Asian hornets make for our doors : much like the junk mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Asian hornets make a beeline for our doors – much like the junk mail

http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Asia ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Junk mail is more than making up for a fall in the number of letters as Royal Mail follows the money, says Chris Rundle

In some parts of the countryside they complain about the lack of postal services.

Well, where I live things have gone the other way. We get too much service from the postman. There is barely a day that the postie doesn't crunch across the gravel up to the post-box by the gate and drop a bundle into it.

And there's barely a day when his journey – from my point of view at least – is actually necessary. Because what he delivers is, by and large, trash. I get the occasional personal letter (or card on special occasions) and most, though not all, of the utilities still send me paper bills.

But the rest is rubbish. A recent day's sample included two sheets (one each for me and Mrs R., inexplicably) detailing the current promotions at the Co-op; three letters from charities I have never heard of insisting that for just £3 a month I could be making an enormous difference to the health or wellbeing of some child/elderly person/donkey; two copies of the same Lakeland catalogue offering me kitchen gadgets I don't need and have no room to keep even if I did; a letter giving details of an easy-pay plan to cover the costs of my funeral (frankly at that stage of the game I won't be caring who pays); and a catalogue from a clothing manufacturer I bought a shirt from five years ago and which now, apparently, regards me as a 'valued customer' – which leaves me pondering about the soundness of the business.

I had a word with the postman. I pointed out that since I had made my views on the subject of junk mail known to him on numerous occasions why didn't he just drop such items in one of the several waste bins he passed en route from the sorting office to my house, because that would save him time, effort and shoe leather, since on the days when there wasn't any proper post for me then clearly he wouldn't need to trudge round here at all.

Couldn't do it he said, pointing out that contractual obligations required him to deliver all junk mail because that's what Royal Mail was being paid to do. He was thus obliged to deluge me with every desperate mailshot, every 'exclusive' promotion of baked beans, bacon or bagels from the local supermarket, every glossy folder from the ironmonger along the street offering me all the tools and equipment required to start the spring garden round – when the weather's been so cold any gardening at the moment would be like trying to cultivate permafrost.

It was then, of course, that the penny dropped. No-one wants to get rid of junk mail because it actually creates work. If there weren't junk mail the postal services could be streamlined and the numbers of postmen cut because there would be many million fewer items to deliver. So the chap who relies on junk mail to keep him tramping the streets five and a half days a week would be out of a job. Well, we couldn't have that.

Similarly, at the other end of the process we have a weekly recycling collection for waste paper, most of which, in my case, is composed of junk mail: unsolicited, unwanted, and indeed unopened. And there's another job created for someone.

Looked at in that light I am obviously operating a short-term storage facility for waste paper here, though I wouldn't want the Environment Agency finding out. It would probably tell me I need a licence to carry on like this. And charge me for one.

So here we are then. Another invasion threatens. The army is anxiously scanning the southern skies for the first sightings, straining their ears to catch the first faint, sinister droning, ready to do whatever it takes to protect the precious assets of the homeland.

Except in the present case it's an army of beekeepers, the assets their colonies, hives and vital honey supplies, and the droning, when it comes won't be from a squadron of Dorniers, but of a far more insidious threat: Vespa velutina, or the Asian hornet. And if I tell you one of its nicknames is 'yak-killer' then you'll have an idea of just what a nasty piece of work it is.

But having only just emerged from the devastation caused by varroa the nation's beekeepers are hardly that cheered at the prospect of facing another major alert.

The hornets first arrived in Europe in 2004, having hitched a ride on a consignment of Chinese pottery shipped to Bordeaux, but have colonised new territory with alarming rapidity: they have spread to 39 French départements despite the authorities taking urgent measures to wipe them out wherever they nest, to the extent of footing the normal 250€ bill for such an operation.

One or two isolated examples of the dark-brown and orange insect were reported in the UK last summer. But having now massed on the French side of the Channel within striking distance of these shores there are serious worries that, given the kind of favourable winds that brought us midges harbouring bluetongue and Schmallenberg, 2015 could be the year the real invasion starts.

The Government has already taken emergency powers to deal with the hornets' arrival and for good reason: apart from predating on honey bees – they chop up the workers and feed them to their larvae – the hornets are a real risk to humans. They have already caused the deaths of six French people through anaphylactic shock, though even that number pales somewhat when compared with the 42 killed in China in 2013 alone.

Indeed it's the strength of their venom – which can cause organ failure and in extreme cases destroy flesh – which has prompted the French government to cover the costs of nest destruction, rather than have its citizens expose themselves to serious discomfort and even death by tackling the menace themselves.

The effect of a sting from an Asian hornet has been liked to having a hot nail driven into the point of contact: not an experience many of us have undergone but a graphic enough description.

Defra, meanwhile, is echoing the advice of the French government: if you come across a hornets' nest don't tackle it yourself. And, of course, don't panic, Mr Mainwaring.

Dipping chicken carcases in chlorine to kill off pathogens has been a routine procedure in the American food industry for years but banned on Europe.

Now, however, that embargo may have to be reconsidered in the light of the latest findings into levels of campylobacter in supermarket chickens. Despite the issue being highlighted, despite the results of individual tests being published – after vigorous, though unsuccessful protests from the retailers – incidence of the infection has actually increased in the latest testing period.

Some 73 per cent of fresh chickens tested showed positive for the presence of the bug, compared with 70 per cent in the last round of tests on November, with Asda, again, returning the worst results of the lot.

At which rate, says the Food Standards Agency, there seems little chance of the supermarkets meeting their pledge to get contamination down to an average of 10 per cent by the end of the year.

What makes this all the more worrying, of course, is the basic lack of food hygiene knowledge among most of the population. Were more people better-informed and thus able to prepare and cook chicken properly and safely campylobacter wouldn't be the problem it is. It certainly doesn't affect the flavour of the bird. Ironically the most radical cure for the problem – dunking the entire carcase in chlorine – almost certainly does.

[bustedflush]

So the chap who relies on junk mail to keep him tramping the streets five and a half days a week would be out of a job. Well, we couldn't have that.

Lucky bugger. Doesn't have to work six like the rest of us?

I have always said to myself if I was ever fortunate enough to have a nice detached isolated house I would write to postie/DIM stating I only want a delivery when there's stamped mail or franked bills/brown envelopes - if there were none all week just come on the Saturday say with the crap/D2D's and catalogues/marketing cards. He/she could save them up each week and deliver them only when there is a proper letter or Saturday whichever comes first. Like I said to cover their a$$ I would write an authorization. Maybe this guy should try it - as well as opting out of door-dustbins.

[DB1100]

I cannot understand the mindset of some of these people who moan about junk mail,it's nothing to worry about,just put it in the bin and get on with your life,don't get upset by it,it's not as if someone has took a dump on your lawn,how would these fragile people cope if something really nasty happened to them.