Papers full of the potentially appalling consequences of the BSE, mad cow affair, after scientists have gone public with their strong suspicion that BSE has leapt a species and infected humans who have eaten beef. No hard facts or advice. Everyone frightened.

As H says, the CJD disease takes ten years to incubate, and so our children, who ate beef in the late ’80s, could, like us, be very much at risk if there is an epidemic. Apocalyptic news which vies with details of a huge increase in airborne tuberculosis, which is already on its way to becoming a new, life­threatening epidemic. There’ll be some reading of the Book of Revelation tonight.