April 2009 Archives

'It's time to initiate a health warning'

"We interrupt this programme to bring you news of confirmed outbreaks of swine flu that is reported to slowly wipe-out all populations on the planet, sending the whole world into a CATACLYSMIC DISASTER THAT WILL END ALL MANKIND. RUN! But don't panic. We now return to A Place in the Sun".

There always tend to be two trains of thought on any pandemic or high-profile situation. There are those who sit in their makeshift steel bunker that they've built just for the occasion, ensuring they have enough baked beans, industrial facemasks and a portable radio so they can hear how the world is dwindling away.

Or, there are those who shrug it off and carry on about their business as normal, their head in the air telling everyone they've survived the World War II, Chernobyl, and Tony Blair- so they're ready for anything.

New ice ageism; nuclear winterism; vCJDism; globalwarmismisation; SARSation; avian fluism; terrorismisation; food crisisisation; climate changeism; oil crisisism; recessionitis, swine flu?...Next please.

But with many deaths already reported and the confirmed cases in the UK, the initial jokes about turning into a pig and about the issue being a load of old hogwash has run dry.

The vast comment on the situation, the methods for keeping the virus at bay, and warning for people to stock up on oinkment is running over the news and the internet like some sort of mass epidemic.

Although the government have said that they have enough Tamiflu for half the population, they say that they believe that they are thoroughly prepared to tackle the spread of the flu. Despite this, some people still believe the government are telling porkies.

It's easy for the government to tell everyone to keep calm when, as MPs, they're probably the first to get a vaccine.

Not that it will have any effect, as many people know that MPs have been suffering from swine disease for a very long time.

The disease causes you to still manage a smile, like you might actually be deranged, while you're holding up a budget in a briefcase that's 10 times for people's lives worse that any flu.

And the fact that people were stepping off the plane from Mexico and Canada without a single test for the virus, it may be hard to believe that we are prepared to stop it spreading.

You can't go on the plane with a toothpick or an eyelash, but you can get on with a virus that could wipe out a whole population. Or, even worse, have them locked in their homes playing Monopoly and watching reruns of Dad's Army until the next ice-age.

Many people are actually starting to get worried. But with deaths already hanging around the 100 mark, it's nowhere near the 4,000 people who die from normal, less news-worthy flu each winter.

And yet, since the news channels have put on their Breaking News signs again, and are using words like "Mortality", "Grave Danger" and "Pandemic", it's time to initiate a health warning.

Bird flu was expected to kill 150 million people. Instead it managed 257. Yet, the virus wasn't as easily passed to humans. Unlike the new swine flu that seems to be dominating the headlines.

But there are thousands of soldiers in the world losing their life for insignificant wars. Across Africa, 25 million people have died of AIDS. And 11.6 million have been made orphans. Why are they all poor? Where's the contraception? Rarely featured in the news bulletins.

And just over a 100 people die of swine flu and it's all over the news. The World Health Organisation. The White House. Downing Street. It's a threat to the West. Down the hatchets. Step back. It's a global tragedy.

'We'll probably somehow end up giving a massive boost to the German car industry'

After ignoring the British car industry for more than a decade, Gordon Brown has finally decided to get involved. The Prime Minister's latest - and probably, only - message to the sector that employs almost a million of his citizens, is that he intends to save it by establishing the UK as the international epicentre of the electric-car industry.

Never mind that South Korea and Japan produce more than 6 times more vehicles than we do, and that they are light-years ahead in terms of battery technology.

This week's budget is set to announce that the new electric-car scheme will create additional employment for up to 400,000 people, followed by announcements that everyone should be driving electric cars by 2020 - in any colour you like, as long as it's green.

And this is all supposed to happen when the government hands out up to £5,000 if you buy an electric car.

The debate as to whether electric-cars are better than their hydrogen-powered counterparts has raged on for as long as VHS vs. Betamax. It seems the decision to use electric has been decided upon by the government - the ability for the country to utilise hydrogen power went out the window when all British scientists moved abroad for proper jobs - avoiding the need for scientists in Britain to only research whether marshmallows give you deep vein thrombosis.

The idea of electric cars is nothing new; milk floats came, got abused for going too slow, and went. But every few years, some rich, elderly Japanese men appear on the television and tell us that the world of petrol and diesel is over.

