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Bird or Avian Flu is perhaps the greatest threat to mankind presently known.
Forget war, AIDS, malaria, climate change, drought, or Iranian nuclear scientists - the real threat comes from migrating ducks and geese carrying their diseased and rotting carcasses across international borders.
Here - for the first time anywhere (or possibly not) - Charliesbirdblog gives YOU the advice that YOU need to survive...
- Get the facts: this is the information age, no-one needs to be without the latest facts and figures. Excellent sources for information on bird flu are internet forums, the Daily Mail, the bloke in the pub, that man on the tele, your neighbours, that chap you know who used to go birdwatching when he was a kid...talk, listen, and learn!
- Recognise the enemy: all of us need to change our perceptions, and to do it now! Birds are not "cute", "beautiful", "wonderful", "our feathered friends", or "highly evolved wonders of nature" - they are in fact intercontinental disease-carriers that will wipe mankind out. There is no room for sentimentality. If you see a bird in the sky - get indoors. If you see one in your garden - disinfect the entire area and keep your children and pets inside. If you find yourself face to face with this most dangerous of God's creations, cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief and run like Hell.
- Birdwatchers: well, you're just being silly if you even consider going outside looking at birds at anytime in the next few years. Collect bird stamps instead - stamps are safe (though beware of long-lived bacteria on the gum of the reverse of the stamp if you suspect it may have been licked sometime in the past)...in fact, just stick to reading books on birds (but watch out for paper cuts, which can get badly infected and lead to gangrene, amputation, paralysis, and even death)...actually, it may just be safer to look at bird photos on the internet (though watch out for loose wiring which could turn your computer into a definite fire-hazard, which may burn your house down and leave your children orphaned)...
- Bird ringers: there has been little guidance for this high-risk group, but all ringers should RIGHT NOW stop biting the heads off any migrants they catch, stop smearing the blood of migrant birds "trophy-style" across their cheeks, and stop mixing the feathers of migrants into the tea in their thermos flasks. If you hear a migrant give a tiny sneeze as it hangs in your net - STAY AWAY. Let it die - it could kill you - then remove the corpse from the net with a ten-foot barge-pole and dispose of it in a long-abandoned mine shaft. Do NOT breathe in. If you're really unfortunate and find a Bar-headed Goose with rheumy eyes and blocked nose in your mist net, I'm afraid that nothing short of setting fire to the entire Observatory and hosing yourself down with bleach will keep you safe.
- Move house: if you live in a chicken-house, have chickens walking over while you sleep, and routinely inhale dried chicken faeces between the hours of midnight and 06:00am you should seriously consider moving to somewhere more sanitary - under a road-bridge or to an outhouse perhaps.
- Change your diet: it may well be a gourmet item, but if you regularly eat raw minced chicken mixed with chicken blood now might be the time to buy a cooker: at the very least consider subsituting pig or sheep for chicken until the all-clear is sounded.
- Beware you voodoo practitioners: little bits of strangled chickens and ducks foretell the weather and the painful deaths of unfaithful wives, but they could foretell your own doom in the coming months too. My own feeling is that the guts of hamsters and guinea pigs are probably just as accurate, so try using them instead.
- Sportsmen/woman: change your training routines. Whilst much of the success of modern athletes has been put down to swimming in Asian duck-ponds or Siberian lakes and training hard inside the humid conditions of battery-farming units, we're just going to have to accept that this is plainly no longer safe - it may mean losing medals, but you're just going to have to use old-fashioned methods like taking EPO, running round tracks, and using swimming-pools instead. Sorry.
- Dedicated followers of fashion: say "no" to chicken or duck wraps. It may well be the height of fashion (it may not be, this isn't something I know much about to be honest) and wearing dead ducks or chickens around your necks may keep you warm in the winter - but it's plainly not sensible any more. Yes, it does look good having goose breasts stitched into your jackets but fashion isn't everything - your survival is! Keep an eye out for the better fashion-houses releasing monogrammed bio-hazard suits, face masks in the latest colours and materials, and order up those waist-high rubber boots - they'll be the spring's 'big thing' and you DON'T want to miss out...
- Cockfighting: yes, we all enjoy a cock-fight - but is it safe? It would be a shame if this great and historic tradition were to die out, but no-one wants anything unfortunate to befall either the owners, trainers, or spectators of this noble sport. Just for now I'd recommend you stick to badger- or bear-baiting. Perhaps buy a dog you can put into the ring instead. Yes, I know it'll ruin a fun-filled saturday night out, but think what getting bird flu could do to your whole weekend...
So there you go - the advice you need TODAY from a concerned blogger.
To sum up, the fear is all around us and it's realistic to panic - look at the huge damage SARS did to the Chinese economy (practically at a standstill - or have I got that wrong?), and how many people have died from that flesh-eating virus we were all talking about a few years ago, or those killer bees swarming throughout the southern states of the US stinging little kids everywhere.
Bird Flu is out there, and it's best just to ignore the so-called "experts" who study bird migration, or the few loony scientists saying that an epidemic in Europe is very unlikely, and listen to the wise leaders of the pharmacuetical industries who KNOW the flu is coming and take whatever drug you can get your hands on - at the very least you'll be too doped-up to notice that cold, clammy feeling stealing over you, and that has to be a good thing...
I'm sure I've missed important information out, so I invite all readers - please - to email me at once with their best tips and hints...
Thankyou.
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