Saturday 15 April 2006

I'm worried about Dobbin. He's right off his cuttlefish.

The BBC have set up a helpful site where experts answer questions about bird flu put to them by idiot members of the public. And the idiot members of the public have risen magnificently to the occasion, with such questions as:


Could my horse be affected?


To which the answer, astoundingly enough, turns out to be... no. Not unless your horse is a bird.
If you’re having difficulty telling whether or not your horse is a bird, here are some handy tests:

1. Run at your horse, shouting, and waving your arms. If your horse flies away, your horse is a bird.

2. Offer your horse some tasty millet. If it pecks daintily at it, emitting little cheeps of pleasure, and ruffling its feathers, your horse is a bird.

3. Ask your horse who is a pretty boy then. If your horse replies that he is a pretty boy, your horse is a bird.

4. Wait until your horse is running towards you, and shout ‘Woah!’ If it fails to stop, your horse is a bird. Or a deaf horse.

5. Sit on your horse. If your horse is now dead, your horse was a bird.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

superb as ever

RangyManatee said...

Funny boy.

The laughing Frog said...

John, I LOVE it !

Дени said...

Well, you can sit on some birds. Some birds are quite sturdy - your ostiches and emus and the like.

Дени said...

And also an ostrich won't fly away, or in fact cheep. I think.

Victoria from London said...

You may not read these comments 11 years later, but on reading 'Could my horse be affected?' I started laughing almost uncontrollably. This developed into full-blown uncontrollable laughter when I looked over at my husband, who was typing with a very unamused look on his face. I did the honourable thing and apologised, whereupon he said, 'sorry love, I'm just trying to write some particularly serious poetry.' That has set me off and I seem to be stuck in a cycle of tears of laughter approximately every 10 seconds. I daren't read another one for the sake of marital harmony, but thank you for your blog and glad to have discovered you!