Mass turkey genocide in February indicates the seasonal return of Bird Flu paranoia. On Saturday I had some delicious duck breast that I cooked myself. 3mins on one side and 2mins on the other, it was bright purple and practically quacked as I stuck my fork in it. As far as I can tell I have not gotten Bird Flu yet.

Here is a very brief guide to Bird Flu:

1. Bird Flu is not Bernard Mathews fault and is nothing to do with turkey twizzlers
2. Can I re-iterate that Bernard Mathews is not to blame for bringing Bird Flu to Britain
3. When we are all dieing of Bird Flu our thoughts of Bernard Matthews will simply be that of nostalgia for the soft focus adverts from the 80′s where he said ‘Bootiful’ and not bitter resentment for his bringing Bird Flu to the UK.
4. A man who would refer to reclaimed turkey meat as ‘Bootiful’ in an advert specifically directed at young children is the sort of responsible chap who would never ever allow some terrible mishap to happen at one of his intensive turkey farms that could result a plague of death and destruction like Europe has never before seen.

The world has lost one of its great naturalists. Darwin, Durrel, James Herriot were all rubbish in comparison to the legend of Steve Irwin. Having brought about a veritable renaissance in antipodean reptile taunting in the post Dundee era Irwin will be sorely missed. Television viewers young and old across the globe happily gawped at Irwin’s incredible ability to go very close to very dangerous animals, and I am proud to say I was one of them (the viewers that is).
Irwin was a paradigm of Australian-ness-ness, his broad accent, enthusiasm and no-nonsense manner appealed to all. Born in Melbourne and brought up in Queensland he learnt his trade in his families‚Äô reptile park, which he then took over and renamed ‘Australia Zoo’ – now firmly on my list of places to visit. It was only a matter of time before his lizard grabbing made it onto TV and the rest is history.
I first watched his ‘World‚Äôs Deadliest Snakes’ and was captivated by his approach to nature documentary footage. Boring old Sir David Attenborough would stand in front of the animal of choice and whisper, while Steve would be crawling through the undergrowth to wrestle it to the ground. Steve Irwin was a great believer in conservation and bought land all over the world as a result. He had strong views and often responded to his critics. Whether I agreed with him or not I liked him.
Sometimes when somebody dies you wish they could be alive again. But he went out the way he would have wanted. Pagan warriors would wish to die in battle so they could cross the bridge of swords to feast in the halls of the otherworld. Irwin is now one of the few people to have been killed by a Stingray, his death was an exceptional one, and he is no doubt wrestling in the great crocodome in the sky.

I have relocated to the South West of France for a few weeks. Here I can test cheese and other culinary delights undisturbed by the bullshit of everyday life in Britain. The feedback from Shiptononline indicates that what the readers of this site, whoever the hell they are, want to know more than anything else are my opinions on cheese. Well I am glad to oblige, as I do hold strong opinions on the matter. Having arrived in France this was not foremost in my mind, being overwhelmed by a feeling of ‚Äòthank the Lord I have escaped that stinking island‚Äô. So when offered an opportunity to visit the supermarket I turned it down in favour of sitting on the veranda admiring the view of the tranquil silent valley below and perhaps having a swim. I simply issued the instruction “bring me bread p√¢te gherkins and CHEESE.”

Some hours later I was presented with Champion’s own brand produce (Champion is a French supermarket Рimagine a cross between Morrison’s and M&S).

1. ‘le Chevre’, SOIGNON, Fromage de Chever du lait pasteurise
2. Terrine Gourmand de Canard au Poivre Vert, Champion
3. ‘Croc’ Gherkins, Champion
4. ‘Petite pains grilles’ Champion

Washed down with a bottle of plonk that someone had left within grasping range it made quite a pleasant ensemble to watch the sunset.

‘le Chevre’ is presented in camembert style packaging of a circular wooden container. It had a camembert style outer rind and inside it was pure white smelly gloop. The fact it was white rather than yellow smelt of goats cheese and tasted like goats cheese were the only major differentiating factors from a Tesco Camembert. I was very disappointed to see that it was pasteurised. It’s practically cheating as far as goats cheese is concerned. The French may love the EU but it still kicks them in the teeth every now and again. You would not believe the open rebellion against authority the concept of pasteurising cheese has generated in this country. I’m pro Europe, but those pencil pushers back in Brussels can go swivel if this is their idea of proper goats cheese. I want something bought from a crusty old bloke in a market that crumbles to the touch, that can be smoothed on a biscotti or bit of bread, wrapped in pastry and baked or singed and placed on top of a salad (that has had balsamic vinegar drizzled on it) and will have all that fresh goaty-ness I love. This was not that. This was the ginsters of goats cheese. This is the goats cheese that you buy at the petrol station because everywhere else is shut (being France not because it’s Sunday but because that nation randomly decided they couldn’t be bothered today).

I opened the 1€ jar of gherkins with some trepidation. Supermarket brand gherkins from the UK will garner you soft insipid sweet tasting poisonous mush in a gherkin shape. Imagine my surprise when these where the tangy crunchy gherkins which surpassed the products I have become used to paying £4 a jar for in a pretentious north Oxford deli. Perched on top a mound of ‘Terrine de Canard au poivvre Vert’ mashed into a biscotti I had the familiar tastes sensation I know and love. The Terrine had the consistency of dog food but tasted quite different, but that is the leap of faith you have to take when eating this stuff. I think this trip to France is going to see me re-evualate pâte. Having now made a terrine myself, and also some pork rilletes I have realised that as long as you have a) meat b) fat c) anything else you can think of and d) something to boil it in; you can make practically any kid of terrine or pâte you like. Which is why I can allow my self to be unimpressed by the otherwise excellent tasting 3€ terrine. When the infinite combinations of tastes and flavours become apparent to you why on earth would you buy it in a jar from a supermarket? But then this is the same market that has an entire isle dedicated to only British products.

