The chattering classes are flocking onto the wires, emboldened by Guido’s successful raid which knocked out the guard dog, they sense the opportunity to finally rid themselves of the ‘cuckoo’ Prime Minister that was planted in their nest by the departing Tony Blair.
True to Labour form, we are fed a major scare to keep us occupied whilst the lobby rats prostrate themselves, purging their sins of ‘compliance under duress’; ‘Swine Flu’, is the new media pandemic, paedophilia as practised by swarthy foreigners being rather overplayed these days, (and it is uncomfortably close to the anniversary of Miss McCann’s disappearance to risk kicking that one off again) the main stream press are busy cloaking each new political confession with blanket coverage of prurient contagious fear – of the snuffling individual standing right next to you.
Never mind that Peter Mandelson, architect of the entire Nu-Labour project is reportedly lecturing on how civil servants had ‘a duty to embrace the Tories as soon as possible’ – huh! chief rat turns and consumes own tail – nor that the petition calling for Gordon Brown to resign is the best supported petition on the Downing Street website, nor that Charles Clarke is ‘ashamed to be a labour MP’, what we are really intended to be concerned with is whether the crashing headache we are burdened with is as a result of the banking crisis or the onset of terminal influenza.
Should we risk going to work? In a recession – it might be cheaper and safer to stay at home. To mask or not to mask, that is the question? Tamiflu or not Tamiflu? Tony Blair bought enough to supply 25% of the UK population, Gordon Brown says he has enough for ‘60 million doses’ – is that 60 million doses, or sufficient doses for 25% of the population?, we know not, and the prone bodies of the lobby rats are too exhausted by their mea culpas to enquire on our behalf.
Supplies of Tamilfu are to be kept ‘under armed guard’ – suggesting in itself that there will not be enough to go around, those thought to be infected with the virus will be told to stay at home and instead send a “flu friend” to pick up their drugs. Have you picked your ‘flu friend’ yet? – that special person entrusted with carrying your germs out into the big bad world, and returning with your salvation, courtesy of the government? If you had to declare which way you were voting to get a bank loan, then you can be sure you won’t get your Tamiflu without authenticated proof that you are mad enough to vote this government back into power.
It is left to the Internet to speculate on the fortunes of Gilead Sciences which climb ever skyward with each new pandemic scare; Bird Flu, Swine Flu, half a dozen people world wide die, and the stocks of Gilead soar. Each year some 30,000 people die of common or garden flu – but that piece of information is not as saleable as a nice shinny new ‘scare flu’ especially when you want to bury bad news.
The Swine we really need to hear about are in the Houses of Parliament. They are the deadly virus we need protection from.
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
{ 17 comments }
The government/rock & roll on-Tee-Vee-at-all-costs personality is irksome and it oozes around all over the place. Government is the dodge for the ones who can’t ‘do’ music or at least make rhythmic noises. It’s all sentimentalism. We mustn’t lose our historical perspective, this sort of thing really has only been going on since the 1906 ‘people’s’ budget. A century in History “don’t amount to a hand full of shit!” as my late maternal uncle of rural Eagle Lake, MN, used to say, here at home in Old Squawbunion County fifty years ago. And make no mistake about it, these gentry (and ‘their’ women with their ill-omened expressions of cheap signiifcance) are mere era-personalities, neither do they sow nor do they reap (excepting our cash!)
“Is there balm in Gilead?
Tell me truly, I implore”
If you hold shares in them (listed on NASDAQ as GILD) there is Henry!
As I see it, only overly tequila’d hispanics with an un-natural interest in pigs are seriously at risk of getting a dose virulent enough to die from. Any human-to-human infection will not – in the nature of evolving viral infections – be as severe, and as the “pandemic” spreads, the virulence lessens exponentially.
Meanwhile the drug companies make a fortune and the political-media machine tries to turn attention away from something nasty in the woodshed.
Or am I too cynical?
The Penguin
Too cynical Penguin? No, I think you have it in one……..
Gordon Brown has called me to ‘help me’ become more aware of the issues here and that the government, HIS government is doing all it can during this difficult time. He has told me that we are best prepared to face whatever the swine can throw at us. With him at the helm he has little doubt that all can be overcome. He has ordered masks, for health workers you understand, because it is they, and they alone, who will triumphantly enable us, the population, to get better if we should fall ill, or otherwise, to continue whatever it is we do in the knowledge that the government, HIS government is doing all it can for hardworking families, that are suffering, the likes of which he feels himself, in his heart and his feet. We can truly be assured that he must be the only person in the country who doesn’t know his TIME IS UP AND HE SHOULD GO along with all the rest of the trough swilling pigs!! Done it.
Do you know how hard it is being Brown?
Sorry to post this here, but my blog went up the Khyber..
Had to start a new one…
http://www.Catosays.blogspot.com.
The Penguin may wish to take note of the following Public Service Announcement from Bodwyn Wook:
http://bodwyn.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/spread-the-umahword/
Cor blimey! The drugs companies and their share-holders must be over the Moon with this! Mmmmmm! ……….. And as for the makers of the flu-masks that are just about as useful as chocolate fire-guards and dissolvable condoms …………… Well ………….. I bet they can all retire to that group of islands where the Queen has her off-shore accounts!
I predict more pestilence as we sink further into our home-made abyss. Don’t buy gold! ……….. Get shares in Kleenex and Andrex! You know it makes sense. I would tell you to buy into pharmaceuticals but they are so cruel to animals. May God strike down dead all those people who knowingly buy shares in pharmaceuticals! It’s not just the anmals they are out to kill! It’s us! …………….. (Just waiting for the police to knock on the door in two years time to poke my eyes out for being subversive and writing this!!!)
So may as well write that Gordon Browneye is a tosser and should be chopped up into bite-sized pieces and fed to his Cabinet members. Browneye kebabs!
‘Browneye kebabs!’
um
Browneye kebabs and Mandy-candy with a little chipolata and Milly-roll-mop! Dressing provided by Jacqui Schmidt’s husband! Don’t ask!
Tamiflu? Take a Pernod!
Pernod with hot lemon juice. In a big mug to breathe in the vapours.
You got it, Coco
It’s anisette like Tamiflu, but tastes much better.
Penguin
The answer to your post is
No
The next questions is
What will the second wave of this Porcine Flu in Autumn.
Was this particular virus the second experiment?
Mad yes, right maybee
nothing wrong with a chocolate condom
Too Tamiflu or not too Tamiflu?
Tamiflu is just another example of how our current government systems are archaic and cannot respond to rapid change an increasingly fast paced world.
Why are we stockpiling Tamiflu? All H1N1 starins have been developing resistence to Tamiflu for the past few years. Last year in South Africa and Australia, strains of H1N1 acheived 100% resistence to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), this from a fairly authoritive flu specialist, Dr Niman. The same Dr Nima responsible for coordinating the now famous <a href=”Google map of swine flu distribution.
Th WHO reported in 2008 that H1N1 strains are developing resistence to oseltamivir – http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/oseltamivir_summary/en/index.html
This is another example of how ineffective our governments are at managing our new globalised world, making bad plans and continuing along them. They should if anything be stockpiling Relenza, which has seem little if any resistence in other H1N1 strains – http://www.of-networks.co.uk/blog/Tamiflu_resistence
So why is Gordon Brown ordering 16 million more doses of something that will be potentially less effective than asprin against H1N1? Is it any wonder we feel like sheep.