UK travel restrictions: Why isn't the UK on its own quarantine list?

From the BBC:

How is the quarantine list decided?

The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) - set up by the government to monitor coronavirus - works with the chief medical officers of each UK nation and advises on which destinations should be on the list. The decision is often made when 20 or more people out of every 100,000 in a country, or island, are infected over seven days, but other factors are also considered..

From the BBC:

On Friday [1 October], the country recorded 6,968 new cases, slightly down from more than 7,000 a day earlier in the week... An estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released on Friday, suggests that roughly one in 500 people in England had coronavirus in the week ending 24 September, only slightly down on the previous week.

7,000 new cases a day x 7 = 49,000 cases per week.
(Sure, there are some false positives, but there will be a lot of people who have mild or no symptoms and don't get tested, so let's accept 7,000).
49,000 ÷ population 70 million x 100,000 = 70.
Which is over three times the official limit.

Check: one in 500 people are infected. Out of 100,000 people, 100,000 ÷ 500 are infected = 200 are infected. Assuming each person is infectious for two weeks, it requires 200 ÷ 2 = 100 new infections per week to maintain the one-in-500 ratio. That's a bit more than the first answer 70, but they are in the same ballpark.

Another piece of the Thomas Cook puzzle

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there were/are lots of groups with an interest in seeing Thomas Cook's operations keeping going. What tourists are paying £1,000 for is to  be somewhere nice and hot for a week, the flying there and back - which is what Thomas Cook was in charge of - is a pain in the bum. The marginal/average cost of flying a plane full of UK tourists to their destination in Europe and back is about £100 per passenger, the value/cost to everybody concerned (of the actual holiday, using up limited days' leave from work) is far in excess of that.

The BBC report a good example of such a group, which hadn't occurred to me before:

The sudden collapse last month of one of Europe's biggest travel groups, Thomas Cook, ruined the holidays of 600,000 stranded tourists. Hundreds of thousands more had trips booked when the news was announced.

But for parts of Spain's tourist sector, Thomas Cook's demise is also an existential threat... The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation has said that 1.3 million autumn and winter visitors will be unable to fly into Spanish destinations.

This will result, it says, in the shutting down of at least 500 hotels, generating losses to the tourism sector running into the hundreds of millions of euros.

Spain's government has announced a package of measures worth €300m (£260m; $330m), including emergency credit lines and a reduction in airport fees, particularly for hubs in the Balearic and Canary islands, plus plans to spend €500m in improving tourism infrastructure.

Surely, that €300m (or €800m, or whatever) would have been more than enough to take over Thomas Cook's airline business (plus whatever other bits they need) and keep it going, maybe even turn it round? Stuff like the leases on the planes; staff wages (it's a lot cheaper keeping a team going than assembling a new one); the take-off and landing slots; all the information about who's going where and when.

Thomas Cook's 2018 accounts show that it (they?) had a decent operating profit/positive cash flow from operating activities. What tipped it (them?) into big losses were interest costs and the usual 'cost of intangible assets' nonsense. The new owners of the business don't need to take on the ghastly debts, that's Thomas Cook's old creditors' problem (many of whom will be entirely innocent in the whole mess; some of whom will be complicit and it serves them right).
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To cut a long story short, the Spanish government could simply run the airline which takes UK tourists to Spain. Everybody wins.

"The Haywain" by John Constable

I had always assumed that the hay wagon in the famous painting was fording a shallow river that flows off between the trees in middle of the painting.

Mrs W and I visited National Trust, Flatford on Sunday, and took the obligatory 'gate crashing The Hay Wain' photo in front of the cottage, which still looks exactly the same.

Two things struck me:

1. That is not actually a river, it is a pond (or non-flowing side-arm of the actual river, or however you wish to describe it), which ends roughly where the trees in the middle of the painting are. Nobody would be daft enough to ford it, they'd just go round it, which would take about one minute. So the event he painted never happened.

UPDATE: Sobers' explains in the comments why the wagon is in the pond.

