Pensions and Disease

Quick Quiz:

Was the most exciting thing that was in the news today:

a) A-Day (implementation of the new simplified pensions regime)
b) The discovery of deadly bird-flu in Scotland
c) The first cars being attached to the Yorkshire Wheel

The answer is of course a) because pensions are very exciting. Oh, I could talk about pensions for hours. I'm not allowed to advise you though. I'm not qualified to do that.

The bird-flu epidemic in Scotland is quite fun. Technically it's maybe not an epidemic yet, since it has only affected one poor mute swan. But give it a few days and we'll all be choking on the floor like people do in 24 all the time when they've inhaled nerve gas (*) and running for our lives as soon as a pigeon turns its menacing gaze upon us.

To think, when I was a kid, everyone thought we'd all die from nuclear war, terrorists, global warming, acid rain or massive meteor impact. In fact, all we should have been worried about was swans. A single swan can start panic and mayhem. The ugly duckling has grown up into a carrier of a dangerous fowl disease.

I'm not scared though. No, not me. I rarely get man-flu so I figure I have to be immune to bird-flu. Birds are much weaker than men and hence so must be their respective flus.


(* quick note to anybody easily scared - bird-flu does not spread quite as quickly as nerve gas does. It's also not quite as deadly. Not quite.)