Broken Biscuits

This last weekend I've been watching the BBC trying to stir up a frenzy about Avian Influenza (again), and seeing as they've not managed to provove panic amongst the consumer at large are now asking probing questions about whether its all just media hype.

Frankly it is. There is a lot of old tosh tottering around in its high heels and mascarading as news when all it really shows is a complete lack of understanding by the particular journo assigned to cover the story.

I found it particularly funny that there was a line of questioning and outrage around how long it took to confirm H5N1 in the dead Scottish swan. No one actually seemed to have looked into technology used to determine the strain of 'flu, the assumption being that you put a piece of dead bird into a magic science machine and it tells you whatever you want to know. Unfortunately its not like that, but requires manual operations (and therefore certain protective measures) and then some time to incubate the sample in order to be able to test for the strain. All of which adds up to the test being rather less than instant. Just a little bit of research would have revealed this to whoever it was who wanted to find a scapegoat scientist to blame for all our lives being at risk for longer than strictly necessary

I'm also glad that the 'pandemic' seems to have been limited to a single instance in the UK, firstly because I think UK farmers have had a tough few years with BSE and foot and mouth, but secondly - and the reason that I decided to write about it here - that it makes it obvious to the public at large that hyping a small potential risk into gargantuan proportions just makes the newsmonkeys look stupid. Very stupid indeed. Serves 'em right.

Yeah I know. No entries for ages. Bad Col

In my defence I did write a bit of stuff last week, but have found that the editor tends to lose everything if you try and be a bit clever and, say, change your browser settings mid edit without explicitly saving what you've composed. That'll be because the web browser is a stateless environment won't it? (developer type joke ) but the upshot is if you don't save what you're writing, it'll disappear forever. And don't you find its never quite as good second time around...?

So what was I going to write? I'm buggered if I can remember now, so I'll just have to come up with a new subject to ramble on about.

So watch this space. But don't hold your breath