I recently found an article that says the subduction zone off the North Island East Coast has been ranked as being at high risk of generating a giant earthquake. New research rated a 600-kilometre section of the Hikurangi-southern Kermadec subduction segment, starting at the lower North Island and stretching to the northeast, as having the highest risk of producing a giant quake of a greater magnitude than 8.5.How nice, how charming, and of course, you can guess where I live. Yup, that’s right, within that zone. It isn’t enough that we’ve had a whole string of quakes in the past three years, now we should watch for really really massive quakes and tidal waves?

It goes on to say that “ateam led by Associate Professor Wouter Schellart, of Monash University in Melbourne, developed a global map in which individual subduction zone segments were ranked in terms of their predicted capability to generate such a giant. The largest earthquakes happen only at subduction zones. Each zone segment was ranked according to six parameters. In the highest risk segments all six parameters fell within the ranges seen in previous quakes of greater magnitudes than 8.5. According to the research, the Hikurangi-southern Kermadec subduction zone segment had the characteristics of the locations of previous giant earthquakes, Schellart said. “It should be capable of generating a giant earthquake as well.”

Oh right, that’s just what I wanted to hear. Although it could be worse, at the some 1400 ftabove sea-level that I am, it’s unlikely any tidal wave will reach farside, and if it does I’ll have the thin consolation of knowing that almost all of the country has preceded me into oblivian. Then again if the quake was 8.5 or thereabouts I’ll probably have died before any wave gets here, which again is rather thin consolation.

Schellart said “The crust in the southern part of the North Island is being shortened and compressed, which implies that the subduction zone fault has high stress on it, which can mean that the fault is temporarily locked. If that part slipped it could create a large earthquake and potentially could result in a cascading effect, causing segments further to the north to slip as well.”

Great, so we are informed that not only could there be a ‘great quake’ but that it may even be likely. In the Boxing Day quake of 2004, 400-500Km slipped in similar circumstances and that’s what this subduction could do too. The expert thinks that the biggest worry would be that a giant quake could also cause a tsunami. Hmmm. If I’m dead under the ruins of my 8.5-quake-struck house, I doubt I’ll care. But the final two items made me twitch slightly. The expert said that “he was not an expert in tsunami modelling but thought the tsunami could be “metres” high.and “he could not comment on when such an earthquake might happen. My conclusions are that I probably don’t have to worry about the tsunami – unless he really meant “hundreds of metres. (and it would have to be over 400m high to reach here.) I can ignore the giant quake as well. If an 8.5 hits my immediate area there’ll be nothing I can do, not even my 130-year old solidly-built farmhouse will stand up to that. The big shelterbelt trees all aound the house will fall, and it occured to me that as I can’t move fast, I’m bound to be under something when it lands. I’ve therefore decided to forget it. There’s nothing I can do, and right now I’m in the middle of writing a book, x weeks short of birthday celebrations (my 68^th) and anticipating friends arriving in a couple of hours to have lunch with me. I don’t have time to worry about earthquakes, scientists, or tidal waves. I have to go out and push a hen off her nest so I have eggs to scramble…

Over Christmas I watched a number of musical programmes and enjoyed most of them. One I was not impressed with however was Celtic Thunder Christmas. I’d watched a couple of their programmes before and liked them, but this one didn’t live up to either my expectations or the title. You’d expect something called Celtic Thunder to be lively, energetic, and above all, Celtic. What we got was a mess of English and American songs, including very over-popularised hymns, and the songs mostly crooner type, right down to, for heaven’s sake! Disney’s When You Wish Upon a Star. Celtic Thunder? Yeah right!

In one medley they did sing a couple of verses in what was probably Irish, and that was it. It was insipid to the point of boredom and I was disappointed by the entire event. There was no flash, little dash, nothing to make me sit up and listen, nothing much Celtic and no thunder. Oh, and they did a very bland and banal version of Leonard Cohen’s Alleliuja at one stage. Groan. These guys are supposed to be professionals. I heard that done far better by a recent contestant in X Factor. In short, I felt that the title of this was a misnomer. Don’t do that again if you want to keep this watcher watching.

On a current affairs programme recently an ex-soldier who’d suffered severe injuries in the line of duty was complaining that he hadn’t been given reasonable compensation and that he felt abandoned by the Government. He was about to lose his home to debts through no fault of his own and was unable to understand why his Government had turned its back on him. I laughed. No, it isn’t funny, it just illustrates that old saying, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

A century ago Kipling was writing poems that said exactly what this man is saying. There’s Tommy, which contains the lines, “it’s Tommy this and Tommy that, and “Chuck im out, the brute.” But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country”, when the guns begin to shoot.” And that sums it up. If a soldier dies in the line of duty at a time when we have sufficient attention to give, he receives all kinds of accolades. If he’s injured, he’d better shut up, creep away, and suffer in silence because the Government doesn’t want to know in case assisting him opens the floodgates to other demands. Kipling sympathised with soldiers, many of whom had been friends and he wrote not only, Tommy, but also, The Widow at Windsor. It may have been that poem which put paid to one possibility in his career. Many have wondered why he was never made Poet Laureate. There have been claims that the post was offered and turned down. However the story I heard from my grandmother as a child was that Queen Victoria was mortally offended by the poem and when Kipling’s name was suggested for the job, she emphatically refused to even consider it. (Considering the poem I’m not surprised, Kipling didn’t pull his punches.)

I’m sorry for a soldier who did his best, suffered crippling injuries, and is now unable to understand why a Government that required this of him won’t assist him financially when he is on the point of losing his home because he is unable to work. But sadly and sourly, he doesn’t have that on his own, there’s very many years of historical precedent. And our Government, as can be seen, doesn’t plan to alter the situation any time soon.