I'm letting the current political news slide with this entry. I'm sure I don't have anything to add to the Benson-Pope story which has been beaten to death by the media.

An interesting topic came up in a recent conversation I had about bird flu. Experts in Britain have been saying that bird flu in its current form is not likely to spread rapidly throughout Britain. Why not? Because most Brits don't live in close proximity to birds, any birds they eat they didn't kill for themselves and are frozen. But can they convince the public of this? No. Because the media are constantly hyping this story.

Currently our government is considering closing the borders in the event of a pandemic, which of course means turning back all ships and aircraft. Being as we're an island nation it will be much easier to patrol the borders than land locked nations. But being an island nation we're also a good destination for refugees, or simply people trying to get away from infected nations. Can you imagine someone trying to illegally fly into a locked down New Zealand? We'd just force them to turn back with our Skyhawks.....oh wait, the government mothballed our only combat aircraft fleet!

Great plan Helen, let's hope this one doesn't come back to bite us.