"In the face of bird flu, for example, I am sanguine. As luck would have it, a concatenation of circumstances too complex to list here but which include not being born into an Indonesian shanty town, failing my poultry farming exams and not possessing a scintilla of a sexual interest in wild ducks, chickens or swans (still less in rolling around in their excretory offerings), I find I am already doing all that is in my power to avoid contracting this disease.
On the other hand, the threat of bird flu may not be the greatest test of someone's composure. As a global scare story it has certain weaknesses. One is the fact that the phrase "bird flu" conjures up inescapable visions of mallards sucking down Lemsip and pigeons cradling the telephone in one weak wing and croaking, "No, I'm sorry, I can't come in and crap on any windscreens today - I think I'm coming down with something." And Tamiflu just sounds like the latest must-have toy from Japan rather than the last line of defence against infection.
Another is that the whole situation is too reminiscent of those medieval pig trials where hysterical proto-juries found the animals guilty of sedition and sorcery and had them executed (as opposed to Man in the Tabloid Office With Eight Double-Page Spreads Begging to Be Filled With Modern Pestilence Stories) for any man in the street to take it seriously. ...
So just sit back and enjoy the story. There's bugger all you can do about how it's going to end."
Easy for her to say. But she is not a hypochondriac poultry farmer...
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