Thursday 17 November 2022

Did You Know You is Living inna Surveillance Zone?

 You remember how I had the Scottish Government round the other week, checking if I was doing the housework? They must have grassed me up to the proper Government, because yesterday I had a letter from Nobel House, 17, Smith Square, London, SW1P3JR, wanting to know how I am looking after my chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, quail, partridges, pheasants and pigeons. There was a form to fill in and return, together with a map.
Just as I have been suspecting for some considerable time (it is the suspicious cracks, pops and splutters on the phone line), I am under Surveillance. The letter-writing branch of the United Kingdom Government goes by the acronym APHA*. It isn't headed up by Judi Drench, but, nevertheless, it is working tirelessly, so I am informed, to surveil me. And they would like my cooperation and support.
Day before yesterday, Radio Orkney reported that they also have received the letter and have to complete the form. No stamped addressed return envelope, though - times are hard. As Radio Orkney operate out of tiny, cramped premises on Castle Street in the heart of Kirkwall, God only knows where they are keeping their chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, quail, partridges, pheasants and pigeons. Maybe they've been fattening up a flock of Christmas birds in the cellar.
On the off chance that I do not keep poultry or other feathered pets, I am required to report to the helpline any dead wild birds, swans, geese, ducks, gulls and birds of prey that Harris and I may come across on our walks. Bit late, really - the beaches have been strewn with feathered corpses all year. 
My APHA surveillance letter informed me that "High standards of biosecurity should be maintained as good practice...... Good biosecurity is an essential defence against diseases..."

*APHA - Animal & Plant Health Agency. (not birds, you notice. That would be BAPHA)
 
Here's Stanislav, many years ago:
 
Fuck me, bird 'flu now, as well as Alan Johnson's disease. Good job we have hereditary Plagues minister Rosemary Benn at the helm, as we slide back into Middle fucking Ages. Maybe Lady Sir Iain MachineGun Blair send merry men out, blast birds from sky with Hoekkler and Koch. At least do something useful with mad gunslinger psycho-cops. Maybe Tony Benn wrap-up warm in cardy, go out in field with flask of tea and shout at naughty bird, go away, I am old Labour. And vegetarian. Maybe Foetus Hague go and point finger.

On the bright side, though, a good outbreak of plague would clear out the old and the sick and the poor - although, thankfully, none of the establishment who will be inoculated up to their bollocks - and leave so much more money for houses of parliament pensions.

Leicester Royal Infirmary, flagship NewLabour disease pit, has a mission statement which says: Doesn't matter if our incompetent actions result in your death as you would have died eventually anyway. Honest. Stanislav not invent. The government could display real vision by adapting this to any outbreak of plague. Hard choices. Not come in Downing Street to be popular (just as fucking well, really, considering.) Trust me I am son of fucking Manse. Many must die in order that few remain rich. More joy in heaven over poor bastards flung in plague pit and cover-up with lime and forget about. May as well go now as hang around with arthritis, dribbling. Only die in hospital anyway, lungs fill up, limbs drop off from AJD.* Better off fucking dead, really. Not like us who is left behind to grow old and spend pension. At going down of sun and in morning will remember bird flu death millions. Age shall not wither. Maybe dig-up Bernard Matthews and give peerage for solve pension crisis. Lord Levy negotiate price with family, oi vay. Have Nagilah. Don't work Saturdays.

Stanislav go now in Tesco, buy whole stock of own brand Beechams Powder, come home, seal-up doors and window, not go out, not do plumbing job. Kill budgie.  
 
*AJD - Alan Johnson's Disease. During Alan Johnson's tenure as Health Secretary in Gordon Brown's Government, the intractable outbreak of C.difficile in the Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells hospitals led the Trust to unlawfully dismiss their chief executive, agreeing to a pay-out of £250,000. At Johnson's  intervention more than two-thirds of the severance payment was withheld, only to be restored by the Court of Appeal,  in a judgement  highly critical of the Department of Health.

13 comments:

Mike said...

Send them an invoice with your completed form, Mrs I. You are not compelled to do this AFAIK.

mrs ishmael said...

I've been compelled to use the letter to light my fire of twigs, such is the austerity in the U.K. following Jeremy Cunt's Autumn Statement.

Mike said...

As you ably demonstrated in your last economics lecture, Mrs I, taxing and cutting services will deepen recession. We all know that tax given to Govt is unproductive and draining investment and spending from the economy will destroy demand further. This does nothing to solve the systemic supply problems, and energy costs will only rise from here.

Like her or not, Truss's was the only chance - a mad dash for growth, even though she hadn't done her sums.

I repeat Pvt Frazer "were doomed, I say, doomed".

Mike said...

Slightly off topic, but on the subject of the wild and open spaces. A documentary from the time when these things were well done. It gives a picture of the shear scale of the Aussie red center - most of it still un-surveyed or mapped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J9hh8tyTC8

Well worth a watch.

mongoose said...

I am sorry that I have been AWOL. No excuses will I offer - although I could.

It is mad to raise taxes in the early months of a recession. Indeed, it is mad to raise taxes in any part of a recession except its last gasp, and only then as a dampening manoeuvre. In fact, all of government economics should be practised as dampening. Governments don't do any damn thing economically except destroy freer wealth. This does not mean that we should not say, for instance, that it is intolerable that ordinary people die in poverty when they get old because they are now lilies of the field they still need to eat. Or that a local council should not provide community amenities like buses or libraries. But a great deal of what is done is cockwaffle and executed excruciatingly inefficiently. Dare I say? "Energy Strategy." FFS

Governments can and should do social things and defence things and ideological things but sparingly and without rocking the economic boat. That this truth - and it is beyond argument! (try me!) - is seen as heresy is a sad reflection of our modern idiocy.

