seeing the pictures makes one realise - as did the storm in Britain exactly 20 years ago - how insignificant humanity is in the face of Mother Nature.

We are to her as ants are to us; tiny and unimportant (unless they get into our pants).

All the vital elements of our lives - homes, cars, Presidents, Governors, trees, grass, flowers, papers, photographs, history - can be wiped out in a few minutes leaving scarcely a trace.

Is it hard to imagine the surface of the moon may, millions of years ago, have been exacly like Earth is today but everything has simply deteriorated over the centuries?

Or Mercury or Venus, that now look like flaming California, might once have resembled Holland Park?

Are you trying to say that the moon looks like uranus?

back of the classroom stuff i know, but what better start to the day.

yes Mother Nature is on the attack again in California but half the state is going to plunge into the sea after an earthquake one day so I wouldn't be investing in real estate there anyway.

But I watched in astonishment this morning as some TV harpie reported live from CA and went into minute detail about every movie star who has had to flee from the raging inferno-from Mel(have another drink)Gibson to Tori Spelling ( or was it her mother) and then a tale about one famous actor who pushed through the brave firefighters-there to try and save his life-to stamp out the flames single handed as the firestorm engulfed his 26 room mansion.

Not a word about the thousands of ordinary Californians who have become homeless or had to flee and be housed in local community halls in rows of beds, eating a can of baked beans while no doubt the elite are slumming it in a Beveley Hills Hotel suite or cabana, forced to rely on room-service

I'm as glued as the next to the travails of Britney Spears who is proving to be the greatest publicist since-well probably JK, but sometimes I like to hear real news.