Foot in Mouth

There's quite a bit of fuss about the current outbreak of foot and mouth at the moment, which has made me think a bit about what happened back in 2001. I remember seeing the columns of black smoke from burning cattle and the rather haphazard way that precautions were being introduced - the "disinfectant mats" which turned out to be old carpets (complete with nails) soaked in disinfectant, the agreed access area onto the Coniston fells with a control point which was a shed, a (bored) student and a couple of buckets of disinfectant and a brush - still at least it gave me a chance to have a little more peace and quiet up in the Lakes as the usual horrible Scouse families stayed in Liverpool. Oh and apparent indifference from a government more concerned with what was going on outside of Britain at that time.
So far Mister Broone appears to be a little more inwardly focussed than his predecessor - let's hope that he can retain his focus and sort out all the problems at home.