If the electric-car idea had taken off years ago, no one should be driving around in a Bugatti Veyron - we should all be in a Toyota Turnip: 0 to 60 in 9 and a half days, turbocharged carrot juice injection, and quad speakers that play Cumby-yah in surround sound while you're out purchasing lentils.

The new plans are set to include roadside charging stations where people can plug their car in.

When the news was first made public, the eco-mental vegetablists got excited. They got all their friends around to their yurts for a glass of free trade South African wine and probably sacrificed a marrow.

But of course, while everyone wants to save the birds and the bees and the lesser-spotted Guatemalan honey frog; unless the electric cars are going to be powered by a fairy-operated, free-trade peace windmill in Scotland, the world is still going to burn.

There is also the fact that electric cars aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing and they're so small you'll probably have to drive with your knees in front of your face.

It's more like walking, but less comfortable.

In early reports, it states that there is no automatic gear box between the two front seats and, taking into consideration the high force involved with steering a car so compact, it sometimes means that the driver will slide across to the passenger's seat.

In a way, this is a bonus because people may then think you're the passenger and, therefore, this stupid car isn't yours.

The fact that the government are supposed to hand out £5,000 so we can buy a new electric car, and the fact that they're going to lose out on their fuel tax, means everyone's going to be taxed another way. Even if you don't care about the environment, you can be sure that the electricity companies will push through a massive hike in the price of power.

And while the rest of the world embrace hydrogen power and are flying around like the Jetsons, we'll all be chugging around in Gordon's green machines with a 3-tonne Duracell attached to the back just to get to the end of the street.

Financially, the plan shouldn't work anyway.

First of all, £250million has been allocated to make the scheme, and £100million is to be spent developing new batteries which will produce more power and last longer than those we have now.

In the past, General Motors, Ford and the American government have invested billions and billions of dollars to make better batteries and they still weren't adequate enough to get you to Sainsbury's.

The government would be better off burning the money. Or giving it to Fred Goodwin. Or spending it on Pot Noodles.

And they say it will only cost £20millon to erect roadside chargers in every town. £20million is nothing in government circles - to them, that's the equivalent of buying a spanner or a porn film.

With all of Britain's transport system supplied by electricity, let's hope our power stations, with generations worth of incompetence, won't bring the country to a standstill when everyone puts the kettle on at the end of Britain's Got Talent.

However, all the talk of electric cars is a stark contrast to the news we were hearing about the government's scheme which pays drivers £2,300 to replace their old banger with a shiny new car.

It has supposedly worked in Germany where the plan is to give a grant to those people who own a car more than 9-years-old. And this has worked very well for the 4 Germans who actually own a car that's 9-years-old.

The cars will then be scrapped and recycled.

This seems a little odd, considering the fact that buying a new car now would mean you have to buy a gas-guzzling one as the new electric cars won't yet be available.

Are they saying that they want people to buy new cars to save the economy at the supposed expense of the planet?

The government have spent the last decade trying to get people out of cars and into legs or public transport. Now they say that people should get back into cars.

But with the current economical climate, people don't really want to buy cars at the moment.

The government have obviously got some kind of plan here. The only way they're going to get people to buy new cars and encourage driving is by making the trains expensive and always delayed, ensuring that the buses stink and that riding your bike on the road leaves you with a head shaped like a pancake and a colostomy bag...Seems to be working so far.

We'll probably somehow end up giving a massive boost to the German car industry. Seeing as the British car industry died circa 1979.

And you can tell that Peter Mandelson is behind the scheme. If anyone knows about recycling things that have been banished to the scrap heap, it's Peter Mandelson.

'It was inevitable there was going to be trouble'

Watching the news seems to be like tuning into episode 1167 of the world's most complicated soap opera; a soap opera with an unexplainable, and sometimes, unrealistic plot line that you can't keep up with.

Lately, the news programmes have been taken up by computerised images of huge phrases such as 'Recession', 'Downturn', 'Doom' and 'The end of the Earth!' dramatically falling onto a map of Britain, or a rolling news ticker saying that Amy Winehouse is in rehab, out of rehab, or on her way to rehab.

