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In my item The Great Aid Bonfire covering the abandonment of the food aid Britain donated to Katrina relief, the story at the time suggested that the complete multi-million pound shipment was to be incinerated.
It was with interest that I sat in my Washington DC hotel room this morning and found, on the front page of The Washington Post, an update to the story that confirmed that the meal packs had not been incinerated as planned and that someone, somewhere in the US federal government juggernaut, had the good sense to realise that the British public is incensed enough with our donation being tagged ‘unfit for American consumption’ without the further insult of burning it all.
And what do these ungrateful and hypocritical officials plan to do with it now? Why – they are looking for another country with a food shortage to send it to! In fact, they are looking for a good disaster to happen so they can ship our donation over as a part of their own response.
And why are they hypocritical? The food was condemned because it contained British Beef and as every informed American knows, this means it is riddled with Mad Cow Disease. And as every informed Briton knows, we no longer have that problem and one of the countries with the biggest Mad Cow problem is, ahem, America.
Please arrange these words into a well known phrase.
the,calling,kettle,pot,black,the.
It’s bad enough the french poo -pooing our beef AND lamb, but hey you guys…..come on. We’re mates, aren’t we?
As paranoid as I am about Mad Cow, I think this whole situation is incredibly wrong.
The U.S. asked for food, we got food, and then we snubbed the food. Worse, now we’re looking for someone to pawn it off on like a kid trying to sneak his brussel sprouts to the dog under the table.
I swear sometimes I’m ashamed to be an American.