Well I was watching shawn of the dead on telly at the time, it was the bit where the zombies storm the pub and all hell breaks loose and suddenly the bloody room started shaking.

The wife and I thought that it was the best shit scary special effects of all time.

The BGS web site was down within minutes - at 1am it was "taking too long to respond" so maybe that's why the BBC didn't consult them.

In other words, you don't need a fancy-pants seismograph to find out when earthquakes occur - just set up an web page about earthquakes, and correlate to peaks in the traffic logs.

"Mr Kipling has apologised for the UK earthquake earlier this morning.

But he has always made exceedingly good quakes"

In rural Lincolnshire, part of a church tower was caused to collapse into the graveyard. Local police have recovered 30 bodies, but fear there may be dozens more...

Seriously, I've never experienced an earthquake until last night. Ok, so it was only enough to wake me up for 1 minute to check for burglars... but aren't most "first experiences" over quickly and ending in dissapointment?

And what's with the boasting by other countries on how big their earthquakes are? I hope it never happens, but if one day you experience a massive earthquake which destroys half the country, I can see a load of Brits sitting in front of the TV with a cup of tea saying "yeah, they were right... our quake in '08 was a bit of a pansy... what time's Jeremy Kyle on?"

So the spoof earthquake appeal email gets trotted out again. I had the same with minor variations about quakes in Dudley, Wales and Manchester (that I can remember). Really didn't expect an El Reg reader to stoop to sending it though.

Paris - she'd probably think it funny as well.

lol - god bless our under-educated chavs.

To all those quake veterans, you studs you, its been said before, but get over yourself - it's odd for us to have feel-able earthquakes, even though we get tiny ones all year round.

The thing shocked me since it's the first earthquake I've felt, it was violent enough to make me fall off the sofa I was perched on the end of, and made my wife cry out for help cos her bed was shaking with nobody but her in it. The house made a god-awful noise, and it sounded like thunder outside.... my first though as it built up was "im not shaking my leg, and its not that windy outside", then the house moved.

All of this was very very bizarre for us, I mean - my house never moves, it's built from bricks so why would it?! So forgive us for being shocked, I bet if the sun suddenly disappeared and it rained in darkness for 340 days of the year you guys would be screaming about the apocalypse - but that would just be the weather either side of our annual Summer weekend.

What number do I dial to donate money to the Earthquake Disaster Fund so I can do my bit to help the poor people who have been caught up in this nightmare?

Especially those who have lost chimneys.

"...first thing we thought was that it may have been terrorists."

So it's official then. The terrorists have, in fact, won.

Because when we live in constant fear of what terrorists can do, and instantly assume that anything untoward that happens "may have been terrorists", they've achieved their aim (to, errr, terrorize people).

Fuckin' stupid bastard sheep.

I'd literally come of playing Bioshock, so I thought a big-daddy had escaped from Rapture and was tromping around my house.

It was the collective spinning in graves of Winston Churchill, Elizabeth I, Lord Nelson, Richard the Lionhearted, etc. et. al. over what New Labour has done to Britain.

At least I didn't go with the cliched "the earth moved for me too" line...

I thought "Nuke!".. But no, the missus is still on webcam and mobiles are working.. so meteorite or earthquake then?

Cue some net searching (and finding no obviously placed links on the BGS website, mostly just refreshing BBC news to find out what it was in RIchters)

Got me excited because of armageddenous possibilities, but.. yeah, wasn't that bad here in Cov.

I am interested in earthquakes and have been long for a long time and I also live in Iceland. So I pretend to know something about it. The earthquake on the mainland crust aren't common, specially this size. So when BGS says there is about one of ML5.3 (local scale) (EMSC uses mb4.9 scale, mb = body wave, http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/redpuma/magnitudes.html) earthquake every 10 years or so they really mean it. However, that is just given for one location. So other locations might be ready to crack some rock and make an earthquake.

Regarding the last notice, it is almost correct. I say almost, because I know that it is better to have more sensors closer to the epicenter of the earthquake then a really far away from it. Reason for that is the magnitude of error (location, size, depth) increases when the distance increases between the station and the earthquake. So for BGS it would be better to have more sensors so they could properly locate an earthquake when it happens. This is also about tracking aftershocks, but most of them appear to have been really small, one news sad one ML1.8 around 04:00. But smaller earthquakes don't get reported to USGS or EMSC, for EMSC the minimal size is ML2.0, for USGS it appears to be around mag 4.5.

BGS can report live size data on there web page, but I would think that the list of earthquake would be small or empty most of the time.

The reason for earthquakes in the UK is the fact during the early (not sure exactly when) period in the earth history there where active faults and volcanoes what is now UK. From time to time the old faults get active and make one or two earthquake.

The earthquake was detected by people interested in earthquakes in the UK and Netherlands. Also, according to a geologist that I spoke to with today at Icelandic Met Office about the earthquake in the UK it got record by them on few stations in east Iceland.

several hundred Lincolnshire girls now know what an orgasm feels like.

Paris obviously.

Disclaimer: I am a Kiwi and live in Rotorua - volcanic and earthquake prone.

I am utterly embarrassed by the inane comments of some of my fellow countrymen. But it keeps with the pattern. A few months back there was an earthquake felt in Auckland. The media went into hysteria over it just as it seems they have in the UK over this one. And then a few lunk heads from the provinces started getting stuck into the wimpy Aucklanders with comments similar to what have been recorded above.

You Kiwis who have slung off at the Poms for being mildly agitated by an earthquake, it is better to keep your opinions to yourself.

So you trying to say the Yanks, NZ and Aussies have bigger packages than Brits??!

... the 1 Million iPhones NOT sold this month in the EU, that is.

Mystery Solved!

(Phil Schilling call to Stevie Gods): "Boss?, Situation has been remedied.

(Stevie Gods): "Right, what next?"

(Phil Schilling): "We plant a story with all of our whore Hacks in the media that the 1 Million iPhones are "unlocked" and in China (where they are made)."

(Stevie): "Great, those whores will spread anything we tell them too. Give em an extra $20 bucks in their next checks from PR".

(Stevie): "Naw, just threaten them that we'll pull our ad money or they won't get to test the next piece of shit from China we put out."

(Phil Schilling): "Right, Boss"

(Stevie): "Have my valet bring around the Jobs 1 G5, I feel like flyin and dumping a few million grams of Carbon on those bastards from the Sierra Club." ... "Damn it's great being the King Bastard!

(Phil Schilling): "Boss, you're a real Limousine Liberal!"

(Stevie): "Yeah!"

Ps. I guess The Register Boffins didn't bother reading all the SCIENTIFIC reports that this has been the COLDEST winter since the 50's, there is a documented COOLING TREND, ALL of the ice and snow is BACK TO NORMAL in the Arctic, Canada and Greenland! Get a clue, the Church of Global Warming was all bunk.

It was Essential Tectonic Plate Maintenance. Didn't everyone get the letter from the Council?

Met a friend who lives 10 miles from the epicentre, but who lived in NZ for 6 years. He says it is the worst quake he has ever experienced. He noticed many "worse" (as measured) quakes in NZ, but the UK quake was much more worrying. His wife was fairly relaxed about the quakes she experienced in NZ, but was scared whitless by this one. Depth matters people.