A close-up of the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) equipment funded by the US Department of Commerce. Why spend billions on a system that cannot react to a 7.1 (a biggeee) such as the one in Haiti.
In order to determine the likelihood of future seismic activity, geologists and other scientists examine the rock of an area to determine if the rock appears to be "strained". Studying the faults of an area to study the buildup time it takes for the fault to build up stress sufficient for an earthquake also serves as an effective prediction technique.
Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific hour, day, or month but for well-understood faults, seismic hazard assessment maps can estimate the probability that an earthquake of a given size will affect a given location over a certain number of years.
When living in the Caribbean island of Grenada, I saw these and met the staffs who operated them. Now tell me they didn't know!

This graphic display show all the US controlled seismic sensors.
One of which can be seen near Haiti - Proof if required that the American's knew, or at least had a very strong hint, that the Haiti earthquake was iminent.

Family photo's from friends of JB.

John Barry comes of age 010310

Wherever he goes, John Barry, a 60-year-old ex-soldier/officer, known to his fellow enthusiasts as 'Mr Flyblown', gets the blue carpet treatment.

The hum of a bluebottle (Calliphora vomitoria), the drone of a housefly (Musca domestica) are music to his ears, and earlier this month – frustrated by the nation's failure to recognise the importance of fly extermination in society – he opened the first museum dedicated entirely to them.

Visitors have been turning up to the exhibition iin his home outside Portsmouth, in numbers he can't quite explain.

Perhaps they come because bluebottle obsession is a more widely-suffered condition than previously suspected.

Or because John's love for the flat variety is so deep, genuine and, in its way, touching. Or, maybe, it is because he's the kind of man around whom there's always a buzz.

"I've been fascinated by flies since I was a small boy," he says, sitting in a work room writhing with latest swatter development.

"My mum probably thought I'd grow out of it, but once I got my hands on our our budgie she agreed to let me swat flies instead and I knew I never wanted to let go.

When I went to the middle east, it was fly swatting heaven and that is where I was recognised by the Guiness Book of Records - although it was with my left hand that I did all the work!"

John Barry was eight, and desperate to kill flies of his own, when he spotted a ‘Red Fly Gobbler 800’ lying on a rubbish dump. "I took it home, wiped all the muck off it, plugged it in, and it worked," he sighs. "That was one of the most fantastic moments of my life."

By the time he reached his teens John already had 3 million flies to his credit. One by one his other interests – sport, music, books – bit the dust. "I suppose you could say that flies took over my life," he says.

"I loved the look, the feel, the sound of them. You can't really explain it to people who don't have the same enthusiasm. It's like some people love vintage cars or clocks. For me it was flies."

One of his party tricks is to put on a blindfold and identify the mating habits of bluebottles by their cries of ecstasy in orgasm.

Thus he can recognise the soothing whirr of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, an art deco flying masterpiece, and one of the first flying creatures on earth.

Or the satisfying burble of the Anopheles, which, with its double-speed wings, big bum and variable proboscis is considered by many connoisseurs to be the ultimate expression of the flyblown world.

"One of the interesting things about flying things," says John, "is that although the basic design hasn't changed that much, they are constantly evolving.”

"When they first came into the world they were seen as things of wonder. High society families would throw parties to celebrate getting their first 1,000 flies.

"Now we take them for granted, but to me they are as amazing as ever."

He found a job in the Army, where, he hoped; he could establish a perfect fusion of work and pleasure.

But the wages were low, and his quest for ever more exotic prey was growing costlier by the year.

The prize items of his current collection is the two handled gold-plated American-made ‘Kill’em Dead Ultimate G' (not displayed on the premises for security reasons) that he reckons would fetch £2,500 on a good day!

Well, there's a sucker born every minute, but John, sees the real value of his 126-piece swatter collection as its ability to tell the remarkable story of a dead flies and Garibaldi biscuits that too many of us take for granted.

Before fly extermination, he points out; life was a dirty, sometimes perilously unhygienic business.

The complete contents of houses had to be dragged outdoors to be cleaned, and even modest homes were forced to maintain domestic staffs to keep the fly-poo and all kinds of bugs at bay.

Early fly swatting tended to allow the flies to escape due to air pressure, blowing them away rather than sucking them towards you, with the result that the grotty little buggers were merely redistributed around the house.

The big breakthrough came at the beginning of the 1960’s when John went on deployment to the Middle East! It was there he came across the study made by Hubert Cecil Booth, a British engineer and inventor, who came up with a powered fly suction device misleadingly nicknamed 'The Puffing Billy'.

This hulking, oil-powered contraption had to be pulled down the street by horses, and parked outside the building to be de-fly’d.

In a scientific paper, Booth later recounted its effectiveness. " … this really was astonishing," he wrote: "two machines took half a ton of flies out of one of the largest shops in the West Bank one night."

A few years later John registered his very own patent for an ingenious electric-powered household fly killer from his cousin, and launched the world-beating 'Model O' (Short for Orifice for Obturating Orrible fings).