UPDATE: NT map:


2. While the cottage looks exactly as it did, the National Trust haven't bothered to install a hay wagon in the middle of the pond, which would enhance the overall visitor experience and make those photos all the more enjoyable. Especially if you could wade out and pose on it, like on the zebra crossing in Abbey Road.

Lest ye think this is some sort of sacrilege, there are precedents for this, i.e. statues commemorating something that never happened or somebody who never existed, which become visitor attractions in their own right, for example The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, Manneken Pis in Brussels or various Swords in the Stone dotted around anywhere with a vague connection to King Arthur. See also Waverley Station in Edinburgh.

Nobody move or the French tourism industry gets hurt!

From the Daily Mail:

Britons could need visas to visit France if the UK does crash out of the EU without a deal.

As Theresa May arrived in Brussels for a crunch summit, the French government ramped up its preparations for a no-deal Brexit and said Britons would become ‘nationals of third parties’ and would probably need travel permits to visit.

That's their unilateral decision, isn't it? You can't blame that on Brexit.

Nobody move or the car drivers get hurt!

From the BBC:

UK drivers may have to get an international driving permit if they want to drive in some European countries after a no-deal Brexit.

The government says that after March 2019 "your driving licence may no longer be valid by itself" in the EU, in its latest no-deal planning papers.

It also warns that Britons travelling to the EU may need to make sure their passports have six months left to run.

That's it, chaps. They've got us game, set and match. Let's have a second referendum and vote 'Remain'. But wait...

International permits cost £5.50 and are available at some post offices.

Ah, right.

"Holiday costs could soar after Brexit, travel agents warn"

Emailed in by MBK from The Times:

The research details how the EU has benefited UK holidaymakers, including: financial protection for package holidays, compensation for flight delays, free healthcare through the European health insurance card, caps on mobile phone charges and the right to bring home unlimited goods...

Overall, it suggests that a period of uncertainty would almost inevitably follow a vote for Brexit. BTA also claims that a “leave” vote will probably affect sterling, pushing up prices for Britons travelling to the continent.

1. There's nothing to such that financial protection for package holidays (ABTA or ATOL) is restricted to holidays within the EU. In fact, ATOL appears to have been imposed by the UK government.

2. Compensation for flight delays, not sure about this. Firstly, the UK could easily impose the same rules on airlines flying to/from the UK, and secondly, what does relevance does EU membership have on claims against European airlines? Can non-EU citizens not claim under if their flight is delayed?

3. The EHIC card system operates within all EEA countries, not just the EU.

4. The caps on mobile phone charges were one of the few Good Things which the EU pushed through, but AFAIAA, they apply in Switzerland as well. I was there a couple of years ago and am pretty sure I got the same text message as when you go to any other European country.

5. The right to bring unlimited goods? Other EU countries are perfectly happy for us to buy their stuff, it is the UK government which would impose a limited post-Brexit. That would be self-inflicted.

6. Period of uncertainty, fair enough, difficult to quantify one way or another.

7. Sterling might rise or it might fall. Nobody likes paying more for their holidays when sterling falls, but it would be good for exporters and our own tourism industry. So that's a break even.

Greek debt crisis solved: Greece to issue "Sun and sea vouchers"

In round numbers, seeing as Greece makes up a lot of statistics anyway:

* Greece owes the Troika €200 billion
* 20 million tourists per year.
* Average spend on air fares and hotels €1,000 each = €20 billion per year.
* Half of this is actual incremental costs.
* The other half of what tourists pay for is stuff which Greece gets for 'free' or which are already in existence/paid for i.e. airport infrastructure, hotel buildings, landscapes and historical sites, beaches, blue sea and sunshine.
* Additional cash spend by tourists €500 per holiday.

So what Greece could do is issue the Troika 400 million "Sun and sea vouchers" entitling the bearer to €500 off the cost of airfares and hotel stays, pre-dated 20 million a year for each of the next 20 years. So Greece will be redeeming its national debt by giving away value which they themselves get for free.

We can assume that balance of what tourists actually spend more than covers the incremental costs (the airport and hotel staff, the food and drink they consume and other tourist tat like fridge magnets), so that's a break even.

