Barometer | 19 March 2011

Midsomer and Soham

The producer of ITV’s murder-mystery series Midsomer Murders was suspended after saying he didn’t want black characters on the show because it was ‘the last bastion of Englishness’. While many English villages still reflect Midsomer in their colour, it is over 200 years since a black man first settled in the English countryside.

— Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born slave who managed to buy his freedom, married in 1792 in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire — now best known nationally for the murder of two school girls by Ian Huntley in 2002.

— Equiano wrote an autobiography and died in 1797. His daughter Joanna married a clergyman with whom she ran a Congregational chapel in Clavering, Essex, before the couple moved to Stoke Newington, then still a village just outside London.

A British tsunami?

Britain is not close to a major earthquake zone and a tsunami of 10 metres, as in Japan, is not feasible. Some geological events, however, could trigger a tsunami.

Likely height of waves on British coast:

Earthquake west of Gibraltar 0.8–1m

Earthquake in North Sea 0.8–2m

Collapse of volcano in Canaries 1–2m

Earthquake, Western Celtic Sea 0.5–1m

Source: Defra

Nuclear deaths

How dangerous is nuclear power? Here are the number of deaths attributed to major incidents:

Chernobyl (1986): 56 direct deaths, plus up to 4,000 subsequent cancer deaths

Windscale (1957): 0 direct deaths; 100 excess cancers attributed to radiation leak

Three Mile Island (1979): 0 attributed

SL-1 experimental military reactor (1961): 3

Tokai-mura (Japanese nuclear fuel preparation plant) 1999: 2

Sources: International Atomic Energy Authority; World Nuclear Association

Money games

The ballot for Olympic tickets began, with prices between £20 and £2,012. What do officially issued tickets for other sporting events cost?

World Cup in South Africa £14–£633

FA Cup Final £34.40–£93

Day of Lord’s Test match £25–£90

Centre Court, Wimbledon £41–£104

Open Golf Championship £50–£60