Flu

Well the experts say we're not all going to die of a lethal mutation of bird flu (if only because REALLY lethal virus strains don't spread so much because they kill off their hosts too quickly... small comfort). Nevertheless, us Britons should perhaps be more concerned than most. We've got Defra (or: 'The Government Department formerly known as MAFF') keeping an eye on Britain's birds...
This isn't encouraging. The reason MAFF got rebranded as Defra is because MAFF became a symbol of utter incompetence during the foot-and-mouth shambles.
History may be meaningless in the era of New Labour, but a collective conciousness that would struggle against a goldfish in a memory test is going to find itself up the creek without a paddle if bird flu does hit Britain, and nobody realises that the same berks who slaughtered millions of animals whilst letting foot and mouth spread are on the front line again - but this time with human lives at stake. Let us hope we do not see history repeating itself here, because if it does, it will be a far graver matter than "low farce."

*Hoping my second cold of the year does not descend in to anything flu-like... where's that chicken soup?*