From our correspondent Stepanie Flandersandswan in Cellardyke, Scotland:
The scene we have all been dreading: in a small town off the north eastern coast of Scotland, white coated government scientists huddle in earnest discussion beside a well-manned police cordon. Behind the jiggling line of bobbies, a wispy moulted feather gently flaps in the chill spring breeze. There, just visible between a constable's parted legs, lying on the ground surrounded by tiny hard pellets is the carcass of a small, bespectacled bird....
Newsrooms were today bracing themselves for the anticipated cull. Shivering newscasters, crammed into hastily erected and inadequately sized sheds across the country as police set about constructing a 20 mile exclusion zone arond BBC Breakfast news presenter Kate Silverton - the first British victim of the avian flu pandemic...
The experts are asking a whole raft of potentially irrelevant questions - has this lone migrant from Sky News had time to infect the indigenous BBC flock? Could this be the end for Bill Turnbull, his neck rung by an overtime hungry veterinary surgeon on a bleak moor in Uttoxeter? And what of poor Mishal Hussain and Tanya Beckett, both currently on the nest? Could they be incubating some evil mutant spawn, doomed in the egg as they gestate a virulent new strain of the disease as we speak? Or am I thinking of Sian Williams?? Regardless, we can take no chances. The incinerators are firing up as we speak.
Beckett: burnt to a cinder along with her evil brood....
But what of the deeper causes. When the dust settles and the feathers no longer fly, senior DEFRA sources suggest that the inquest may point the finger for this tragedy at the scandalous way in which we treat our anchor people. Can we really be proud of ourselves for allowing these poor creatures to be kept in such horrendous conditions, often as many as 5 or six presenters couped up in a large, comfortable environment with copious amounts of coffee and fresh croissants to hand?? The stark verdict of the experts I've spoken to is that if the nightmare scenario unfolds and the H5N1 virus mutates as expected, we have no one to blame but ourselves if the epidemic spreads to GMTV.
A rueful Mishal Husain ponders the extermination of her pox-ridden brood....
The nation holds its breath.....
Love on y'all,
Bob
© 2006 Swipe Enterprises
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