Noooo. Noooo. Noooo.

But last week, the news programmes must have jumped for joy at the fact that it was time for the G20 summit, because all they would have to do is leave the camera running and let the soap opera of politics, royalty, and riots dominate the headlines.

We've had shock, indecency, embarrassment and adultery - and that's only from the Royal family.

It was a chance to get the news headlines dominated with everything G20. Sky News even had a 'riot expert' on the show. ('Riot expert' being someone who once dabbled with the highly-skilled art of shouting and throwing eggs back in 1973.)

Last week, the news presenters announced that bankers had been told not dress in suits if they had to go to work or to stay at home if that was a feasible option. To put on dirty jeans and remember not to shave so they would fit in with the crowd.

MPs, however, weren't told not to wear suits and the government advisers also decided against telling them to stay at home - just in case they got confused as to which one of their houses they should stay in.

With a combination of world leaders converging on London, it was inevitable there was going to be trouble.

But just in case all their preparations to film the riots were made in vain, and to make sure there were actually some riots to film, the news broadcasters announced bulletins that said something like: 'Police have warned people not to travel to the protests outside the G20 summit at the ExCel Centre at London's Docklands...The address being number 1, Western Gateway, E16 1XL. Of which the nearest public transport system is Dockland's Light Railway with the first train leaving at 0800 hours on Wednesday 1st April. See our website for directions of the march and to order your flaming effigies...Later on in the show we debate whether 600 protesters could manage to pull down Nelson's Column.'

And while the bankers stole their money, people tried their hand at hooliganism; disguising it as political activism.

They marched around London wanting to destroy capitalism, build windmills and campaign for the freedom of speech for organic potatoes.

And the news channels could just film it for 24 hours and their job was done.

But while we stayed at home waiting for the festival of rubber bullets and Molotov cocktails from people standing up against political oppression in the defence of democracy - what we actually got was a view of a few thousand people who had no idea what they were doing.

They even managed to smash the windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland in defiance - forgetting that as of October last year, due a bailout from the tax-payer, the Royal Bank of Scotland actually belongs to the general public - and so, in essence, they may as well have smashed their own windows.

Secretly, we were all waiting back at home, watching the news, for some water-cannon action. Very few things are better that seeing an angry person being hosed into the gutter.

If Jimmy Savile would come out of retirement, I'm sure watching an angry, organic, nuclear-free, vegetarian being hosed into the middle of next week would make the top of everyone's list.

Secretly, we watched with anticipation to see some crazy people being shoved back by police and yet in some areas, there were silly mini protests where about 75 policemen dressed like ghost busters stood around a woman who was so fuming, and so angry she had decided to sit down in the middle of the road.

Rebels these days.

And while protesters slummed it out on the street, the Prime Minister and President Obama were too busy tucking in to Jamie Oliver's pucker meal to notice the protesters outside.

Furthermore in the soap opera of news, the cameras followed Obama to Buckingham Palace where the Royal family took a break from cutting ribbons at museums and talking to vegetables to greet the saviour of the New World and his wife.

Back in the studio, Sky News had ran a feature on some elderly protesters who had climbed up on a wall in Trafalgar Square and, instead of rioting, they decided to play music and shake their booty like it was 1949.

The presenters then cut to a feature on Barack Obama hero action figures that had gone on sale last week.

There's even set to be a talking version. When you pull the string it says: 'So it has been, and so it must be, with this generation of Americans, that we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. This gigantic, yet tiny world on which we, the American people, hover; balancing like a floating lily in a lily pond of substance in deep crisis. I, Barack Obama, am here to the rescue.'

And it's even been said that a new action figure of Gordon Brown will be made - preloaded with three phrases. When you pull the string it says: 'This is a global problem', 'This problem is global," and 'That is a personal matter for the Home Secretary.'

So the news channels just sit back and watch the world make a fool of itself; their own soap opera.

Their stories come from the inadequacies of the nation and their own shortcomings and silliness; the people who attempt to govern us and the people who march the streets with banners, to which their protests fall on deaf ears.

And because of that, a whole week's worth of news was done on the cheap.

All they had to do was throw in a few statistics at the end of the show.

Job done.

And, did you know that 75% of statistics are actually made up?

Including that one.