Pate and Gherkins 1 / Cheese 0

Nathans, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, USA, January 2006, taken by me!

Details of the 2006 competition on Nathans’ website
odd profile of current champion Takeru ‘The Tsunami’ Kobayashi

Also check out how much cheescake can be eaten:
7 pounds of cheescake in 6 minutes

I have been making notes on ways to make tinfoil hats. Here is what I have come up with:

Click picture to see a bigger one.

Tin foil hats are used to prevent ones mind being controlled or read by THEM.

This is because I dont want THEM reading Shiptonblog until I have pressed the ‘Publish Post’ button.

Also when I publish my long planned post about Tony Blairs Weather Machine there will be a global media frenzy, and clearly THEY must not know how much I know until I know I want them to know and even then THEY may not know all that I know, and its possible I dont know everying THEY know.

Britain in 2055 Mad Max or Blade Runner?

The choice is not yours, but it seems that one or the other is inevitable. According to a government sponsored website called Foresight

“Foresight, and its associated horizon scanning centre aims to provide challenging visions of the future, to ensure effective strategies now.”

Checking through most of its boring and uninteresting stuff on the site one can get access to the document titled ‘The Scenarios Towards 2055′ (3mb). Also you can see ‚ÄòThe Scenarios Toward, the process.‚Äô.

This is a fascinating read, describing Britain upto 2055. But no matter how crazy the stories may seem, its government sponsored! This is what THEY think is going to happen.

But to save you the hassle of reading it I will provide some comment and analysis here.

Page 10 of the document begins to detail the ‘Perpetual Motion’ Scenario that readers maybe familiar from films such as ‘Bladerunner’ and ‘Minority Report’. As efficient cars zip backwards and forwards and video advertisements adorn the sides of buildings. We all end up with encrypted ID cards and so forth.

But turning to page 46 of the document we see ‘tribal trading’, things change from Phillip K Dick to Mad Max. But not the Mad Max we know and love, but a more British one. The timeline tells us that in 2011 we reach peak Oil and in 2026 the UK banking system collapses. The rest of the tribal trading article describes how we will move out of the cities and into the countryside.

“This is a world that seems to have stabilised, but the change has been traumatic. By 2055, many have died, from illness as much as the endless skirmishes over energy and food, and more have migrated, often unsuccessfully, in search of places with resources where they can settle.”

So the Kalashnikov society could come to Britain, we won’t be able to travel from one end of the country to the other by car or train, but by foot and horse. We will toil in the fields and die younger but live healthier. People will scavenge the landfill sites of the past searching form microchips. But we will, according to the document, still have computers and in one form or another an internet. Will Shiptonblog still be there in 2055 I wonder?

Anyway its nice to know what the government plans for us when the global economy, the environment and everything else goes tits up.

Check it out

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Revelations 6,8

Does a dead Scottish Swan count? Quoting the Bible is always fun, because so much of it is bonkers. While studying for my GCSE in Religious Studies (because I wasn’t allowed to do German) I managed to read quite a lot of it. Often I would quote from my authorised King James Bible I was given by an ancient relative, which was also printed in olde English. You did not get extra points for that by the way.

My thoughts have not actually turned to the bible at all as we all face the inevitable prospect of death by bird flu. Now the infamous swan has been discovered we can prepare. I am not sure if the swan has been named, perhaps it is called ‘Swanny’.

Firstly people will start to catch it from pigeons, and swans in parks. Simply buying chicken from the supermarket will put you at risk before even opening the packet. As the mountains of bodies begin to pile in the streets the fabric of society will erode, there will be rioting as food runs short. There will be a curfew and martial law as are movements are restricted by the State. The police and the government will all be inoculated by their secret supplies of tamiflu, but this will only protect them for a while as the virus mutates over and over again. Tamiflu will fetch up to £500 a pack on eBay it will be even more useless as the postman will be dead. The economy will disintegrate as people flee the cities, other diseases will catch hold as paranoia and panic spread like wild fire.

Bird flu sufferers commonly appear to die a slow and lingering death. Then, a short while after they appear to have died, they are re-animated with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh. Depending on the strain of bird flu the sufferers will only be able to mumble things like “Mnnnurgh! Mnnnurgh!” or “Brains!”. Some will run, some will simply shamble. They will blindly attempt to re-create their previous lives, sometimes in ironic and dryly amusing ways. These attempts will not extend much further than shambling around shopping centres or business parks. All will be killing machines defeatable only by severing the head or destroying the brain. Bird flu is spread in the air, by touch, by biting and by sight.

As the survivors emerge from the shattered mess of Britain they will see a country reduced to a quasi medieval society. Business parks will be clogged with trees, cars will be pulled by horses and the name ‘Swanny’ will only be whispered in the most fearful and hushed tones.

Personally I am looking forward to the post-apocalyptic part of our societies decline. The transitional phase as we return to a tribal society is clearly not far off. And as our fuel and energy rich economy collapses our once common machinery will decline, and a frantic search for fuel and parts will take place.