I received a Masters Degree in Solid State Physics. I moved to the United States nearly thirty years ago. We live in Ellicott City, Maryland.
I am a triple cancer survivor, having had a tumour on my right kidney removed almost 30 years ago, prostate cancer over ten years ago, and a brush with skin cancer more recently. Thank you everybody for all your prayers. And thank you God and St. Jude for hearing them.
It's strange; I'm not a Catholic, nor even a regular churchgoer, come to that, but I have come to believe in the powers of St. Jude. If you click on the link below, it will take you to the St. Jude Shrine, which is right here in Maryland.
St. Jude Shrine
I'm a Mensan, and my interests range from Jazz to Motor Sport, from Cricket to Crossword Puzzles (cryptic only), and from Rugby to Crib—Cribbage here in the States. Don't know what that is? Check it out. By the way, there's a link at the bottom of this page to the Welsh Rugby Union web page.
Check out the book I have written, called BritSpeak. This attempts to explain to Americans some of the words and terms we Britons use.
Among my 'heroes' are Norman Anderson, Phil Bennett, Joshua Chamberlain, Graham Hill,
Lt Col 'H' Jones (I had the privilege to work with 'H' at Warminster when he was a Major),
Gary Sobers—the first cricketer to hit six sixes in an over. For you Americans that would be like hitting six home-runs off six consecutive pitches! Harry Beck, 'Professor' Stanley Unwin, Arthur C Clarke, Tenzing Norgay, and Sacha Baron Cohen.
If you haven't heard of some or any of these, check them out, too.
Oh yes, and I enjoy a good pint of ale like you get at the Silver Plough in Pitton, Wiltshire. Pitton lies about 5–6 miles east of Salisbury and about 15 miles south-east of Stonehenge which is at the
junction of the A344 and the A303.
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Things I Like
I love to vacation with friends or family in coastal Maine or in a cabin in the mountains—but only if I get to take some creature comforts like my Jazz CDs with me.
I get back to the UK as often as I can, especially North Wales. Check out Snowdonia if you don't know it already.
Favourite Movies: Saving Private Ryan (Yes - it should have won!); Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Lady and the Tramp; Local Hero; Fandango.
Favourite Authors: Dylan Thomas; Bill Bryson; Arthur C Clarke; P D James; Douglas Adams;
Stephen Ambrose*;
Ken Follett; Isaac Asimov; Edward Rutherfurd and Leslie Thomas.
*Click here to sign a petition to award the Congressional Medal of Honor to "Band of Brothers" hero, Major Dick Winters.
Favourite Time of Year: Fall—by a long chalk!
Favourite place to "Hang Out": My family room, or any "Pub" that serves a decent, fresh cask-conditioned brew in a 20oz glass at around 40-50 degrees!
My Favourite Music: I like "everything" from Mozart to Male Voice Choirs—Welsh, of course, like the ones you can hear at this website. Try "Myfanwy" (muh-van'-oo-ee). Ah, those top-tenors!
But although my heart lies in Wales, my soul lies in Jazz.
My true favourites are The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ); Dave Brubeck; Gerry Mulligan; Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. Being a drummer myself, I have many favourites on the skins, but best of all is Joe Morello.
Things I Don't Like
Officious Twits. Tomato juice. Any member of a group who across the board dislikes all members of another. Bagels. The modern trait of labelling or categorizing everybody: I feel people shouldn't be judged on whether they are male/female, black/white, young/old, Jew/Christian/Moslem etc. They are all just people. Most I like, some I don't, but it's the person I dislike, not the group.
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Here are links to my favourite websites. Click on the titles to visit any of them.
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My Favourite Site to Send e-Cards from
Truly, a Cut Above the Rest
Help Feed the Hungry
PLEASE visit the Hungersite, below. Just click on it, it'll cost you nothing, and could save the life of a starving child
Shop and Help a Good Cause at the Same Time
Many of the internet's most popular merchants—places you would patronize anyway—will donate a portion of your purchase payment to the International Myeloma Foundation*, but only if you enter their sites using the link below.
*The International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for multiple myeloma patients while working towards prevention and a cure. The staff and doctors associated with the IMF are super, dedicated people. And the fellow patients and caregivers that Pat and I have met through our association with the organization are wonderful, too.
CricInfo
My only way to keep up with cricket scores. The game might as well not exist here in Maryland. I even get to listen real-time to ball-by-ball commentaries on-line through this site.
The Electronic Telegraph
Once again, my only way of keeping up with what's going on "back home". Plus I get to do the Telegraph Crossword every day!
Cribbage
I don't have any crib-playing friends or immediately available family members, so playing on-line is my only way of getting a game.
Snowdonia
This is where my heart lies. Wales at her most rugged and awesomely beautiful.
I've hiked around the Snowdon Horseshoe a few times, often with pretty cruel weather.
Shop For The IMF
As I mentioned above, if you do any on-line purchasing consider removing the individual bookmarks you've set for those merchants and bookmark this URL instead. Up to ten percent of every purchase you make will go to the IMF, but ONLY if you use this link to the merchants.
The merchants include Amazon, Buy.com, Delta Airlines, Hotels.com, Drugstore.com, Macy*s, 1-800 Flowers, Lands End, Orbitz, Travelocity and Walmart.
Where's George?
Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next? This is the place to find out!
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Click on the postbox to send me "Royal" e-mail.
Cymru Am Byth!
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