When (if) the seas rise, mr mike, y'all will up sticks and move a few hundred metres inland. Net effect? Nothing!

Mike said...

Mr mongoose: welcome back! I have been walking the Sydney foreshore every day for nearly 30 years. I can say, based on the rocks I need to navigate to avoid water, that notwithstanding the normal tidal fluctuations, the sea level hasn't changed one inch.

mongoose said...

In fact, mr mike, sea level rise is approximately 1-and-ahalf mm per year over the last whenever. Although it has slowed recently, and such a poor number means 7/8ths of fuck all on a global basis. It is probable that most places are 1.3-2.0mm. So your 30 year's probably amount to an inch and a bit. As you say, this is not a noticeable amount given that it's the sea.

Our recent coups d'etat seem to be being laid at the feet of the BoE and OBR. Not unreasonably IMO but it does let the other legs of the deep state off the hook somewhat.

The Polish missile is interesting. Apprently SAMs and similar have self-destruct protocols that kick in so that they don't rain random death on folk on the ground if they miss their airborne target. And they detonate by proximity rather than contact - so a big hole in the ground is all a bit rum IMO.

Mike said...

There is a video by Scott Ritter (ex military etc). He knows this missile stuff. He says that to get the missile to fly to Poland someone (Poland) painted a spot in the sky over Poland with a radar signal that caused the missile to fly there thinking its the target. Ergo: a false flag between Ukraine and Poland. US possibly not in the loop so they blamed Ukraine. Its only because pictures of missile fragments and markings were so promptly put on social media and the missile could be identified that the false flag didn't succeed. I agree that these missiles self destruct to avoid this very possibility. It is reported that NATO tracked this missile from the firing to Poland but didn't/couldn't shoot it down, AND didn't release the report until after the missile was identified by social media sleuths. All very stinky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpt-0h_yQJM

mongoose said...

Just watched that, mr mike.

It is going to be a long cold winter in the Ukraine and we have egged them on. For shame.

I had not thought about the redundancy of NATO before! There is no USSR mad-commie loon continent-chewing enemy. Why have we still got it apart from inertia? Why then are we trying to expand it?

ultrapox said...

past sea level - wikipedia:


"sea level rose by 6 cm during the 19th century and 19 cm in the 20th century. evidence for this includes geological observations, the longest instrumental records and the observed rate of 20th century sea level rise. for example, geological observations indicate that during the last 2,000 years, sea level change was small, with an average rate of only 0.0–0.2 mm per year. this compares to an average rate of 1.7 ± 0.5 mm per year for the 20th century. baart et al. - 2012 - show that it is important to account for the effect of the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle before acceleration in sea level rise should be concluded. based on tide gauge data, the rate of global average sea level rise during the 20th century lies in the range 0.8 to 3.3 mm/yr, with an average rate of 1.8 mm/yr."


during the 20th century's grand solar maximum, global sea-levels are estimated to have risen by as little as 0.8mm per year, moreover since peaking in 2016, global temperatures have now ceased to rise, and therefore what neo-liberal nonnies deem "the climate emergency", messrs mongoose and mike, is in fact no more than a conspiracy to flog welly-boots.

ultrapox said...

in my opinion, myopic climate-change hoaxers should not be permitted to release hysterical 'hockey-stick' graphs without such misleading short-term data being accompanied by graphs of historical solar and sunspot activity.

data provided by ilya g usoskin:

a history of solar activity over millennia

ultrapox said...

like the "coronavirus-crisis", the "climate-emergency" is for simpletons who can't read graphs.


euromomo:

european mortality & excess-mortality rates


british medical journal:

age-standardised mortality-rates per 100 000 population in England and Wales - 1942-2020


john appleby - director of research and chief economist at the nuffield trust:

united kingdom deaths in 2020: how do they compare with previous years?


please note that, at the foot of euromomo's graph-page, we can still observe the spike in welsh stupidity - otherwise known as the 'circuit-breaker' lockdown - which occurred between 23rd october and 9th november 2020.

mrs ishmael said...

Welcome back to our discourses, mr mongoose. And thank you for your expert input, mr ultrapox - I've tidied you up, as requested.
Very interesting short video, mr mike, on the Ukraine/Poland attempt to drag NATO more fully into Ukraine's resistance to Russia's invasion. I had immediately sprung to that conclusion, but good to note the evidence to support it. It never made any sense that Russia would fire a missile into a NATO country's territory. A solitary missile? If they were intending taking on NATO, it would have to be mob-handed. Of course Ukraine wants a no-fly zone, policed by NATO, over its territory - -they are having the shit bombed out of them. Zelensky hasn't emerged from this with any credibility - he clung to his assertion that it was a Russian missile, even when we had NATO and Uncle Joe firmly saying it was an Accident. But we must continually remind ourselves that he is a comedian to trade, not a politician, that his generals are running the show, and his function is to wear military fatigues, sport a stubbly beard and front up the business by schmoozing world leaders, provide heart-wrenching videos and sound bites of what Russia has done to Ukraine. For shame! Perpetuating this massacre, worked by puppeteers whose domestic agendas Zelensky unwittingly plays into. Time for a spot of peace, old boy.