Eradicate!

First published in Column 8 on the 22 January, 1992, and about as random in relation to the topic as I ever managed to be. 

A reader of today’s papers and a watcher of today’s news might be forgiven for thinking that the old proverb had been turned on its head – good news is no news.

Nevertheless there are occasional spots of good news amongst the bleak pages – and amongst the trivia that frequently passes for news on television.

For instance, I realised that Saturday’s Situation Vacant in the ODT took up four pages. I can’t be sure – since I’m only a columnist and not a journalist – but I don’t think there have been quite so many jobs advertised for some months. And I don’t think it’s just because the bigger ads took up more space.

A careful reading of the jobs advertised, however, does produce some surprises. I guess those who indulge in these professions know what they are, but doesn’t your imagination take great leaps forward at what an Abrasive Blaster might do, or a Car Detailer, or a Four-Colour Stripper?

The first sounds like he needs to read a couple of articles I’ve come across in Reader’s Digest, on dealing with anger and handling hassles.

Talking of great leaps forward, I see that the Chinese in Beijing have launched a patriotic campaign to eradicate flies. Details were not given in the report I came across, but no doubt they will go about it in their inimitable oriental fashion.

Apparently in 1958 Mao Tse Tung (that bureaucrat to end all bureaucrats) instructed his people to wage war on the birds that were stealing grain supplies. For hour after hour the ever-obedient people beat drums and metal bowls until the frightened birds dropped to the ground from sheer exhaustion.

Why the birds didn’t have enough sense to fly somewhere else for a while I don’t know. However, I’ve got more sympathy for the people. Banging drums for hours and hours on end sounds like the sort of work that only Ringo Starr or a toddler would endure with much joy. Haven’t we all had experience of one of our dear little darlings getting into the pot cupboard and turning it into a drum kit?

Just think if the characters in Alfred Hitchock’s movie The Birds had copied the Chinese example. The ending might have been quite different for several of them. (Incidentally, according to Halliwell, that doyen of film buffs, in at least one scene in this movie the birds proved their superiority over humans in a way the film-makers hadn’t intended. The birds were chasing a group of school children. The children cast shadows on the ground, but the birds didn’t!)

To get back to fly eradication: I’m curious as to the form of suppression the illustrious Chinese energy will take. Perhaps like Mr Myagi, that teacher of karate in The (tripartite) Karate Kid – yes, I know he was Japanese! – they will spend hours with a pair of chopsticks attempting to catch the flies on the wing. Since the Beijing citizens proclaim they are decimating the flies for the sake of hygiene, I suppose the chopsticks will be exterminated too.

Talking of karate, the wondrous summer weather brought out a group of karate-practicing men into the Queen’s Gardens last week. Their movements were marvellously disciplined, each stepping out in unison like long-legged birds fishing in a river.

Back to eradication. Perhaps there are more subtle oriental methods available, kept secret for thousands of years – or maybe a quick dash to the aerosol can will do the trick. However, if too many of these are used at once, couldn’t we have the possibility of a new ozone hole over the city of Beijing?

So what. here’s a chance for a new New Year’s export industry, if we get in fast. Send the people of Beijing some of the snuffing-out stuff that’s advertised on television, the stuff that ‘kills flies dead.’

Dead, as far as I know, is the only way anything is killed. Happy New Year!

Poster for the Four Pests Campaign, 1960
courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The eradication of flies was part of the Four Pests Campaign, which had disastrous effects on the country of China. It took place quite some time before my article was written.