Duck and Cover

There comes a point in every news story where it crosses over into the surreal. A point where no matter what you could dream up, reality becomes both funnier and more bizarre than any satire you could invent. Strangely enough, and I have never worked out why - it must be some immutable law of the universe known only unto Stephen Hawking - this apogee in the news trajectory usually involves ducks.

Why ducks? I must confess, I have absolutely no idea. I just know that, for every slam-dunk, knock em dead press release I have ever written over the last twenty years, there have only been two things we have feared, two things that would sink the little barque of our press release in the deep stormy news seas, lost with all hands: the death of a member of the Royal Family, and/or a skateboarding duck.

A skateboarding duck is such a slam-dunk for the "and finally" spot, that you can bet your sweet palookah that if you come up against one, your press release is bound for the cutting room floor. The death of a senior Royal speaks for itself. And of course, if by any chance the skateboarding duck actually contributes to the death of the senior Royal (eg by frightening the Queen's horse at the Trooping of the Colour) well, that's it, you might as well give up and open a whelk stall.

Similar thoughts must have been crossing the mind of the competitors to the Daily Telegraph this week when the MPs' expenses story finally crossed the duck event horizon, with the news that an MP paid £1645 for a "floating duck house".

Judging from the picture, I couldn't actually see £1645 worth of work in it, but in any case, as a duck-related story of public expenditure excess, it pales into insignificance alongside the news that Defra has spent nearly £300,000 on a study that shows that ducks prefer standing out in the rain to floating on ponds. If they'd asked me, I could have told them that for as little as , oooh, £150,000.

It's not been the only duck-related story in the news this week: a banker in Spokane, WA, USA, got up at the crack of dawn to stand underneath a ducklings' nest on some inacessible ledge (maybe he was planning to jump off it later) and catch the ducklings as, one by one, they fell out of it and headed to what would otherwise be a swift demise as duck and pavement met at terminal velocity. He caught and saved every one of them, then shepherded them across a busy road to a nearby lake. Shame there wasn't a shower handy, but at least it proves that not all bankers are bastards. There is one, in Spokane WA, who isn't.

Anyway, once it crosses the duck threshold, even more surreal things start to happen to the story: a Tory MP claims they are all on the verge of suicide (tough shit, you should have thought of that before bleeding the system white) and someone called Anthony Steen says that all this is motivated by envy of him and his big house!

Just for the record, Mr Steen, I don't covet your lifestyle, or your house. I thnk it would be a lot better for you and for us if you were forced to do a fortnight in a tower block in Walsall. I certainly don't want to be you - who would? I envy you the fact that you can use your position to screen you from the realities of life and to be honest I wish I was able to.

But I can't understand why you just don't admit that it's a fair cop.

Meanwhile, I hope that the ducks are OK