PANIC!!!!!

A terrible disease is RAMPAGING across Mexico, sending SHOCK-WAVES around the globe. Commodity markets are PLUNGING on the news of the DEVASTATING effects of swine-flu is as the international PANDEMIC sweeps the ENTIRE WORLD in the grip of a CRISIS so ENORMOUS it has caused widespread PANIC on the streets.

HOSPITALS are on stand-y for a TIDAL WAVE of new patients DESPERATE for a dose of the TAMIFLU ANTIVIRUS, their last hope of SALVATION.

DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE Mexico City residents are being warned and WEAR FACE MASKS AT ALL TIMES or face the highly likely possibility of a TORTUROUS DEATH before ye shall burn for all eternity in the fires of HELL.

Commodity markets went into FREEFALL on the news, with soybeans CRASHING their daily LIMIT DOWN in China Monday morning.

Oh yes. We've not had a good panic now for ages have we? Let's get some newspapers sold. Bird flu, pah. Salmonella in eggs, my arse. CJD and BSE are so yesterday darling. Blue ear, blue tongue, blue bollox.

Already a GIGANTIC 0.000015% of the population at the outbreak's EPICENTRE in Mexico have been affected (yes I have done the calculation). That's affected, not died. If you want the DEAD figure you need to add another zero and to lop the five of the end.

Nobody has actually died in America yet (or anywhere else outside Mexico for that matter), but a whopping 0.00000006% have already been affected, that's 20 people to you & me.

And don't forget the Scottish couple in Lanarkshire, yes the DEADLY DISEASE is amongst us here too, with 0.00000003% of the population affected - although their flu-like symptoms are disappointingly mild and the couple's condition was causing little CONCERN. Bugger, I bet they're ginger as well.

Four suspected cases have also been found in France. Let's keep our fingers crossed for them eh? It's only a matter of hours before the French ban Ben & Jerry's ice cream on the back of it, surely.

Of course it doesn't really matter what I think, or even if I'm right, it's down the what the market perceives the threat to be. Currently, it seems, that the market thinks that this could have a serious affect on demand for corn & soymeal in the US. Indeed as with BSE and the Edwina-inspired salmonella in eggs scare in this country, although the reality of the threat to humans was tiny, scaremongering in the media was sufficient to sway public demand.

We'll have to wait a few days to see how this one pans out.