Equus Asinus

Hello, I’m Rubí and this is my Rubí Tuesday blog, because I writs it on Tuesdays mostly but sometimes mostly not, according to whim. I do the writting but not the reading, and Morris donkey does the reading, as he doesn’t do writting at all.

Spain announces a State of Pandemonium

The first thing you need to know this week in Spain is that the Prime Minister has made a big speech announcing a country-wide pandemonium and we all have to join in.

Morris donkey has studied the new State of Pandemonium laws and he also read the Peasant’s blog posts; and he tells me a plague is a very Bad Thing. We can’t go and have a look at the very Bad Thing because we are confined to home, so we just have to take their word for it. Even the Peasant can’t go and take a look at it, but under the laws he is allowed to go out for a trip to the shops to buy carrots and beer.

As it happens, we haven’t been to Orxeta village for a while for other reasons. The last time we went there we pooed in the square in front of the Town Hall while the Peasant was having a beer and a man from the council told him off. I don’t know why the man from the council told the Peasant off, as it was us donkeys doing the pooing, but that’s another of life’s little mistiness, as the Peasant sometimes says. The point is that out there in Orxeta village which is the capital of Spain they now all has the plague, which is a very Bad Thing. So we wouldn’t want to go to Orxeta anyway even if we was personally invited to go and poo there.

“So, Morris, tell us exactly why the Prime Minister of Orxeta introduced a plague across the whole country.”

“He didn’t. He announced a pandemonium. You got muddled again mother.” Morris did one of his big donkey sighs, not like the pleasantable sigh he does when the Peasant rubs the inside of his ears; but more the unpleasantable sigh which he does when he is mumsplaining. “It started in China. The Chinese has been eating wrong things again; and that’s why a plague happened.”

“What?” I let out one of my loud aggressive snorts, as I do when I am protecting my donkey family from the lions that lurk down in the wood, prowling around unseenly, we know not where, ready to pounce, we know not when. “The Chinese? Those very same Chinese who have been murdering donkeys all round the world to skin them and make Chinese medicine!”

“Exactly,” said Morris, drawing a flow chart with his hoof in the mud below my nose. “So here you has a bat in the Chinese jungle, what is carrying the plague, because they’s got it inside them. Bats is crafty little blighters. So this plague-bat then gets into this pangolin what is a small dragon.”

“How does the bat get in the dragon?”

“How do I know? It just says it on the Interweb so it must be true,” said Morris, continuing with his flow chart. “The plague-bats gets in the pangolins. That’s what it says. How do I know how they gets in the pangolins? They either gets eaten by the pangolins or accidentally flies in the pangolins because they is blind as a bat. OK? Then the Chinese comes along and catches the pangolin.”

“Like the Chinese pounce like lions on the donkeys and skin them?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t need to go into the flow chart because it’s a different Chinese problem.”

I snorted again.

Morris stamped his hoof. “Can we please leave the Chinese donkey-skinning out of it and stick to the pangolin just for a moment, or you’ll never understand the complex science of epidemiolology I is splaining to you. So here we has the pangolin being huntied through the jungle by the norty Chinese and bashed with clubs then draggied to the seafood market…”

“Oh good grief! I can picture those Chinese now. The utter horror! Hang on… if it’s seafood why does it come from the jungle?”

“I don’t know mother, maybe because the Chinese see food and eat it. But in short, the pangolin is in the market (they call it a seafood market or you may think of it as a jungle market if you insist) but it’s a pangolin in a market, whatever way you looks at it. So, instead of a morsel of succulent dragon the Chinese ends up eating a tasty plague-bat what they didn’t notice was in the pangolin. I promise you: it’s all on the Interweb. I’ve read it.”

Morris then extended the flow chart to show how this pangolin-dragon-bat next got chopped up in the seafood market (or I would prolly call it a jungle market) and bits of it were eaten all round China plaguing people. Finally Morris showed how businessmen flew back to Europe on the flow chart. And in aeroplanes. Because of dragon-bat-plague spreading and globalisation that’s why Orxeta, the capital of Spain, is now in lock down.

Everybody is in their houses, looking out of the window to see who might have the dragon-bat-plague and trying to spot people coughing and spluttering like bludgeoned pangolins. It was a complex story but thanks to Morris and the Interweb, I now understand.

“Thank you, Morris. It’s all clear then. We can blame this pandemonium on the Chinese! And anyway it proves their donkey skin medicine obviously doesn’t work, does it?”

Aitana had been silently observing the flow chart and listening. She looked at me in that aloof manner which she always puts on when I’m writting my blog. As if it should be her writting the blogs, not me.

“You can’t say the dragon-bat-plague is all the fault of the Chinese,” Aitana said. “That’s racist!”

“What!” This was indeed turning into a day of furious snorts. “What? How can I be racist? I’m a donkey… I don’t have the capacity for moral judgement, for heaven’s sake!”

“Not true: you’re Aitanaphobic for a start!”

With that, Aitana minced off in the general direction of the chickens for her morning staring contest. Silly horse! Morris followed her. So that was it then. Now we know how the plague arrived. It was all the fault of bats, dragons, a seafood market and – like all problems in the world including plastic waste, climate change and donkey skinning – all the fault of the Chinese!

But I digress.

This blog was meant to be about How to Disinfect your Peasant so let’s do some splaining of that topic. In a time of dragon-bat-plague your peasant will need disinfecting, when returning from the pandemoniums at the supermarket to buy supplies of carrots and beer. When your peasant returns you need to disinfect him, in case he has been in contact with people coughing and spluttering the dragon-bat-plague. So, let’s start splaining the disinfecting procedure.

You will need 10 litres of Virocid and we pour it in a standard agricultural spray cannister which can be easily strapped on your back. One portant thing is you cannot use it neat. If it is too strong you might poison your peasant. So we dilute it with 200 mls of clean water. So that’s 200 mls of water to 10 litres of Virocid… (I think that’s the right way round) …and now you can start spraying your peasant: and it’s best to take your peasant by surprise and corner him in the stable because they don’t like it.

Oh… I nearly forgot the really portant bit. You need to put on the PPE, as we experts refer to Personal Protective Equipment: face mask, visor, rubber boots and laxative gloves. Why is this the really portant bit? Because it makes you look really portant.

So, that’s my Rubí Tuesday blog for this week and I’ll see you next week. Stay safe and try to avoid the Bad Thing. The sooner we put the pandemonium behind us and get back to the Normal End of the World – which is Brexit and climate change – the sooner we can all relax.