bird flu

HOW DO YOU DO...

bird flu

But it sounds so cute

Getting a bit bored with the scaremongering and need to know the unbiased facts of this rampaging global killer, from China?

Crisis?
So you’ve had a dire-ria day. Get compacted home. No post, no messages, no food. After finishing microwaving your Kiev you switch on the box. There he is, John Simpson telling you chicken is ill, and here’s another picture of your walking chicken Kiev, and here’s one being slaughtered. Oh wait there’s a professor telling you he’s concerned. And there’s the bin, and there’s your poultry Kiev in a sea of value eggs and edd the duck puppets.

It’s hard not to worry when news sound bites read like a fundamentalist recruits’ wet dream. “Serious threat to civilization” and “mortality rate that can approach 100% within 48 hours.” Or the always reassuring “ we are not prepared” “there is nowhere near enough antiviral drugs.”

“Locusts, pestilence, but some will be saved, some as long as you become a slave to God, it’s that easy.” Most of us would rather deal with the arduous nature of painful death, than serve a self righteous God-army.

Thing is, BBC researchers watch a lot of Dr Who. And on Dr Who we the Earth, (well Londoners) teeter on the apocalypse every Saturday evening. Faced with the bland reality of a Sunday in suburbia, you’d be heartless if you didn’t scaremonger.

Symptoms

With all the chicken shops in your local area, pretty much everyone could have the flu. Arghhhhhh! Oh god, your mum loves chicken nuggets and you always buy that gauntly thin value chicken from the supermarket that looks like it’s been sick. Nooooooo! And last night you had a very runny nose.

Just so you’re not hastily arranging a lefty mob meeting. Human symptoms of H5N1 are; a fever, coughing, really sore throat, and achy muscles, the WHO not the who; the World Health Organisation said bird flu has “influenza like symptoms.” Oh yeah like you know what influenza even looks like? Might as well say bird flu symptoms are like contracting the plague in super glue, riding dodo roller skates.

You could also get really awful stuff happen like; eye infections, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, and “other severe and life-threatening complications.” I think the last point translates to a gang of people intent on burning you alive before you give them a “contagious killer disease.”

Origins

It was first identified in Italy in 1878 by someone.

A long long time ago 1959 in a far far away place called Scotland, one little freezing cold chick had the first known bred case of the H5N1 virus. Thankfully only two flocks of chickens and approximately 300 highland locals had to be forcefully incinerated.

Since then it’s metamorphosised like Spiderman and got more irritating, like Spiderman. The latest strain has been able to cross to certain other poultry and wild ducks which made them rather unhappy, like Spiderman does to people. Legends like Count Duckula, Chicken LIckin and the paedophile Foghorn Leghorn are under observational quarantine.

Fact

Bird flu’s nickname is Chicken Ebola, what nickname is longer than the original name you’re nicking. How about ‘luck-cluck-fuct’ if we’re gonna be stupid.

What you should do if you have it ?

Die. Statistically 63% do. Whatever happens you're famous. Your face is front page, probably along side a picture of a chicken and the words ‘infected’ and ‘not too c-lucky now’. If you get a vaccine you should be fine. So give Glaxo Smith Cline a knock and if they’re all out, you need Seroxat but leave the knives alone the drug’s controlling this so-called ‘misadventure’.

Deadly Steaks

Everyone likes a story. Put a ‘pandemic’ here and an ‘end of the world’ there, woop de woo you got yourself a front page. But what are the chances this world will be brought down by a few chickens without hankies?

1. Nuclear/biological War is quite high, with the number of dumb and knee jerk politicians on those buttons all it’d take is a bad coffee and a wink and we’re gone before we’ve had our morning poo. Chances 75%

2. Natural disaster. This is a great way to go. But it’s Mother Nature, caring Mother Nature with a big forestry tea towel protecting her children. But Mother Nature’s pissed, she’s done with our glowing rivers and land filled nappy knolls, she wants Giraffe’s to be the kings. So our planet covers us with lava or blows us off itself. The chances, likely. Probably not resulting in one gigantic event, more so lots of very depilating and painful years spent surviving in our own sewage with happy meal houses. Chance 60%

3. Biblical reality, i.e., The Reckoning. I don’t know about you but God seems fucking scary, what with those well informed followers and that heaven and all those miracles. 1%

4. Outside attack. We’re all secretly going for this one. Like if we had a choice of death. We? Well me and the clientele of Forbidden Planet. Aliens, invasion, colonisation, misinterpreted communication by the President of America “Y’all want speak to the Muslims?” Chances, considering our likely worth to another species that can travel to other planets in the universe, slim to none. 5%

5. Now bird flu, or general pandemics. Aids was pretty big in the 80’s, The Black Death, Small Pox, Mad Cow’s mate Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease caused a few heads to go down with “awww, us again” shame. And now or up-to now, bird flu. Well what do you think? Exactly, slim but like everything a chance, like not getting raped every month by the council, it could happen. I’d be more scared of which country with nuclear weapons your head of state’s badly fingering. Chance 30%

Is the world adequately prepared?

Blatantly not, but when is the world prepared? Is there anything that has happened ever and people have said. “By Joe the world handled that spiffingly, well done humans.” We’ve really ballsed up virtually everything, we let Hitler have another go, France is still here, and the whole human race would rather waste food than let people live. I think socially we need to give up thinking we can solve things like pandemics and crisis’s and just let nature get rid of us. Call it just desserts, or Just for Wraths.

Death

Apocalypse is in. I Don’t know what it is about seeing America blown up, washed away, colonised by aliens, inhabited by monkeys, filled will disease and zombies and killer bees but it’s entertaining and joyous. Now you watch these films wanting more and more eccentric ways of social deformity. Babies suckling their mother’s lifeblood from raw teats. People blowing aliens for the unlikely vestige of freedom. Yanks pleading for their saviour, their lives, their God and getting killed, spandelicious.

But while we ghoulishly consume the badly acted, hastily wrote scripts. Outside those chickens are sneezing and that little Vietnamese child is sneezing too, cos he’s got a cold, you morbid monster munchers.

Ultimate Protection
Kill all birds! Wear a mask. Don’t continue talking to anyone who says. “Oh last Tuesday I caught that bird flu” No eggs with soldiers in at risk countries and no pink chicken. Just to be sure start shadowing Ross Kemp, nothing‘ll touch him. He drinks cancer for breakfast that guy, he meets gangs who don’t even know the Grant Mitchell character and never even watched an episode of Ultimate Force. And you know why, y’ know why he doesn’t get pummelled by those Mexican gangs with weaponry far exceeding the US Army’s’?

Cos his brother is Spandau Ballet, n you don’t mess with the spanners. or is it the clangers? or is it that other brother? are they brothers? Who cares? Well probably Ross Kemp who's now realising he doesn't have a secret weapon and has to fall back on his long winded stragegy of butting everything.