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It often happens. A friend and I will be chatting over coffee or possibly over a G&T and one of those questions will emerge.

"So are we all going to die of bird flu then?"

"Is it true that BSE was really caused by sheep dip?"

"Is it true that you can poison a dog with raisins?"

"Is it true that Febreze kills pets?"

"My dog is limping a lot these days; can I give him an aspirin?"

"I've got a bit of conjunctivitis. My cat had the same thing last year. Would it be all right to use up the rest of her eyedrops?"

"So can you get hold of ketamine then?"

(Stock answers: No. No. With difficulty. No. No; go and see your vet. NO; go and see your doctor! Please go away and don't bother me again.)

In the same category as these classics, I would have placed "one day we'll be barcoding the cows, won't we..."

And I would have been wrong. It seems that we might indeed be barcoding the cows and sooner than you (or I) think.

Somark Innovations has successfully tested a biocompatible RFID (radio frequency identification) ink in cattle and laboratory rats.

The company has announced that its tests demonstrated the effectiveness of injecting and reading a biocompatible chipless RFID ink "tattoo" within the skin of animals.

Initially the company plans to market the technology to the livestock industry to help identify and track cattle, and mitigate export trade loss from BSE concerns.

Given my last post about the sense and value behind livestock identification systems, I can hardly quibble with this. And, in fact, given that we've used tattoos as a means of identifying animals for decades and that I'm in favour of id systems in principle, there's no reason why this story should have left me quite as gobsmacked as it did.

So why did my jaw practically hit my keyboard when I read this?

Well, after considerable soul searching I have come to the conclusion that it's just because if you'd asked me over one of those aforementioned cups of coffee when I thought this might happpen, I'd have said not for a couple of decades yet.

Clearly, I'm falling behind the times.

In other words, I'm getting old!