Keep away from the chickens

The whole ‘bird flu - how scared should we be?’ debate rages on. I have met people who have stocked up on enough canned food to last them two months, while many others take the stuff and nonsense approach. However, the fact that people have actually been aprehended flying in to Germany from Turkey with live chickens in their luggage is definitely not a good thing. Of course we are now rightly wary of governments who create an atmosphere of perpetual fear of some perceived enemy or threat to keep people under control. But perhaps when there is something that we should be really worried about, our governments and media keep us in the dark to avoid the sort of panic that would see people locked in their homes with their rifles loaded, ready to shoot the postman if he comes too near without a mask on. A news item today stated that if the epidemic hits it’s most likely to affect the young and the healthy. So I’m alright then, thank goodness.

Normally my phone calls to utilities companies etc end shortly after I receive a negative response to the question ‘sprechen Sie Englisch?’ However I have just arranged a wireless network connection to my new flat, entirely in German. Lord knows what I’ve agreed to, probably that I’ll hand over my first born son or sign the contract in my own freshly spilled blood.

Just when you think that you can’t physically get any more clothes onto your body, you find that somehow you can. I can’t say that the thought ‘I wish I had a balaclava’ had ever crossed my mind before, but this week it no sooner crossed my mind than I was acting on it, scouring Kreuzberg for something woolly to protect chin and cheeks. Unsurprisingly, all the shops had sold out.

Saw another extremely bad mullet today, this time on a woman. Not the sort of thing that would pass muster in Hoxton at all.