Breaking News!

just in case you thought I'd fallen into a long deep sleep .... well I might not have done any quilting with all the recent flurry of tests building up to a relatively imminent pancreas kidney transplant, but I've been busy gathering all the very latest news on the intrigue surrounding what kind of meat is really in our favourite foods. In a nutshell, if you thought that beef stew once ambled around a field happily saying moo, you're probably wrong ... hobnobbing with other horses might be closer to the truth!

So here are the hottest news stories in town, gathered from unverifiable news sources in the middle of the night. Some might even be true ...

1. News Headlines: Equine equality - Horses demand right to be lasagne too.

2. Playground Patter: United Kingdom forecast to become duller than Belgium as children afraid to be caught horsing around.

3. News Headlines: Cows seek equality, demand to run in the Grand National.

4. Poetical Statistics: 81% of the 20% meat content in 95% of supermarket burgers is dodgy. Even stevens it may or may not be horse. And 100% chance it'll make you podgy, of course.

5. News Headlines: Daisy the horse claims she's a cow born into the wrong body.

6. Bible News: And the animals came in 2 by 2 hurrah! Except the cows - one found to have been a third hourse in disguise. All beef products now found to contain traces of horse DNA. Supermarkets to sue Noah's estate for gross negligence.

7. Countryside News: Call to cull abattoir staff. No way to tell which have infected the meat supply but a genral cull likely to be 30% effective. Badger Union says its members will vote yes, but abattoir staff say a cull has no scientific credibility.

8. Honest Harrys Used Animal Showroom: Genuine cow, 3 years old, only 20,000 pints of milk on the clock. Mechanically sound, 4 new hooves ...

9. Honest Harrys Used Animal Showroom: : Genuine horse. Full service history. Novelty cow horn. 6 month's tax and M.OO.T

10. Horse headlines: What next, bacon?

11. Heathen herald: And the serpent said to Eve, "take a bite of this tasty burger". And the rest, as they say, is horseshit.

12. Bedfordshire Insider: Milton Keynes' plastic cows found to contain plastic horse DNA. Children distraught, poor lambs. Parents say the wool was pulled over their eyes.

13. News on the Vine: Uncertainty in the wine world as experts debate which wines to drink with meat that might be beef or might be horse. Sales figures suggest customers recommend Bulgarian reds.

14. Comic Controversy: Desperate Dan demands to know what was in his cow pie!

15. Hollywood Headlines: Traces of "holy horse" found in Batman movie. "Horseabunga!" exclaim Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

16. Braking News: Traces of beef found in school meals.

... and that's folks, as they say in the trade! Remember, don't believe everyrthing you read, especially not on food ingredient lists!