Comments on: Chronicle of a Cock-up Foretold

By: Advanced Technology Products Interactive » Blog Archive » Error regards british swan.

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:57:29 +0000

[...] AndÃ‚Â thisÃ‚Â has been reported [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 06:25:04 +0000

dog sees dead swan, thinks “yum yum”. sticks face teeth and paws into body to soak up all that natural goodness. goes home licks snotty nosed kids, gets patted by mum and dad and craps on the football field where its mates love rolling in the grass. the virus, which can survive very nicely, ta, on bird feathers and in bird crap, gives dog fur and dog crap a try. dog later plays dead very convincingly.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:14:37 +0000

Well there were reports of seagulls having a go at the carcass during that time.

I just thought, you know, a cautious, better safe than sorry approach might have been warranted.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:07:20 +0000

What did you think the dead swan was going to do in the intervening 16 hours for fucksake? Be resurrected and fly away? File a claim for political asylum?

The only incremental risk that delay presented was that someone might have chosen exactly that moment to rub their face in dead swan. And in that case I think they’re probably better off outside the gene pool.

By: Bloggerheads

Bloggerheads — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 09:11:18 +0000

A few quick thoughts…

I’m neck-deep in a new music video (of the non-political money-making variety) so please excuse me if I only poke my head up over at Backing Blair for the next few days. Here are some thoughts on current events to……

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:46:10 +0000

And on the plural question: finer minds than mine have considered this in mind-numbing depth.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:35:38 +0000

Wikipedia to the rescue. Summary: the virus is the Influenza A virus, H5N1 is the subtype of that virus, named after the types of Haemagglutin and Neuraminidase antigens on the virus surface.

By: Woof

Woof — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:17:34 +0000

It’s very definitely H5N1. HN51 is a strain of journo dyslexia, a dreadfully debilitating disease. I’d always understood that there were a large variety of avian flu variants, of which H5N1 was the potentially fatal one.

I think it was Hugh Pennington who, flippantly but rather accurately, put forward the view that bird flu was only a problem if you drank swans blood. Personally I’m far too busy gorging myself on lark’s wings to bother with Chateau Swan ‘67.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:43:13 +0000

So is HN51 a misspelling then? A lot of news outlets are talking about both that and H5N1 and not differentiating. Are the N and the 5 being transposed or are we talking about two viruses? (virii?)

By: Devil's Kitchen

Devil's Kitchen — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:34:37 +0000

ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s reported that the swan killed by HN51 in Scotland

The virus is H5N1, not HN51. This is important because the swan was confirmed quite early on as having died from H5, but it was not confirmed that it was the potentially dangerous N1 variant.

I’ve been rather out of the news loop recently, so I don’t know if the N1 has been confirmed; I imagine that it has, as the tabloids would never, ever try to stir up panic by reporting something that has not been confirmed, would they?