During May and early June a new outbreak of Foot 'N Mouth
Disease is expected to sweep Britain.Symptoms include blistering
of the mouth, due to over-expulsion of political hot air, sore back
feet due to too much tramping round constituencies, and sore front
limbs due to too much hand shaking with people who aren't going
to bother voting for anybody anyway. Further symptoms include
putting the rear limbs in the mouth cavity in total confusion and
then denying it, hence the name "Foot in Mouth". However the
severe foaming at the mouth seen in the last outbreak in 1979 is
not foreseen - this affects mainly the older breed of bovines known
as "Thatchers", nominally extinct in Britain since 1991. However
secret experiments at Roswell are rumoured to have cross-bred the
"Thatchers" with an incompatible breed known as "Labour"; this
has produced a genetically unstable and infertile breed called "New
Labour". Watch out for this breed, identified by long floppy ears and
a silly grin, F 'N M disease renders them highly unstable, prone to
unpredictable wobbling between policies, and may be confused
with mad cow disease.
The only possible remedy for this disease is a major cull of the
animals affected. The open green spaces of St James Park are
now closed to the public as vast funeral pyres burn at
Westminster, where the disease originated, and huge trenches are
to be dug in Westminster Square to cope with the corpses. Some
of last year's visitors to Westminster, around 1 May 2000, are to be
consulted on the best way to dig huge trenches in Westminster
Square. British political herds are then to be restocked with stock
from Europe. Normal political life, the same as it always was, will
be resumed in July 2001.
Hillary Shaw, P/G Geography, University of Leeds
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