Who'd be a Pig Farmer?

As if it wasn't tough enough already, what with the public's attitude towards cheap cuts, feedstock prices, red tape, and the supermarkets perpetually using you for bum floss, now there's 'swine flu'. The name comes from the fact that the strain has some similar markers to one known to be present in pigs, but there's nothing porcine about it now. Until the media get involved, of course.

"H1N1" isn't catchy enough to scare people, you see, and that's what the press like to do because it sells copy. 'Swine flu' on the other hand, has a nasty ring to it; much better than the alternative 'Mexican flu' which has been proposed because it causes less offence to Jewish and Muslim politicos. You can really scare the pants off people with a name like 'swine flu', which is vital because thus far the virus hasn't behaved in a very scary fashion outside of Mexico. But of course, it's too early to tell.

But back to the pig farmers. Egypt unfortunately decided to use the novel flu strain as an excuse to kick off a cull - long planned - in the country's unregulated and 'disorderly' pig farms. 250,000 animals are bound for the great sausage factory in the sky in what is essentially a clearing exercise to begin a new bureaucratic system. Has there been a single case of swine flu reported in man or pig in Egypt? Er... well, no. Not as such.

The Egyptian bureaucracy's backdoor exercise has kicked off panic culls in other countries, though, including normally sensible countries like Germany. Despite the fact that there is no evidence that the porcine version of the disease can spread from pigs to people, there's a rash of Euro-bans on pork as old political enemies grab the chance to settle old scores. Belgium bans Germany; Portugal bans Spain. Russia bans America. Kazakhstan bans Sacha Baron Cohen.

So, on the grounds that pig farmers have it tough enough, I'm off to buy a piece of belly pork for Sunday - and I won't be reading any of the panicky newpapers either.