Date : Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:20:09 +0200
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Off Topic - BeebMaster Has Finally Flipped
David Hunt wrote:
> According to Sky News
Nononononononoooooooo... You're looking at Sky News. God almightly...
Don't you remember that over-excited reporter almost wet himself being
the first to report about tanks in central London? The fact it was
totally and completely unrelated to whatever was going on (some protest
or other I think) meant the story was quickly dropped - but it gives a
good insight to the Sky News mindset.
Or that killer tidal wave that was going to hit Cornwall. Most of the
news covered it in some way. Sky News practically put their girl in the
water. Certainly in a position awaiting dramatic footage, had it been
more dramatic than a brief hiccup.
> "Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer : 65000 Could Die Of Swine Flu
> In Britain"
Only 65K? Or does he mean "this year". The Spanish flu killed millions
and we didnt have that sort of mass transport and high level of
interpersonal contact as we do today. I'd have expected a rampaging
pandemic to hit seven digit figures pretty quickly. Although it probably
won't be pig flu... or birdie flu... or SARS... or...
> Of course, in the interest of selling "information" to the masses, the
> media opts for the worst case scenario.
Yeah, can you imagine:
SWINE FEVER RAGES AROUND BRITAIN - ONE PERSON DIES.
Doesn't have much bite, given that probably twice as many got killed as
a side effect of an armed conflict that never should have been started
in the first place...
You don't sell papers/viewing share with a non-story.
> and when it's found out the death wasn't solely down to swine flu,
I always await the "the person had other medical complications", which
might be a polite way to say "they had HIV and were breathing their last
gasp and it just happened to be the swine fever that killed them so
we'll scream about that".
> If the media was any way scientific,
Ha! I think "The Sky At Night" is about as close as most public service
channels get to actual proper science.
Certainly science has no place in a news bulletin as it is long-winded,
boring, and would disprove most of the exciting headlines...
> If these people were ill during Autumn/Winter and caught "normal flu"
before
> swine flu then it'd never even make the news.
Indeed, but maybe this winter there will be an extra special flu to fear
- Swine Fever 2.0 ? :-)
> ladder accidents, electrocution whilst mowing the lawn, cutting down trees
> or smoking - damn, yeah, I forgot, those are old news and very avoidable.
Our local paper ran a story about a guy in a chocolate factory. He was
dumping bags of powder from a platform into a 2 metre deep vat. Undid
the chain to better position a sack and it and him tumbled into the vat.
His cow-orkers ran and hit the safety switch, but not before the
spinning paddle had not only smashed his head open, but smashed his
ghost into the afterlife.
Oh, but then again this is the same paper that reports a cute young girl
was the best at twirling a baton in a town pop. 200 so she had her photo
taken with the mayor and she won a pig. I don't know if that means a
live pig or a bag of bits to put in the freezer.
But in the terms of (www.) Ouest-France (.fr), the chocolate guy was an
exciting story. :-)
We have it over here too. It's called "grippe A". Chemists and large
companies are stocking up on tamiflu, pretty soon facemasks will be
given out free (you can get designer ones with pig snouts on them! [*]),
and a Breton company is soon to take on a bunch of extra staff to be
able to deliver a gazillion facemasks by 2011 (erm, two years from now?
when we've all died already?).
* - All these pig references. Look at it like this, if radicals of a
certain religious persuasion plan to take on the world, they'll probably
blow this place up first - it's pig central. Pigs, pigs, pigs
everywhere. Our nearest neighbour is several thousand little oinkers,
not a one of them called Wilbur.
Remind me again - what sort flu was this? Ho-hum! :-)
> A street party or a retro gaming convention are going to be great places to
> pick up flu, whatever its variety ;)
I suppose you could look alternatively that if you are in good health,
it is quite likely you WON'T die of it, so to get it and recover will
provide you with a measure of immunity. In addition, wouldn't it be
better to have flu in the summer (hah, summer? you call THIS summer?)
than to feel sick and miserable in winter?
I love the way winter looks - snow is so beautiful I could fill up an SD
card with photos of it, iced spiders webs, and the water drops frozen on
grass leaves...
...but the cold. The grey. The part where it is endless rain. Or, worst
of all, that slushy sludge that doesn't have the conviction to cut it as
actual snow. I feel down and depressed just being with weather like
that. Much better to feel horrid while sitting outside in the sun
(vitamin D, good!) with a bottle of lemonade and an MP3 player...
...then during the naff parts of winter. Well, stay home, wrapped up
warm, exercising the grey matter and the fingers. Write a compiler.
People that pull that off decently deserve Respect (with a capital R).
And even if you fail miserably and end up bashing out some horrifically
bad fanfic instead, it's still better than having the flu in the middle
of winter...
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, irregular internet access at local library.
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...