Blue is the Colour, Bullshit is the Game

Mrs Betty Adenoid of 23a, The Laurels, Ipswich, proves her husband's assertion that she is "an old cow" by falling victim to the latest plague to hit the country.


Oh my God! We're doomed, I tell ya'!! We're all doomed!!!
IT has finally arrived in Britain. Run for your lives, head for the hills. Run, for God's sake, run like the wind!
What exactly is IT, I don't hear you ask? Is IT, per chance, the Satan Bug? Is IT the Andromeda Strain? Has the Black Death decided to put in another appearance? God no, it's far worse than that. IT is..................blue tongue!! (pause for Dragnet-style horn playing).
Police are out in force this morning in the Ipswich area, no doubt closing off the outskirts from the rest of the world, handing out information leaflets to passing cows, slapping on-the-spot fines on truanting heifers and breaking up gangs of three or more bullocks found hanging around on street corners. Ladies and gentlemen, we have shifted to Def Con 2 and the alarm bells are ringing all over this sceptred isle.
Why? Yes, it's that tricky three-letter word again. I ask it again...why?
Right, here's the boring bit. Bear with me, it will lighten up again later.
Let me offer you a couple of quotes. Let's start with Mr Peter Martens, the man who is leading investigations at the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright into the alleged outbreak.

He said: "The door is open for repeated infections of the disease which can infect sheep, as well as cattle, goats and deer, and has no known cure." Pretty scary, eh?

Now here is what Wikipedia has to say: "Bluetongue disease (also called catarrhal fever) is a non-contagious, insect-borne viral disease of ruminants, mainly sheep and less frequently of cattle, goats, buffalo, deer, dromedaries and antelope. There are no reports of human transmission. It is caused by the Bluetongue virus." It goes on to say that, although non-contagious, it can be spread by midges and, while the recovery period from the bug is slow, it is rarely fatal. Not quite so alarming, you might think?

The symptoms, apparently, are fever, excessive salivation, swelling of the face and swelling and cyanosis of the tongue, something which gives it its blue appearance. In other words.......................it's just makes your bovine/ovine pets feel a bit off-colour (literally!) and, what with the swelling 'n' all, rules them out of the pub and party scene for a while. Let's face it, it's hardly the bloody ebola virus!!

It doesn't affect humans so what the bleedin' 'ell is the problem? If anything, it's a bonus for those of us who like tongue because we'll be getting more for our money! The cows, pigs and sheep invariably get better and if they do happen to be moaning that they're still not feeling themselves as they're led onto the truck bound for the abattoir, so what? It's the trip on that truck which is far more harmful, not only to their health but also to my sensitivities.
Does it really matter that the joint of beef, lamb or pork you will no doubt tuck into today came from a creature which, during it's last day on earth and before it was about to have a bullet fired into its head, was "a bit bunged up and not feeling 100 per cent"?
What next? With all this manic food labelling the government seems obsessed with of late, are we one day going to find a pack of lamb chops in the supermarket with a note attached saying "Warning - as this sheep went to slaughter she was a bit worried about how her youngest, Nigel, was starting to play up lately and had been really down because her other half, Brian, had started seeing another ewe"?
"Caution - this cow suffered from depression (Understandable, considering its chosen career? - Ed.) and was up late last night because the chickens were having a bit of an all-nighter and so she hardly had a wink of sleep!"?
Je ne pense pas!!! It's just another fucking scare put around by the government to keep us in line and make us think that, without them and their valiant efforts to ward off the nasties, we'd all be doomed.
I have another theory. Hu humm. This is my theory, what I have (for Python fans only). I think we're being too soft on our livestock these days. They have got weak. Let's face it, they're a bunch of bloody hypochondriacs! It wasn't like that in my day, oh dear me no. Our mobile Sunday dinners didn't start running around, panicking the moment they developed a sniffle. They didn't start moaning and calling in government veterinary experts just because their hoofs or trotters were starting to feel a bit sore. No, they just got on with things! They never moaned, they never had days off sick. They were REAL men/women/cows/sheep/ruminants/ungulates.
All this namby-pamby, whimpy-pimpy, hoity-toity treatment of the livestock of today has come back to haunt us, I say. Farmers - lay down the law a bit!! Get some discipline and respect back into your charges. Toughen them up! Bring in National Service for livestock!!!
In the meantime, mindless health scares, particularly in the farming industry, can go to Grantham.