All the creditors - the IMF, banks, the ECB and so on - will be given the appropriate number of vouchers and they can sell these to travel agents for something approaching face value, who then pass on the discount to people who want to go to Greece on holiday, so over the next 20 years the creditors will get their money back (albeit indirectly).

A sunshine backed currency. What can possibly go wrong?

French Tourism

From the Telegraph

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius unveils drive to end "paradox" of France being world's top tourist destination but among the least welcoming

With the attractions of Paris, the Alpine ski resorts, Riviera beaches and excellent cuisine, France has been the most visited country since the 1980s, welcoming 84 million tourists last year.

But the country has also been wrestling for some time with its reputation as one of the rudest places on earth for tourists.Now the French are being urged to be "more welcoming", as France prepares to launch a multimillion-euro tourist investment fund aiming to boost tourist numbers to 100 million by 2020.

There isn't a paradox. Tourism is almost entirely about seeing things, and mostly things provided by the state. The people that are providing things around those locations are mostly rent-seekers. A cafe on the Champs-Elysee or outside Windsor Castle can provide expensive so-so coffee with a frown because you're not going there because it's a great cafe with a reputation, but because you just want a drink and it's the first place. And as a tourist, you won't be a regular.

France is a lovely, welcoming country. I've stayed in friendly little hotels where they gave us a luxury room for the normal price because it was available, restaurants where they offered me a free glass of a local spirit to try. If you're in Cognac, a distillery tour is friendly and professional. The Champagne houses also do a good tour. I've eaten cheaply and had excellent service in Paris because I choose to eat in areas like the Sorbonne, Les Halles or the outer arrondisements, where you're sitting in tables next to Parisians... in places that have to be good because they aren't relying much on location and tourists. And my cafe tip is to turn off the Champs-Elysee and find a backstreet cafe full of locals where you'll pay quite a lot less.

(the exception to the state providing tourism is places like Disneyland, and in those cases, no-one is complaining about the service)

Tour de France economics

From John Redwood's Diary

Some have written in to ask why I missed out the Tour de France from my list of English sporting events that have managed to project themselves onto the world stage and create jobs and profit for England. The clue is in the name . It is difficult to claim the Tour de France as a great traditional English event.

I understand that many Yorkshire supporters have come out to line the route and enjoy the cycle competition. Good luck to them. I cannot , however, see that this is a great business triumph. As I understand it all the viewing along the route is free, so there is no ticket revenue. The UK has doubtless paid a substantial sum to the French  promoters of the race to have it here. Councils have spent substantial tax revenues on providing viewing hubs with toilets, large screen tvs and entertainments to provide this free to spectators. They have also spent a lot on road closures, safety inspections and signs. It will be a heavily loss making popular event, offering  free entertainment to many. Anytime a Council or government  wants to provide free or subsidised entertainment it is likely to be popular with those who go.

First a little background: The Tour de France is paid from 2 sources of revenue: 1) sponsorship (including a carnival of advertising vehicles that runs before the riders) 2) towns paying for the privilege of being the start and end stages. The figure for Sheffield hosting the event is estimated at £1m.

What Mr Redwood misses is that while the route is free, which means limited ticket sales there are spin-offs as highlighted by The Star:-

Campsites and hotels are full, and some roads will be closed from tonight in a wave of significant disruption that also affects much public transport.

And those extra hotel guests are going to have to eat somewhere. So, out of that £1m, some of that is going to be returned in extra tourist revenue.

The other benefit is that the Tour de France coverage on TV is a combination of cycle race and tourism video. The helicopter crews and commentators love to pick out interesting places on the route. And tens of millions of people watch this every day, so you get to show off your town to huge numbers of people for £1m.

I'm not sure if the numbers add up, but that's how it's supposed to work...

Tourists

Tourism is a surprisingly large part of the London economy, so I always try to be helpful and friendly to tourists so that they go back to their country and tell their family and friends how nice the natives are (ha!).

So what I often do is to ask the person taking a picture of their companion(s) whether they'd like to get in the shot and I'll take the picture of the whole group, which most tourists like (I don't look like the sort of person who'd run off with their camera/mobile phone, so they usually say 'yes').