John said, “"I got a grant from the Princes Trust to open the Fly Swatters Arms – my nearby pub" he says, "and I thought it would be good to keep the collection there, to be honest I didn't think there'd be so much interest."

For more information go to http://www.wikihow.com/Swat-a-Fly-Without-a-Fly-Swatter

I hope black people will learn a lesson from the earthquake that hit Haiti.

If they don’t learn anything from it, then I throw up my hands in despair and give up.

Let’s start with a few basic facts.
Until the earthquake, I never knew there was a place called Haiti. I was taught geography at school but I can't remember a time when the teacher told us about Haiti. It must have been one of those insignificant countries that we had no reason to know about.

I was fairly good at geography because I knew which country was on which continent but as for Haiti I was clueless.

Now the whole world, including myself, knows about Haiti. When I heard news of the earthquake on the radio and TV, I wondered where Haiti was and what sort of people lived there.

Finally, when I switched on the television, I was informed that Haiti is an island in the Caribbean. Television pictures revealed a place populated by black people.

From the non-stop television coverage of the earthquake, I learnt about the history of Haiti. It was not a good history lesson. It would seem throughout its existence Haiti has suffered a series of natural calamities. In the process it has sunk even deeper into poverty and deprivation.

Like all places populated by black people, Haiti is poor. As I watched the television images, I felt very sorry for that God forsaken place. Then I was hit by a thunderbolt!
I wondered what if there were no white people.

You see, when the earthquake hit Haiti somebody had to come to its assistance. There had to be a rescue effort. The Haitians who survived of course did their fair bit by digging out their families from the collapsed ramshackle buildings.

But such was the scale of the devastation and the loss of human life that a bigger effort was needed. For that sort of work, you need heavy lifting gear and other sophisticated rescue equipment. I have been following the story of the earthquake keenly. I can attest to the fact that the first people to arrive with sniffer dogs were white crews from all over the world.

The aircraft that set off carrying water and food were from white countries. Not only that, the teams of volunteer doctors seen on television comprised white people from across the world. As the sniffer dogs went into action, the organized rescue teams that carried the stretchers were made up of white people.

It was announced that a mobile hospital was on the way. It was coming from a white country. For all intents and purposes in the aftermath of the earthquake, Haiti was literally swarming with white people. They had all arrived to save the poor blacks. And the locals were so happy to see them. Granted there were teams from the Orient such as the Chinese and Japanese. They too had quickly left their homes and families to go and assist the stricken people of Haiti.
It is obvious to everyone that this was a devastating earthquake and the work to repair Haiti and return it to a modicum of normalcy will take many years. Somebody had to commit funds to this effort. Most of the countries that have committed funds to aid the recovery are white. In fact, it would seem the whites are running the show in Haiti.

What is my point?

My point is that ever since Haiti was hit by the earthquake I haven't seen anyone from Africa, unless the television cameras deliberately ignored them of course. Nor did I see any sniffer dogs from black countries and most importantly, I never saw a single traditional doctor busy divining where to find people buried under the rubble.

Haiti is a land of black people. I would have expected the place to be swarming with black people helping their own. They were nowhere to be seen. I never saw any ships from black countries in the harbour.

As the air traffic descended on the tiny airport, none of the planes was reported as coming from Africa. The blacks were nowhere to be found. They issued tepid statements of condolence to the people of Haiti and a few of the African countries donated small amounts of cash.

Granted that was better than nothing. But I must say I was disappointed. I was sad because the blacks did not behave as I had expected. You see, for far too long black countries have been insolent to the point of being abusive. They have a tendency of insulting the us white men and telling him to keep out of their countries. In fact, black people have the temerity to tell white people they can survive perfectly well on their own.
So I had expected the black countries to be consistent and behave true to form. Why didn’t black countries tell white countries to stay away from Haiti because they were quite capable of leading the rescue effort?

Black countries insult white countries and accuse them of imperialism and neo colonialism. I was extremely disappointed when black countries failed to accuse white people of practicing imperialism and neo colonialism by coming to rescue the blacks of Haiti.

Perhaps they should have been told Haiti has better sniffer dogs that have been taught only to rescue black people. The citizens should have told foreign ships to stay away and their planes not to overfly Haiti because the locals were up to the job with their own ships and aeroplanes.

Perhaps we should have sent in traditional food instead of the strange rations the Haitians are not accustomed to.

I am so disappointed by the black leaders that I hope never to hear them again bleating about how bad white people are. The earthquake in Haiti was the most opportune time to show us decadent whites, once and for all, that we are not needed.

From now onwards, black leaders should shut teh fcuk up and never accuse white people of being bad. Everyone is sick and tired of big words such as imperialism and neo colonialism which are unable to rescue victims of the earthquake.

I hope this is not the last earthquake that hits a black country. I want the next one to specifically hit the residence of Mugabe in Harare. Then we will see if he will abuse the crews from white countries coming to rescue him!

Horace (Jim) Greasley

It has been my priviledge to meet and talk with Horace (Jim) over the last few years and enjoy his very personal, and sometimes harrowing, story. Most importantly for me is the knowledge that my Uncle Ernie (2nd Glocesters) endure the identical treatment and hardships. Sadly, Ernie did not survive, dying in Stalag 7B just two weeks before liberation. He couldn't take any more!

