We are pleased to report that there has been at least one piece of light relief to emerge from the Mad Cow controversy which has had carnivores around the world gnashing their teeth with outrage.
You may recall newspapers reports about two wags in Cambodia late last month who came up with a highly imaginative dual solution to the Mad Cow problem in Britain and the land mine horror in Cambodia at the height of the international scare over Greutzfeldt-Jabob disease.
Shortly after the hapless British Health Secretary, Stephen Dorrell, admitted that there was a possibility that the disease could be transmitted to humans by eating meat infected with the disease, Conor Boyle and Richard McDonough wrote to the Cambodian Daily suggesting that the 11 million English cows should be transported to Cambodia and allowed to roam freely and detonate at their leisure.
'The plan is simple, practical and will make mincemeat of the problem overnight,' they wrote.
'Essentially we'd be killing two herds with one stone.' The puns in their letter got worse. 'There may be some NGO's (non-government officers) out there with no second stomach for such a scheme, who would prefer to organise workshops and conferences instead of getting down to action. I say let them argue till the cows come home. We need to get mooving,' they concluded.
One might think that there are enough puns here to make even the most gullible get the joke. But offers of help with the scheme came streaming in from around the world.
Contacted in Phnom Penh yesterday, Barton Biggs, the editor in chief of the Cambodian Daily, a plucky, pocket-sized publication 'dedicated to strengthening a free press', seemed rather overwhelmed by the response.