[It's always nice when you're a tourist somewhere and somebody offers to do it for you, although they usually forget that if there is a church spire or something in the background, they are supposed to shift the camera angle so that it appears to be growing out of somebody's head. Or that's what is says you should do in all the books.]

Anyway, on the way home, I espied an old Chinese guy taking a picture of his wife in front of some London landmark or other, and as is my wont, was just about to ask him when I noticed that his wife (who had had her back to me thus far) was wearing a full face mask, a bit like this:
That wouldn't have been so bad, but she was wearing a wide brimmed hat and had the collar of her nondescript anorak pulled up as well.

Dude WTF? How was he even sure it was his wife? When he proudly shows the folks back home his holiday snaps, how will they know it was his wife?

Or maybe they were taking stock photos for poor Chinese people who can't afford to go on holiday in London but would like to pretend they have done.

Who knows..?

Why there are so few tourists in central London, Rome & Bruges

Via Khards at HPC, from The Oxford Mail:

The medieval centre of Oxford itself is incapable of satisfactorily supporting a larger city and the tourist income which is so important relies on the city’s setting which the green belt protects.

The penny has dropped... that's why you don't see any tourists in London, Rome, Bruges or places like that because they don't have a Hallowed Green Belt. Munich is also pretty much a tourist-free zone, as is New York City etc.

The ultimate kick in the teeth is in the title:

"It is vital we protect green belts for future generations"

It's not much fucking good to them if they can't afford to live anywhere near it. Where is the logic here, "I'm sorry you can't afford a house, but if you could afford one, then at least it would have a nice view"?

Between some rocks and a hard place.

From The Western Daily Press:

A plan to build thousands of new homes for soldiers returning from Germany could have to be changed – because they will be built on the horizon where the sun rises on summer solstice at Stonehenge.

The Ministry of Defence said they were ‘aware of the issues’ and were organising a meeting with experts on the stones.

Last night there were growing calls for the particular site, on a 100-year-old airfield at Larkhill in Wiltshire, to be discounted from the plans to house 4,000 soldiers and their families returning from bases in Germany.

Yes of course, it would be cultural vandalism to actually block the sunrise, but we can safely assume that Homeys in that area would violently oppose any new homes being built within miles of anywhere. But in principle, why not build a lot more homes a respectful distance away from Stonehenge?

A good counter-example springs to mind here:

What is so pleasantly surprising about Rome is that ancient Roman structures are dotted among what is otherwise a perfectly normal large European/Mediterranean city. And it must be nice to live in a flat or work in an office from which you can see the Pantheon, the Colosseum or whatever charming little jumble of excavated ruins happens to be just off a busy roundabout.

These things were built in the centre of their civilisation, just as Stonehenge was. The Roman ruins are still in the centre and you'll happily interrupt your journey to spend ten minutes having a nose round, but Stonehenge is just a sorry little bunch of rocks a few hundred yards off the A303. Some motorists might make an impromptu break and go and have a look but most drive straight past.

My delight at seeing these random bits of old Roman stonework (which might all be faked, I'm no archaeologist) were in no way diminished by the fact that thousands of people pass them every hour of the day; even if Stonehenge (which in turn was re-assembled during the 19th and 20th centuries on the basis of good guesswork) ended up in the middle of a large park in the middle of a medium sized town, people would still visit it, wouldn't they? In fact, probably more people would visit it.

They probably aren't even aware they are doing it.

This month's edition of British Airway's Business Life magazine ("Total reading time 57 minutes", it says on the cover) includes half a dozen main articles (one page or longer) all of which are about rents and rent-seeking:

1. Interview with the CEO of Canada Goose, the premium cold weather clothes manufacturer:

When [my grandfather] first arrived, he worked in a clothing factory as a cutter and then decided at some point that he wanted to open up his own place, which he did. It was very small and in downtown Toronto, which was the home of the garment industry back then. Now it's the night-club district…

Most brands these days are not real brands, they're some product mass-produced in some factory somewhere else that has a fancy store woven in front of it by marketing departments…

I went to Europe, where I learned how valuable the term 'Made In Canada' is for us. I realised that for a lot of people a Canada Goose jacket is like a Swiss watch. The place where it is made is really important. We're a quintessentially Canadian product. All of our jackets are made in Canada. It's impossible to imagine us not making them in Canada.