Horace Greasley

Horace Greasley, who died on February 4 aged 91, claimed a record unique among Second World War PoWs – that of escaping from his camp more than 200 times only to creep back into captivity each time.

Greasley confronting Heinrich Himmler (wearing the spectacles) in the PoW camp

The reason for the frequency with which Greasley put his life in danger, he admitted with engaging good humour and frankness, was simple: he had embarked on a romance with a local German girl. Rosa Rauchbach was, if anything, running even greater risks than Greasley.

A translator at the camp where he was imprisoned, she had concealed her Jewish roots from the Nazis. Discovery of their affair would almost certainly have meant doom for them both.

Greasley recounted the almost incredible details of his wartime romance in the book Do The Birds Still Sing In Hell? (2008), which he had been "thinking about and threatening to write" for almost 70 years. But while the book is described as an "autobiographical novel", the story was largely confirmed at his debriefing by MI9 intelligence officers shortly after the war.

Horace Joseph Greasley, nicknamed Jim, was one of twin boys born on Christmas Day 1918 at Ibstock, Leicestershire. He was 20 and working as a young hairdresser when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, and the Military Training Act made all men between the ages of 18 and 40 legally liable for call-up. Horace and his twin brother Harold were conscripted in the first draft.

A client whose hair he was cutting offered, when Horace mentioned that he was going into the Army, to get him a job as a fireman, a reserved occupation which would actually pay better than joining the services. Horace Greasley turned the offer down.

But his war proved a short one. After seven weeks' training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, he landed in France at the end of the "Phoney War" as one of the British Expeditionary Force; on May 25 1940, during the retreat to Dunkirk, he was taken prisoner at Carvin, south of Lille.

There followed a 10-week forced march across France and Belgium to Holland and a three-day train journey to prison camps in Polish Silesia, then annexed as part of Germany. Many died on the way, and Greasley reckoned himself lucky to have survived.

In the second PoW camp to which he was assigned, near Lamsdorf, he encountered the 17-year-old daughter of the director of the marble quarry to which the camp was attached.

She was working as an interpreter for the Germans, and, emaciated as he was, there was, Greasley said, an undeniable and instant mutual attraction.

Within a few weeks Greasley and Rosa were conducting their affair in broad daylight and virtually under the noses of the German guards – snatching meetings for trysts in the camp workshops and wherever else they could find. But at the end of a year, just as he was realising how much he cared for Rosa, Greasley was transferred to Freiwaldau, an annex of Auschwitz, some 40 miles away.

The only way to carry on the love affair was to break out of his camp. From Silesia, bordered by Germany and German-occupied countries, there was little hope of escaping back to Britain. The nearest neutral country was Sweden, 420 miles to the north. Perhaps for this reason the guards were lax, and the Germans seemed to consider that those trying to escape were effectively attempting suicide.

Greasley reckoned that short absences could be disguised or go unnoticed. Messages between him and Rosa were exchanged via members of outside work parties, who then handed hers on to Greasley, the camp barber, when they came to have their hair cut. When, with the help of friends, he did make it under the wire for an assignation nearby, he would break back into the camp again under cover of darkness to await his next opportunity.

Sometimes, Greasley reckoned, he made the return journey three or more times a week, depending on whether Rosa's duties among various camps brought her to his vicinity. His persistence in their love affair was not the only testimony to his daring. A wartime photograph shows Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, inspecting a prison camp and a shirtless skinny PoW close to the fence confronting him.

The prisoner has been identified as Horace Greasley, who said he did not know who Himmler was at the time, but realised that he was some superior officer. Greasley said that when the photo was taken he was demanding more food for the prisoners, having taken off his shirt to show how thin he was. Rations did not improve as a result.

Rosa repaid his attentions, he said, by providing small food parcels and pieces of equipment for him to take back into the camp, eventually including radio parts which enabled 3,000 prisoners to keep up with the news by listening to the BBC.

Greasley was held prisoner, working for the Germans in quarries and factories, for five years less one day, and was finally liberated on May 24 1945. He still received letters from Rosa after the war's end, and was able to vouch for her when she applied to work as an interpreter for the Americans.

Not long after Greasley got back to Britain, however, he received news that Rosa had died in childbirth, with the infant perishing too. Horace Greasley said he never knew for certain whether or not the child was his.

After demobilisation he returned to Leicestershire, swearing that he would never take orders from anyone again. He ran a hairdressers', a taxi firm and a haulage company in Coalville, where he met his wife, Brenda, at a fancy dress party in 1970. They married in 1975, retiring to the Costa Blanca in Spain in 1988.

Greasley was delighted with the publication of his book and was to have undertaken a return visit to Silesia for a television company this spring, having, he said, been promised the company of "a very attractive 21-year-old female nurse for the entire journey". He died in his sleep before the offer could be made good.

Horace Greasley is survived by his wife and by their son and daughter.