Crikey: Twelve killed by cyclone in Oman. Spot the twat Brits in the BBC’s “user generated content“.

I was a scared nine-year-old living in Oman in 1981 when the last major cyclone struck: 300 people died on that occasion and I’ve never experienced anything like it before or since; the noise was spectacular. Roads were literally drowned, enormous craters appearing in the middle of main carriageways – swallowing vehicles – as the roads’ foundations were washed away.

We ventured out the next morning to find a 30-foot deep ravine had been cut through the scrubland a few yards from the rear of the apartment block in which we lived. At the time, it was all rather exciting – a fun, new landscape to explore on my Grifter. In retrospect, we were probably rather lucky…