2. Article about football players' salaries:

Manchester City, the 2011-12 Premier League champions, spend more than £200 m each year on player wages along, a figure that equates to 87 per cent of the club's total turnover… it's not as if it's the players or even their agents who are ultimately deriving up wages, it's the broadcasters - and one in particular.

In the summer of 2012, BSkyB signed a new three-year deal to cover 166 games a season, worth a record £2.3 bn to the Premier League… It's interesting to contrast that with Sky's first deal to cover Premier League in 1991. Back then it paid just £340 m.

3. Article about a private business which wants to build reusable rockets for space travel:

"I think there's nothing positive or constructive I could say about Kenneth Clark" [Managing Director Alan Bon] told an interviewer earlier this year.

It was Clark, in his role as Minister for Trade and Industry during Margaret Thatcher's final term, who 25 years ago pulled the plug on government funding of HOTOL - Horizontal Take-Off and Landing - the admittedly flawed spaceplane being developed by Bond and his colleagues…

Earlier this year, however, the government did a volte-face and over next two years it is to plough £60 m into the development of Sabre, a revolutionary engine tipped to transform the economics of putting satellites - and indeed people - into space…

… The technology behind Reaction's pre-cooler is so commercially valuable that rather than take out a patent - which would perforce lead to publication of its workings - the company is avoiding the risk of feeding copycat competitors by treeing it as a trade secret, like the recipe for Coca Cola.

… a new backer emerged in the shape of Nigel McNair Scott, a Conservatie Party donor and chairman of property investment company Helical Bar.

4. Article about commercial property syndicates:

Commercial proeprty is bounding back. Figures from industry monitor IPD who that UK commercial real estate returned1.9 per cent in the three months to June, the highest return in two years…

Many hope that this heralds a definitive upturn in the property cycle, and a signal to invest in shops, offices and factories on the back of a recovering economy.

5. Article about local loyalty card schemes:

My Sant'Ambrogio card, issued by the eponymous market of central Florence, is about two tubs of fresh pest away from marking me as a most loyal customer indeed.

Supported by the local council, this card is designed to encourage me to shop not in the international chain supermarkets and stores on the edge of town, but instead with the market stall holders and local businesses who risk being left behind if everyone moves to the suburbs.

6. Article about hotel renovation:

You could argue that a quality new build might be cheaper but that misses the point. The Prince de Galles has an established location on Venue George V and a proven trading history, and offers considerably less market risk.

Finding suitable land in an established European city is all but impossible, and what's more, a speedy renovation can improve a hotel's fortunes in months, while building from scratch takes years.

Birmingham (not Alabama)

From The Independent

The citizens of Birmingham are keenly aware of the snobbery and accent-mocking humour about their beloved home, emanating mostly from London’s chattering classes. But, for the second time in two years, England’s second city has received glowing praise from an international destination that outdoes London in many respects: New York.

New York Magazine has advised its readers to go to “Birmingham instead of London” in an article this week that trumpeted the city’s attractions from the culinary delights of the Balti Triangle to “the world renowned” Birmingham Royal Ballet, its thriving jewellery trade and music scene. A lack of tourist hordes was another reason.

The lack of tourist hordes is because actually, there's not much that visitors want to see. If there was, there would be tourist hordes. Unfortunately, that's how it works. You can find places that appeal to a niche that you have that aren't too busy, but as a rule, the good places get visitors.

I wouldn't agree with that advice about Birmingham at all. The curries are great. And cheap. And most of the places in Sparkbrook don't have licenses, so you bring your own which is a lot cheaper. And yes, the ballet and the CBSO have a good reputation. But the Jewellery Quarter is nothing to write home about and as for the music scene, there might have been 30 years ago, but if there's a place to see bands, I couldn't find it. And it's mostly architecturally horrible in the centre.

They missed the best thing to visit which is the Edgbaston Botanical Gardens which are really lovely, and some of the best I've been to.

Good Spending

From the BBC

A new visitor centre at Stonehenge will open in time for the winter solstice, English Heritage has said.

