Updates

Just a quick heads-up for those who don’t already know:

Until further notice, Unity’s blog will be located at http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/

Until further notice, I’m on a foreign and quite rickety computer.

I will be using what limited time and capacity I have to address and moderate comments here at Bloggerheads.

If you wish to reach me via email, bloggerheads DOT com AT googlemail DOT com is your best bet until Tuesday at the earliest.

Cheers all.

Oh, and well said Garry and Justin.

Animals on a farm in Elstead (for everyone else in the country, that’s ‘near Guildford’) have tested positive for foot and mouth disease.

Elstead is about 6 miles from here… and please stop looking at me like that.

UPDATE (11:42pm) – Well, there’s a bloody tragedy… Iain Dale missed out on a Newsnight appearance as a result. Diddums.

[I'd say something about old cows here, but there are rules.]

UPDATE (4 Aug) – Morning. We’re not the happiest village going, but things are civilised and safely squared away so far. Oh, and despite what the earlier Surrey Ad article might have suggested, the outbreak was not in Elstead, but in Normandy… which is about 6 miles from here.

UPDATE – The Cranleigh Show is still going ahead… minus the livestock (but including horses).

UPDATE (5 Aug) – Finally, some much-needed assistance… for those who are struggling to make this Gordon Brown’s fault:

Independent – Countryside in crisis: Outbreak linked to leak from foot and mouth laboratory: The outbreak of foot and mouth disease that was yesterday devastating the British livestock industry for a second time in a decade seems to have been a spectacular “own goal” by the animal health industry. Last night, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the strain of foot and mouth disease found on a farm in southern England was identical to one used at a nearby laboratory. This raised the prospect of the outbreak being caused by a leak from one of the facilities most concerned with trying to defeat the disease. The only two laboratories licensed in this country to work with live foot and mouth disease virus are at Pirbright, Surrey, within three miles of the infected farm.

UPDATE (6 Aug) – Of course, only a hardened cynic would mention lessons learned during the recent flooding…

BBC – Livestock missing as show goes on: With no cattle, sheep or pigs making themselves heard around the showground, the secretary of the 2007 Cranleigh Show, in Surrey, said it had been a “very quiet” affair this year… Conservative leader David Cameron was attending the event alongside Tory MP Anne Milton, whose Guildford constituency covers Cranleigh.

Tonight from 7pm to 8pm I’ll be appearing on the panel (in a primarily audible sense) for Fighting Talk: AOB on Radio Five Live.

Wish me luck… I’ll be operating without nicotine.

UPDATE (10PM) – Gah! Wimbledon was running over, so we recorded ‘as live’ in two parts ready to broadcast in a quicksnippy version from 8pm… then Wimbledon ran past 8pm. The current plan involves a later broadcast but topical material ages pretty damn fast, so I guess we’ll see hear what happens.

PS – Johnny Vaughan is a quality host. Not being totally live took the edge off, but I would have felt at ease regardless. It was fun.