nicholas shakespeare discovers there’s nothing new about avian flu

Like everyone else, I've been wandering about town avoiding intimate contact with chickens. The last place I expected to be reminded of avian flu was the Royal Academy.

Those intrigued to see how they might look should they survive the next pandemic need only stand before Edvard Munch's haunting self-portrait following his recovery from the 1918 outbreak, which virologists in the United States have recently linked to birds. Munch was lucky to survive, as was US president Woodrow Wilson. Prominent among 50 million deaths were Klimt, Schiele and Apollinaire.

I left the Royal Academy with the heaviest thoughts. Will avian flu be like the bubonic plague? Do we