The £27m project also includes grassing over the A334 alongside the ancient monument and closing another section of the busy road.

The visitor centre and museum will be located about a mile-and-a-half (2km) from the stones.

Visitors will be shuttled to Stonehenge by a little train, pulled by a Land Rover.

A few numbers: Stonehenge gets 1m visitors per year. Half of those are foreign tourists. So, over a couple of decades that's maybe £3/visitor to improve one of the biggest foreign draws. If they go home and tell their friends how great Stonehenge is and a few more of them come to the UK instead of elsewhere, it'll pay for itself. Heck, it might even pay for itself because people have a drink at the improved cafe rather than the rubbish that's there now.

Just thought I'd write this up because it's worth mentioning the rare-as-rocking-horse-shit occassion when I think that some extra government spending is worthwhile.

"Stonehenge general manager sought"

From the BBC

The prehistoric stones of Stonehenge are to be cared for by a general manager for the first time.

English Heritage says it needs "a dynamic and inspirational leader" to look after the site in Wiltshire. Duties for the £16,500-a-year job include liaising with the Wiltshire monument's two or three volunteers and ringing up Farmer Jim to ask him to pop round with his tractor to pull cars out of the muddy car park.

Other responsibilities include overseeing arrangements for summer and winter solstices. English Heritage's Tim Reeve said it was "important to ensure we keep the dignity of the stones".

"You could drinking tea in the drizzle one minute and shouting "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! STOP CLIMBING ON THE STONES!" the next. Then you can be back in a state-of-the-art visitors' caravan flogging fridge magnets," he added.

"The next time you could be in a boiler suit, trying to unblock the portable toilets."

He said it was also important to make sure "solstice celebrations aren't in some way compromising the mystery and integrity of the stones". Our interview was interrupted briefly while he shouted "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! STOP CLIMBING ON THE FUCKING STONES!" several times, followed by "YES YOU! I CAN SEE YOU, YOU KNOW! Jeez."

English Heritage has called for only "the brightest and best" candidates to apply for the position. Preference will be given to people with experience in explaining to American tourists that the nearest hotel is several miles away, that there are no rides for the kids and yes, this is the real thing, not a scaled down model.

"Confused tourists looking for Cyprus turn up two thousand miles away in East London"

From The Daily Mail:

• Tourists keep on visiting the new DLR station with the same name

• Locals frustrated at having to keep on telling them where the real Mediterranean island is

Confused tourists are visiting a docklands light railway station called Cyprus after mistaking it for the site of the famous German paratrooper landings in 1941.

Baffled holiday-makers turn up at the station - opened in 1994 - and wander around looking for the beach or the UN peacekeepers who have patrolled the Buffer Zone since 1974. They have "no idea" they are actually near Beckton in the east end of London - more than two thousand miles away from the site of the more famous divided island at the east end of the Mediterranean.

Tourists are turning up every month and asking locals where the beach is - only to be told to get back on the train and head across the capital to Heathrow or Gatwick airports.

The situation has become so bad that business owners in Nikosia and Famagusta are calling on Transport for London bosses to change the name of the east London DLR station to put an end to the confusion.

Dmitri Ioannou, the boss of The Beatles coffee shop in Limassol, said: "Cyprus is one of the most iconic holiday desinations in the world, so people at Transport for London must have known this was going to happen.

"You wouldn’t name a station Buckingham Palace unless it was outside Buckingham Palace and this is costing us business. I think they should change the name of the station," he told Cyprus Today.

Olympic Tourism

From The Independent:

[Jeremy Hunt] said he was not disappointed by reports of empty streets and a dramatic fall in trade since the Games began.

"It is very difficult to predict what will actually happen to consumer spending in one part of London during something like an Olympic games because the upheaval is so huge. We are hoping to come away net positive in terms of the overall period of the Games but we don't know."

Well, not really. Economists have looked at the figures for the last three Olympiads and if Jeremy Hunt had done the same, he'd know that they show no or little tourism boost, either short- or long-term from hosting the Olympics.

