Swine Flu

By Richard Hudson in In the news on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 @ 12:20

So, a week and a bit has gone by since swine flu hit the headlines and gripped the nation.  Suddenly people are scared of blowing their nose in a public place for fear of having to wear bells on their ankles and parade the streets to cries of ‘unclean, unclean!’

How has life changed as we prepare for the apocalypse?

Well, sales of Dettol have shot up. Those 99.9% of germs will be quaking in their boots on that kitchen work surface that’s worse than a toilet seat.

The BBC news tell me that face masks apparently don’t work yet every time there’s a news report from Mexico the guy with the mic wears a mask. Mixed signals there, Auntie?

Anytime a sniffle is heard in the PasTest office that person who you’ve known for several years, that you shared jokes with, chatted away about Corrie or X Factor is suddenly made an outcast, viewed as a pariah by the rest of the workforce as if they have threatened your first born. Their coffee mug is sacrificed in the staff car park and the toilet gets crime scene tape draped across. I'm surprised they don’t get carted off to a darkened room to have their head shaved by men in sealed suits.

How do the British cope with the oncoming pandemic? We text really poor jokes to one another about ‘ getting crackling in our ears’ and feeling ‘pig sick’. We stand in large public places, cough, then make a grunting noise in hope that others flee in pandemonium. Oh and we get sent patronising leaflets in the post telling us to wash our hands.

I’ve unfortunately seen far too many films such as ‘28 Days Later’ and have quite an vivid imagination so I’m fully expecting this flu to suddenly start to raise the dead in some kind of zombie fest armageddon. Currently I have plans to shelter myself at Alton Towers once the brain munching hordes roam the streets. At least I’ll have a bit of fun on the way out.