HITCHIN A RIDE

Stood for ages in the rain

Ideal weather miles to gain

Spoligotype zero-138

Waits on the verge by the 5 bar gate

Tried all modes such a mess.

Open sidecar is the best

Ride the breeze, any other bug

Any other pilot, any other mug

Hitch, hitch hitch hitchin a ride

Hitch, hitch hitch hitchin a ride

Govey tried a way stop

All our movements, where we drop

There's one now at junction four

Send a team with Agrichlor

On the floor

Take the on board passport test

We must declare you clean

Before you sit you must admit

To everywhere you've been

Smudge smudge

Smudge smudge

Smudge smudge

Everywhere you've been

Some stowed away

With a dust cart on bin day

On the postie's muddy feet

On the shopping trolley seat

Public transport's guaranteed

Satisfies the vector's need

All aboard tickets please;

Cough, spit, dewdrop, sneeze

Hitch, hitchin a ride

[etc]

Muddy tractor, broken mops.

Don't give a toss what vehicle stops

Shit-high cattle truck best for me.

I'm spoligotype 263

    

Spoligotype zero-263

Always tryin to get a ride with me

You'd better watch out you better beware, Spoligotype 263 don't care

Hitch, hitch hitch hitchin a ride

[etc]

Could not keep track of us all

Where we spread, where we fall

Were we beamed from there to here.

Did we ride the fallow deer?

Mr Gove please tell me

Did you track spoligotype 263

Mr Gove please tell me

Where you lost spoligotype 263

Now you see me now you don't

Now you see me now you don't

Where did 0263 hide

Oh by jove old Govey lied

Protocol,  buffer zones

Territory,  broken homes

Perturbation, climate map

Vaccination, ruined trap

Flaking paint, perished tyre

Leaking wellies in the mire.

Foggy Day, aerosol.

Tanker spillage, crayfish toll.

Hitch, hitch, hitchin a ride

[etc]

Hitch hitch hitch Govey lied

Hitch hitch hitch hitch hitchin a ride!

© MOTH 2018

There are various strains or spoligotypes of bovine tB on the rampage. This song follows spoligotypes 0138 and 0263 on their travel around the UK.

NOTES

DEFRA/APHA/NatEngland have not provided a proper explanation of the modes or vectors of transmission that adequately explains the distribution pattern and occurrence clusters of the the various tB spoligotypes. Clusters of individual strains have been erroneously attributed to transmission by a local wildlife vector. Significant incidences of Spoligotype 0263 were recorded in N. Yorks and Pembs but not smeared all over the counties in between. If the badgers spread tB as claimed then we would expect the land between York and Pembroke to be continuously and consistently contaminated with 0263 by their snouting about and wanderings but this is not the case. The badgers certainly didn’t hich-hike in order to leapfrog the interim. So there is obviously another vector or several non-meles vectors with a common thread. That common thread is cattle and the varying inconsistent degrees to which biosecurity is understood and managed. In this lot there’s the postie who visited everyone in the local farming community in a single morning and trod in some muck and touched the gate latch and touched the letter then touched someone else’s letter and patted the dog then got som more muck on his van tyre. And so on.

Badgers are not a significant index vector and are culled unnecessarily in a vain attempt to control an epidemic that is primarily caused by poor livestock husbandry, poor hygene and cattle movements.

Mr Gove was the minister for badger affairs at the time of writing. Even though he has a new job now he should still be held to account for his gross incompetence regarding the implementation of cull policy. If ministers weren’t allowed to shrug it so easily they might think twice about being so useless at understanding all the facts pertaining to their decision making in the first place.

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