What you get from the Olympics is a three-week sporting/marketing festival. That's it. Love the sport, but it has to be pointed out that we are paying a huge amount of money for the right to see the handball from the inside of a stadium in London rather than the inside of a stadium in Paris.

In which I 100% agree with Nicolas Sarkozy

From the BBC:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France...

Any British tourist could have told you that.

Central European Cow-Attack Round-up - June 2011

Slightly late this month, apol's. Tourists and ramblers are back on the menu again but farmers are still the main course, including two killed. Unusually, there's nothing from Switzerland this month.
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Austria 8 June 2011: Wilde Szenen haben sich am Dienstagnachmittag auf einer Weide im oberösterreichischen Vorderstoder im Bezirk Kirchdorf abgespielt. Ein 60-jähriger Landwirt und sein Sohn wurden von einem Stier attackiert. Während sich der 35-Jährige mit einem Sprung über den Zaun vor dem Bullen retten konnte, wurde sein Vater schwer verletzt... Der Verletzte wurde nach der Erstversorgung mit dem Hubschrauber ins Landeskrankenhaus Kirchdorf geflogen. Den Stier erwartet der Schlachthof.

A 60-year old farmer and his son were attacked by a bull in the meadow. The 35-year old son jumped over a fence to safety but his father was badly injured... The man was given first aid and then flown to hospital. The bull was sent to the slaughterhouse.
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Allgäu 10 June 2011: Ein wild gewordener Stier hat in Bad Grönenbach einen Landwirt angegriffen und schwer verletzt. Wie die Polizei mitteilt, betrat der 55-jährige Mann gestern einen eingezäunten Stall, in dem sich mehrere Kühe und der Stier aufhielten.

Der Bulle wollte vermutlich sein Revier verteidigen und ging auf den Bauern los. Der Mann wurde von dem 1.400 Kilogramm schweren Tier mehrere Meter durch die Luft geschleudert. Ein 19 Jahre alter Mann konnte zusammen mit weiteren Helfern das Tier so ablenken, dass der Verletzte geborgen werden konnte. Er wurde mit zahlreichen Prellungen in ein Krankenhaus gebracht.

The 55-year old went into the cattle shed, a 1,400 kg bull attacked him and threw him several metres through the air. Others managed to distract the animal so that the injured man could be brought to safety. He was taken to hospital with multiple injuries.
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Baden-Württemberg 12 June 2011: Eine wild gewordene Kuh hat im baden-württembergischen Ehingen einen Bauern attackiert und schwer verletzt. Der 83-Jährige hatte am Samstagnachmittag einen Zaun an einer Weide repariert. Plötzlich ging eine Kuh auf den Landwirt los, der nicht mehr ausweichen konnte. Das Tier fügte ihm mit seinem Horn eine große Risswunde in der Leistengegend zu. Der Schwerverletzte wurde per Rettungshubschrauber in eine Klinik gebracht.

Farmer was mending fences [sic] when a cow suddenly attacked him. The cow wounded him badly in the lower stomach with his horms. The man was taken to hospital by helicopter.
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Austria 12 June 2011: Gegen 11 Uhr beluden zwei Männer aus Ludesch - der 31-Jährige und ein 61-jähriger Landwirt - einen Anhänger mit sieben Rindern und fuhren damit zu einer Viehweide.

Dort angekommen, wollten beide die Rampe des Anhängers öffnen. Plötzlich sprang ein Rind aus dem Hänger auf die halb geöffnete Rampe. Durch die Wucht wurden beide Männer zu Boden geschleudert - der 31-jährige Helfer wurde dabei von der Rampe am Rücken getroffen. Mit Verletzungen unbestimmten Grades musste er ins LKH Bludenz gebracht werden. Der Landwirt blieb unverletzt.

The cows waited patiently in the cattle transporter until the farmer and his assistant had unlocked the ramp at back and started lowering it. The cows then charged into the half-open ramp, knocking the two men to the floor and crushing one of them.
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Austria 15 June 2011: Die neun Wanderer aus Deutschland, darunter vier Kinder, waren in Richtung Bräualm unterwegs, als ihnen auf einer Forststraße eine Herde Mutterkühe samt Kälbern entgegenkam. Die Urlauber wollten mit ihren drei Hunden, die sie angeleint hatten, an der etwa 15 Tiere umfassenden Herde vorbeigehen, als die Kühe plötzlich auf die Hunde losgingen.

