Foot-and-mouth? Or something else altogether?

For an (ex)journalist, I'm surprisingly moderate when it comes to conspiracy theories and hypotheses that are a bit out of the mainstream. I've come up with one or two in my time (anthrax killing Scottish heroin addicts a few years back springs to mind!) but only one or two. Well, three or four maybe. Tops.

If you number any journos among your social circle you will appreciate that this is a very modest number indeed, possibly because I'm also rather a skeptic by nature.

So, I am not going to expound at great length the thought that crossed my mind when I saw the location of the latest suspected case of foot-and-mouth in the UK - Romney Marsh on the far east coast.

I am simply going to share two things with you.

The first is a map. Roughly in the centre is Romney Marsh, to the left Pirbright, Surrey and to the right, well, Belgium, basically.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=

And the second is the fact that among the first clinical signs of both foot-and-mouth and bluetongue are "slobbering" and/or "excessive salivation".

Wonder which way the wind's blowing?