Bird flu false alarm rattles DEFRA

Fears of an outbreak of avian flu in the UK have proved mercifully unfounded, a DEFRA spokesmen announced yesterday. The panic was intiated when Terry Grounts, a freelance prostitute threatener from Leeds, alerted authorities after his pet chicken Raffles began showing what he thought were early signs of a disease that has decimated bird populations in Russia and China.

"I got up Saturday and went out to feed Raffles her morning seed," bellowed Mr. Grounts. "Usually she's there waiting for me and scratching at the hutch door, but this morning there was no sign of her. It was a riddle."

Mr. Grounts, who has three previous convictions for armed-robbery, looked inside Raffles' coop and got the shock of his life.

"She was lying in bed with her eyes half shut and letting out a sort of wheezing noise. On closer inspection, I noticed mucus at the entrance to her nostrils and, on feeling her forehead, I found she was a bit hot. Needless to say, my breakfast was missing an egg that morning," he told reporters. "As the day wore on, I tried everything for her... Vick's Vapo Rub, Lemsip, Hall's Menthol Eucolyptus, the lot. I even left her a bottle of Lucozade by the bed — the special stuff you get from chemist's in a glass bottle bound in red polythene that's developed by scientists in America."

None of Terry's remedies seemed to work however, and now in a state of some distress, he decided he had no option but to call Whitehall. A state of emergency was immediately declared, and as a fleet of DEFRA helicopters and vans descended on West Yorkshire, Terry returned to the garden to be at the stricken chicken's side.

"I'd brought her a packet of Lockets and some Sudafed but when I looked in the hutch there she was, right as bloody rain and stuffing her face with Jordan's Country Crunch whilst reading a copy of Take A Break, the little bitch. She tried hiding the evidence, but it was too late, the cat was out of the bag. All she had was a cold — her little performance was all a show to get out of laying me my egg that morning. Well, I might have missed out on that, but me and the wife didn't miss out on the slap-up roast chicken dinner we had that night."

Previously

• Britain braces for bird flu apocalypse
• How to make the most of 'plumped' meat
• Married man and father cooks meal for family