Squeal, little piggy, squeal!

There’s a new channel on my digital TV service – it’s called Wild.

Now you’d think it would be some hot music channel or maybe a teen party channel; possibly even an outback Alaska channel. Nope. This one is the hunting channel.

I watch it occasionally because it’s hilarious. Unintentionally, of course. There are great moments when a guy will be stalking a deer or something and he’ll turn to camera to explain his great plan.

“Whisper whisper!” he’ll say excitedly. “Whisper whisper whisper whisper! Whisper!”

What’s he saying? Fucked if I know. He’s whispering and there’s wind blowing across the microphone. But I’m pretty sure his intention is to try to sneak up on his prey, line up a shot, and then blow some innocent animal into its afterlife.

The funniest one was at the weekend. I have no idea what show it was, but there was this guy in full army camouflage gear – including camouflage hat and green plastic-looking combat boots.

I mean, this guy was seriously looking the part. He was an M-16 and a grenade away from invading Iran single-handed.

And he was out hunting with his mother. She was about 80 and grey-haired and also wearing full army camouflage with hat and boots to match.

They were – and I’m glad I’m typing this because I cannot say it without falling down laughing – they were out hunting wild piggies with a crossbow. It’s true!

Anyway, I watched with morbid fascination as son set-up the crossbow and aimed at the little piggies; then Mom stepped up and took the shot. Now the crossbow bolt went whizzing across the field and implanted itself right through the gut of Mr Piggy.

Mr Piggy was surprised. He thought: “Hmmm… I best get the fuck out of here!” and started trotting off as fast as his little trotters would carry him.

But it was too late, because he already had a mortal wound. Now the crossbow bolt, incredibly, at the hilt, lit up in a fluorescent red; so what I saw was a little black pig-shape and a red fluorescent blur racing across the screen.

Now Mom (who would be Mum in New Zealand, but it was an American show), turns and smiles to the camera. And son steps up and says something like: “Now, I know there’s some people out there that don’t agree with this. But I cannot think of a better mother-son activity than hunting pigs with a crossbow. I love you, Mom.”

Then they set off after the disappearing red fluorescent blur, and take Mom’s picture with the now dead Mr Piggy. I’m sure in their very non-dysfunctional way they would have cut off the leg and belly roasts and headed on home.

Then there would have been the command: “Here it is, now cook it up, bitch.”

And the response: “Yes, Mom.”

Pigs in a blanket

Some school kids from New Zealand visited Mexico recently, and brought back a souvenir that kick-started a worldwide media beat-up; namely, the Swine Flu virus.

Now this really is a case of the media following a pattern of: “Panic first, ask questions later”.

TV news channels had reporters standing outside everywhere announcing that nothing was happening yet, but dammit they were ready for when it did.

So, here’s the deal. People have been getting the flu for years. No biggie, right? Stay in bed for a few days, watch the soaps and croak down the phone to your mates. Chicken soup and orange juice topped off with paracetamol.

Except that just after World War I there was an outbreak of Spanish Flu that killed millions. It was the last real global pandemic. The thing about this flu virus was that it didn’t just attack one organ of the body; it went for a full-on systems meltdown. It attacked everything until the whole body shut down.

Well, the Swine Flu is from this same family of viruses. Hence the media frenzy. Although the modern media – watered down by many years of editorial cost-cutting – completely failed to make this point.

That said, there’s Tamiflu for anyone who sneezes and it seems most people’s immune systems are having little problem handling Swine Flu anyway.

But can you say “paranoia”? Egypt promptly decided to kill all its pigs. Afghanistan quarantined the country’s only pig. China quarantined its Mexicans. The Philippines ordered that all sick people stay away from pigs.

Anyway, as long as idiots are busy over-reacting, I feel fully comfortable sharing with you the better Swine Flu jokes I’ve either made up or picked up off Twitter.

- They said pigs would fly before America would elect a black president. Obama’s in office for 100 days … swine flu.

- Swine flu kills 90 people worldwide and people wear face masks in the airport. HIV kills 20 million a year and people still don't wear condoms.

- Breaking news: The Muppets have been released from quarantine. There were fears Miss Piggy had contracted swine flu, but it turned out she just had a frog in her throat.

- So if someone isolated the swine flu virus and combined it with avian flu virus - would you get flying pig flu?

- If you get swine flu, but only a small dose, would it be guinea pig flu?

- Did you know: The Greeks believe the origin of Swine Flu is that one of Odysseus's men whom Circe turned into a pig had a cold.

- I heard Kermit the Frog died from the swine flu. His last words: “That pig told me she was clean!”

- Ah-ah-ah-aah-OINK! … uh-oh.