Quick Q

[liadnan]

A very sketchy check of google, technorati, and BBC News would seem to indicate that bird flu has somehow slipped into being old news. Have we given up worrying about it, or just resigned ourselves to being Doomed?

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing at least a couple of stories a week. Today there is one on the BBC about the chicken trade between Hong Kong and China being halted.

[liadnan]

To be honest, I'm not as in touch with the news as I usually am at the moment. Missed that one on the BBC. But a week or two ago we were having a rash of stories of bird flu inching its way across western Europe day by day.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Looking more closely I see the BBC has avian flu stories today from Nigeria and Poland as well

[liadnan]

Yes, I just spotted the Poland one too.
Hmm. I shouldn't laugh but
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4762712.stm
"Cat Bird Flu"?

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I was thinking something similar over the weekend. It's perhaps that hysterical panic can't sell papers after about a week, or that people can't sustain that kind of interest in (and fear of) something so supposedly imminent (and to them, unstoppable) without going mad. I mean, if you think about people's behaviour in warzones and so on, a few do go mad, but most just rationalise things somehow and get on with it.

[eccles.livejournal.com]

I think too many people were concerned that the British public had voted for a song so bad it might actually win Eurovision to worry about bird flu.

[liadnan]

Wasn't it fabulous? Though I was keen on the Scots girls too.

[eccles.livejournal.com]

Umm no. What makes it worse is that Terry Wogan is now literally forced to play it all the time now on my way to work.

[liadnan]

Oh, I just loved the moment at the end, when they cut to the panel looking completely stunned.

But, y'know, they were right. This is what wins Eurovision.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I think everyone's realised that at present it really only affects birds. Unless you're in the habit of smearing live ducks on your bare chest or something.

[susumu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, to be honest I didn't start worrying about it.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I worried about it, but then I stopped smearing ducks on my bare chest and since then I haven't worried so much.

[susumu.livejournal.com]

Did you charge admission for the duck smearing or was it more of a hobby?

[chiller.livejournal.com]

The ducks made me do it. I was just a pawn. They didn't even let me keep the money.

[liadnan]

What is this FILTH?
I think the following is appropriate:
http://www.harpercollins.com/hc/images/om/JB/SinisterDucks-MarchoftheSinisterDucks.mp3

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Damnit, I get "access denied". I'll check it from home. ;)

[liadnan]

(Performed by a band including Alan Moore and a member of Bauhaus, among others)

Everyone thinks they're such sweet little things.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Soft downy feathers and nice little wings.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
But there's a poison I'd like to administer;
You think they're cuddly, but I think they're sinister!
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.

What are they doing at night in the park?
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Think of them waddling about in the dark!
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars,
Reading pornography, smoking cigars!
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.

Nasty and small: undeserving of life.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
They'll sneer at your hairstyle and sleep with your wife.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Dressed in plaid jackets and horrible shoes,
Getting divorces and turning to booze!
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.

Forcing old ladies to throw them some bread.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Who could deny, they'd be better off dead?
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Look closely and you will recoil in surprise
At web-footed fascists with mad little eyes!
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.
Ducks. Ducks. Quack-quack. Quack-quack.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAaaa! Thank you! I can't wait to download that. ;)

[liadnan]

Kudos really due to the notorious Mr Neil Gaiman esq., who touted it a while back: without his endorsement I doubt it would be as easy to find.

[psychonomy.livejournal.com]

You missed the bit at the end - over the coda, as the track fades out, Moore hysterically shouts: "If they hadn't done anything wrong, people wouldn't keep shooting them!!"

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Now if only they have the David J take on "This Viscous Cabaret" from V for Vendetta - somehow i doubt it'll be in the movie.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Good grief, if I click on an mp3 link the office police will confiscate my computer. And then kill me. But is that Alan Moore's Sinister Ducks?

[liadnan]

Yes, it is indeed.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, then, and I will follow it later.

In other coincidences, I've just spent a happy hour going through some Dave Sim responses to questions on Cerebusfangirl.com and I note that he has renounced Moore and all his works.

[liadnan]

Really?
Other occasional readers of this place, notably Psychonomy, Simon, and Joff almost certainly know a great deal more about that than I do though.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

More of a religious than a literary split. He's become monotheistic, and finds Moore's views on religion incompatible with that. I should have said "And all his workings"

[susumu.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a clear cut case of eggsploitation to me :(

[liadnan]

Do. Not. Start. This journal is an Horrific-Pun-Free Zone. Go to Frankie's for That Sort Of Thing.

[susumu.livejournal.com]

I am sorry. I like the duck song though.

[liadnan]

I'll let you off. This time.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Making Salt-Toffee Duck are you?

[chiller.livejournal.com]

*gasp!* Gosh, are you a stalker? ;)

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

without a doubt... blame marcus... he gave me an account and turned me lose on LJ and just wait til I retire and have loads of spare time on my hands... bwhahaaa!

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Oh, it starts that way. You think you're in control. You think you'll just come onto LJ for a quick look around. And then suddenly LJ is your life! MUAhahahahahaaaa! etc.

(That duck is an excellent recipe, though I say it myself.)

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

with clarification... I'm a recipe stalker... (among my many stalkerish habits)

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Damn, you tell me this NOW, after I've got Interpol involved and everything. ;)

[susumu.livejournal.com]

anti v, you should join soup_works

(it's not just for soup)

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

OMG That's fantastic!!

I can see that I'm not gonna get much work done today

(and all of a sudden I really really hungry)

Finally, I COVET your stove/cooker!

[liadnan]

Coo. There is an odd fascination in looking at the tags page in technorati:

Hot Tags This Hour

* academy awards...
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Top 100 Tags from A to Z
(All Languages)

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What a wonderful world

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I have never been too worried about it, inasmuch as it is completely outside my sphere of influence.

The meejah hype in the autumn and over the winter I have found staggering.

I believe that, sooner or later, avian flu is likely to jump the species barrier, and a flu epidemic will result; whether it is as serious as sources have suggested remains to be seen.

I am hoping that once it becomes transmissable from human-to-human contact, big pharma are able to develop a vaccine. (They cannot do this before they know the specific nature of the flu.)

[liadnan]

Eh well, we all die in the end.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase Woody Allen, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Agreed, but there are worse things than just dying outright... it's that inbetween state that I hope to avoid... pain, decomposition, lose of mobility... oh wait, I'm there already... never mind.

[psychonomy.livejournal.com]

I'd noticed this, for obvious reasons. There were two new cases in Poland announced yesterday, meaning our green and pleasant land is now cornered, but not much media coverage.

My suspicion is that they're waiting for it to hit the UK before running their KILL ALL BIRDS NOW! KILL THE BIRDS TO SAVE THE BIRDS! headlines, and running around like, er, headless chickens. Building up the tension. Because if they comprehensively and responsibly reported the state of affairs now, UK virus landfall wouldn't be so much of a surprise, and therefore less exciting. And where's the fun in that? More to the point, where's the sales figures? Nothing like a good, juicy panic for those.

[liadnan]

I strongly suspect that the whole of Europe (as in at least the EU) is heading for a cull on the scale of foot and mouth.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

After the comprehensive and comprehensively ignored coverage New Scientist had of it about 18 months ago, this has all seemed like tragically old news. Sort of like Global Warming, only over a shorter time scale.