Farmer Charlie

Waiting around for one's parent to die is perhaps not a bad job if you can get it, but the problem does remain of what to do with all that spare time. Along with pretending to be an architect and sending unsolicited advice to Government ministers, the Prince of Wales likes to play at farming, and has donated his expert opinion on the subject of what ought to be done about the over-use of antibiotics. Apparently his royal highness' cattle and sheep have been treated with homeopathic remedies alongside more conventional medicines; and of course the homeopathic remedies have worked remarkably well. Homeopathic remedies tend to be most effective when taken with real medicine, even when used on animals which have not yet evolved the placebo effect. An additional benefit is that the active ingredient for homeopathic remedies happens to be a liquid hydrogen-oxygen mix which is, for the moment, quite readily available and fairly cheap; so the prince and several of our more brilliant politicians are keen to promote it as a handy replacement for mere treatment on the hated NHS. After all, what is good enough for the prince's hard-working farm animals should certainly be good enough for Britain's malingering proles.