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 According to the news reports these past few weeks, Swine Fever has well and truly broken out in the UK. No, no no, I don't mean all those greedy MPs who’ve been well and truly caught with their snouts in the trough. What a cheek. Whilst the rest of us have had to stump up more taxes, the greedy swines have been robbing us blind. Talk about Orwell's Animal Farm. You couldn't write a book about it all because its already been written!
I am, of course, lamenting the Swine Flu pandemic nonsense. Why is it
that whenever something newsworthy breaks, we have to create a new
word? ‘Pandemic’. What's the difference between that and an ‘Epidemic’?
According to the boffins, 1-in-3 of us will die from Swine Flu. Well, I
don't know about you, but it ain't gonna to be me. I've shut the gates
and put up notices saying ‘Quarantine Area’. I’ve also instructed the
postman to put all our mail at the end of the lane in a bucket of
bleach, and I’ve informed the supermarket delivery driver to walk
through sheep/swine-dip before dropping off our groceries at the front
door.
How would we know if we’ve got Swine Fever? Will we grow pigs trotters
and snouts, and rut around in the mud? Incidentally, did you know that
a pig is the only animal on the planet where every part of its body can
be eaten? Yep, even its dangly bits, which are considered a highly
prized delicacy in Poland.
However, what I want to know is whatever happened to good old
appendicitis? Every time people used to get stomach ache, they feared
it was Grumbling Appendicitis which could rupture and kill at any given
moment. But what with belly-button piercings and women wearing
crop-tops these days, having a scar on your stomach is a definite no-no
and appendicitis hasn't stood a chance. Like Ra-Ra skirts, it’s become
a hideous victim of fashion.
Tonsillitis: now there's another one. Every child used to have their
tonsils out, or their adenoids removed, but all of a sudden, no one
does anymore.
As I child, I can remember getting quite excited about going into
hospital to have my tonsils removed and being able to gorge myself on
jelly and ice-cream afterwards. I remember reading the Janet & John
books about going into hospital. God, can you imagine giving a child a
Janet & John book today? They’d say, "What, that's it? That's the
story - going into hospital, and no one gets stabbed or killed? Nah,
way too boring. It’ll never catch on.”
I also remember coming out of the anaesthetic with the worse sore
throat imaginable and my mother standing over my bed reading my school
report going bonkers at me because I hadn't got A+. God, if only they’d
had Childline in those days, I’d have reported her and got some
celebrity to adopt me.
Just what happens to all these epidemics? Do they simply go away?
I had cause to have a blood test a few weeks ago and was told I’d have
to wait six weeks for the results, on account of UK laboratories being
swamped since Jade Goody died. More women have taken their annual blood
test in the past month than had previously done so in the last 10
years, and the laboratories simply haven’t been able to cope.
Personally, I never took much notice of Jade Goody when she was alive,
but I thought whilst waiting there for my blood test, that if only
she’d spent less time having plastic surgery and more time on her
health, she’d still be alive today. They do say everything happens for
a reason though and it seems her death has made women sit up and take
notice, and for that she can be applauded. Harsh, I know, but she has
left a legacy of making it fashionable for women to have annual
check-ups.
Once an illness goes out of fashion, it seems it is eagerly replaced by
something new and trendy. You can't open a magazine, or turn on the TV
these days, without seeing an advert for Prostrate Cancer. Yep, men
just can't do anything quietly, can they? They always have to make a
song and dance about it. There's even clubs and support groups
arranging days out for men suffering from prostrate problems. I bet you
didn't know that men can even join an on line discount club and get
money off holidays, shopping and golf, did you? Bet you’re dead jealous
now, aren’t you?
When I told Him Indoors we might be able to get a cheap holiday if he
did the right thing and had prostrate problems, he went mad at me (I
even asked him to go to the docs and just pretend, but he said wouldn’t
hear of it). I ask you, talk about being selfish. All my husband ever
thinks about is himself.
Whatever happened to Aids? According to those boffins again, we were
supposed to be extinct by the year 2000, on account of the fact that
we’d have all died of Aids. Do you remember the advert with the girl at
the fence who was supposedly stricken with Aids, with the Frankie Goes
To Hollywood song (Power of Love) playing in the background? That girl
is actually my cousin, who is, I am glad to say, very much alive and
well and living in the USA today. She got paid £75 quid for the advert
and spent it all on fags and booze!
The fear of catching Aids put the willies up me. I can distinctly
remember a time when I’d balance on the escalators going to and from
work in my high heels, never daring to hold onto the rail to steady
myself, by chance someone with Aids had touched it and I’d die a
terrible death, alone and unloved (a bit like Tom Hanks in
Philadelphia). Blimey, I once even fell off an escalator and cut my lip
at Liverpool Street station, but it didn’t deter any future balancing
acts on my part. And I all but spent the entire 80s and 90s wearing
huge jumpers with the sleeves pulled down over my hands to open public
doors with. Looking back, I probably had more chance of dying of heat
exhaustion than Aids.
What’s more, the Aids legacy certainly broke down the barriers of sex.
Everywhere you went there were adverts for condoms. Remember those
Jiffy Condoms and their advertising slogan: "If the guy looks iffy,
make sure he wears a Jiffy." Charming!
An 87 year old lady (Daisy), who lived next door to us, used to refuse
to take her clothes to the launderette and insisted on washing them by
hand in case she caught Aids from one of the washing machines, such was
the level of fear the boffins used to instill in us. She eventually
died by falling down her stairs at the ripe old age of 98.
Me? I’m taking precautions. I for one am not going to die of ignorance.
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