Die Wanderer ließen die Hunde laut Polizei daraufhin los und versuchten sich in Sicherheit zu bringen. Eine 49 Jahre alte Frau wurde jedoch von einer der Kühe zu Boden gestoßen. Das Tier ließ nicht von der Frau ab, bis es ihrem Mann gelang, die Kuh mit einem Stock zu vertreiben.

Nine ramblers with three dogs on leads wanted to pass a herd of cows, who promptly attacked the dogs. The ramblers released the dogs so that they could escape, upon which the cows knocked a 49-year old woman to the ground. Her husband had to chase the cow away with a stick.
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Germany 21 June 2011: Ein Zuchtbulle hat heute morgen, gegen 06:20 Uhr, einen 76-jährigen Landwirt tödlich verletzt. Der Bauer wollte den Zuchtbullen im Stall in Schlibeck von der Kuhherde trennen und wurde vermutlich dabei sofort attackiert.

Der Landwirt war vermutlich sofort tot. Die Ermittlungen der Kriminalpolizei haben keine Anhaltspunkte für eine Straftat ergeben.

A bull attacked and killed a 76-year old farmer this morning at 6.20 when the farmer was trying to separate him from the rest of the herd. The farmer died instantly. The police have not yet established a motive for the attack.
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Austria 22 June 2011: „Ich wollte mit meinen beiden Kindern bei uns in Lohndorf Rad fahren üben, als plötzlich wie aus dem Nichts eine Kuh aus dem Hof der Nachbarin hervorstürmte, mich niederstieß, ich lag unter der Kuh und sie trat gegen meinen Oberkörper, ich dachte, meine letzte Stunde hat geschlagen“, erzählt sie.

Starzengruber konnte sich gerade noch zur Seite drehen und so ihr Leben retten. Das wild gewordenen Tier stieß auch noch Leonie zu Boden. Im Schock waren die beiden vorerst wie gelähmt und brachten keinen Ton heraus. Das 8-jährige Mädchen rief ihrem rund hundert Meter entfernt stehenden Bruder zu, dass er über die Wiese zum Haus laufen solle, weil die Kuh schon ihn im Visier hatte.

"I was taking my kids for a bike ride, when a cow appeared out of nowhere and knocked me down. The cow stood there kicking me as I lay on the floor. I thought my number was up." Mrs S managed to roll away, and the cow then knocked her daughter down as well. The girl shouted to her brother to go and get help before the cow attacked him as well.
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Hessen 24 June 2011: Bei einer Attacke durch einen seiner Bullen ist ein Landwirt am Freitagvormittag auf einer Weide zwischen Giesel und Hosenfeld tödlich verletzt worden. Der 61-Jährige verstarb aufgrund schwerster innerer Verletzungen.

Wie die Polizei erklärte, habe die Beamten um 9:40 Uhr am Freitagvormittag ein Notruf der Familie des getöteten Bauern erreicht. Sie hatte kurz zuvor den 61-Jährigen schwer verletzt auf einer Weide gefunden, wo dieser noch an schweren inneren Verletzungen gestorben sei.

A 61-farmer was found in the meadow, dying of his internal wounds. As far as the police can tell, he was attacked by a bull.
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Austria 26 June 2011: Eine Kuh hat in Österreich eine Wandergruppe angegriffen und eine Person schwer verletzt. Die Kuh rannte auf die Wandergruppe zu, überrannte eine 69-jährige Frau und schleuderte anschließend einen 60-Jährigen durch die Luft, der dadurch schwer verletzt wurde.

Group of cows attacked group of ramblers, trampled a 69 year old woman and a sent a 60 year old man flying through the air. According to this version, the cows were protecting a calf.
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This scholarly article, dated 30 June 2011 reckons that the increase in the number of cow attacks is because farmers don't let them run around in the fresh air any more, they lock the cows up in sheds or barns... and allow them to play violent video games until deep into the night, which makes them more violent in real life.