Noggs - Stories, Poems and Puzzles

Highly Unlikely

The man from MAFF looked at farmer Giles with suspicion. "So you say you've lost your entire herd to this bafflingly sudden epidemic?" he asked again.
"Oo, ar. One minute they're grazing happily in yonder meadow, the next the whole bloody shower's expired!"
"Indeed. Forgive my asking, Mr Giles, but how are the authorities to know that you ever had these animals in the first place? It wouldn't be the first such fraud we'd seen. I'm afraid I have to ask you: are you indulging in crooked accounting practices? If you are, I can tell you, in common Anglo-Saxon parlance, you're going to cop a packet!"
"'Ere, are you saying I never had no herd in the first place? That's a bloody silly explanation! Those bulls sertainly existed (even though, being somewhat eccentric, my blessed spelling's execrable!)"

The minister was worried. "Either there's a lot of farmers decided to pull a fast one at the same time, or there's something serious afoot here. What's that fancy name you have for this alleged phenomenon?" he asked the government's Senior Veterinary Advisor.
"Biogenetic synchronous expiry. If it's proved to occur, it could be bloody serious, ecologically".
"And electorally! It's not possible, though, is it?"
"I'm afraid so. And it's not necessarily restricted to cows. Scientists cite recent alarming precedents in ewes. It's not impossible that it could even affect man - though that's highly unlikely, medically and neurologically. But if it did, the incubation period could be extremely long - many years, possibly."
"Could you quantify that - by, say, elections?"

An official government press statement criticised "bloody-minded scare-mongering eco-maniacs" and deplored the recent spate of fraudulent claims for loss of livestock. But this didn't stop more cases occurring, and being reported. What really caused the bureaucrats severe embarrassment was when the Prince of Wales's own herd of prize highland cattle all passed away one night, in perfect bovine synchronisation, exactly. In a television interview, the minister declared that all media coverage of the issue had been "boring", "silly", and "egregious" - which let to him being further criticised as a "bourgeois sesquipedalian Eurocrat".
Later in the year, matters took a marked turn for the worse, when the entire population of the village of Monkton-cum-Fenby were found to have died on a single day, of causes unknown. The area was cordoned off by the army. The government leaked the information that they suspected Iraqi involvement, but secret medical reports showed disturbing similarities to what had already happened to so many cows. This was becoming seriously embarrassing.
Tewkesbury was next, and then Nottingham. The government issued an official statement that their medical advisers were confident that there was no threat to London and the south-east, or indeed any Conservative constituency.
When, a matter of weeks later, he was proved wrong once again, the minister boggled, staggered, and expired.

Moral: Scientific truth must take precedence over public relations, for, in the long run, nature cannot be fooled. (Richard P Feynman)