Rasher Rash
I watched the BBC news the other night.
The majority of the programme was devoted to this Swine Flu thing.
We were shown lots of film of laboratories and test tubes and people wearing masks. We were treated to an interview with a bloke who has suspected flue, while he hung out of his bedroom window. We were even brought to the grave of ‘the first person to die’ from the flu.
What in the name of all that’s holy is this about?
For fuck’s sake, it’s a dose of the sniffles. The way they are going on about it, you would swear that Ebola was rampant and about to wipe out half the population of the world.
There is a strange phenomenon these days where the media and spin people fall madly in love with words. We have been through “economic downturn” and “toxic debt”. Now we are into “pandemic” [Jayzus, but how they love that word] and “alert level”. They are wetting themselves in the meeja now because the “alert level” has been raised and a “pandemic is imminent”.
Let’s look at some facts here.
This is a normal outbreak of influenza. Nothing more, nothing less. The only difference seems to be that it is a little more contagious than normal. So what? So more of us are going to be coughing and sneezing than usual?
The big fear seems to be the mortality rate. What mortality rate? Outside Mexico, one child has died. One child? This is a threat to humanity? Get a fucking grip!
Would it surprise you to learn that in the United States, over 14,000 people die from influenza each year and over 40,000 from related complications? Now this is happening every year, but we never hear anything about it so why is this “swine flu” any different?
We are being bombarded with pictures of people wearing face masks and notices warning people not to travel.
Me? I’m stocking up on whiskey. You can’t beat getting hammered for forgetting your sniffles.
One good thing that has come out of it though.
Miss Piggy has crawled out from under her rock and has fucked off to Switzerland for a conference.
Maybe in her absence we should ban all travel to or from Ireland to stop her getting back in?
Now, that would be healthy.
I wonder if those iodine tablets we were all given a few years back will help prevent it 😉
I think Miss Piggy was responsible for the swine flu AND mad cow disease..
The truth is that Governments worldwide are promoting the hysteria because it’s taking our minds off the balls-up they’re making of the “recovery plan”. Have you noticed that the “charter for religious nuts” proposed by Ahearn has slipped under the radar of our news media?
The flu being such a deadly killer.
I am not worried. The radiation from the up coming asteroid impact will kill off the flu viruses.
If I feel a sniffle coming on, I immediately go out and get hammered,twisted and shitfaced thereby supplanting a long suffering Flu with a short sharp hangover.
Hmmm…. send government away to conferences, then seal the borders…
Finally, a solution we can all live with.
Robert – What iodine tablets? I never got any Iodine tablets?
Jim C – Will you all stop talking about things of which I know nothing? What asteroid impact? It sounds exciting!!
SAm Crea – Now at last someone is talking my language 🙂
Susan – It would be worth the couple of million they would spend on a short haul flight. Send ’em abroad, close the borders and finally shut down all their bank accounts [and repatriate all their foreign ones]. Problem solved!
Erm- either that is a very unfortunate photo of Mary Harney or she is on anti-depression pills of some kind.
Is there a Doctor in the house? Must have a look at some recent interviews with her. Kevin the Purple Octopus knows I’ve seen that slightly not-there look on a few faces in Ireland.
Switzerland, you say? What conference would that be? Anyone know?
Captain – She has that Mona Lisa smirk on, because someone has just told her about
Miss PiggySwine Flu. She is having mental images of all those lovely trollies full of sick people in the one hospital that is left open.Wow! News Update….. Ireland has it’s first case of suspected flu and RTE are wetting themselves! They can hardly contain their excitement. Lots of pictures of viruses and people in masks. Happy days.
Sorry Grandad somethig weird happened to my edit attempt on a post. This is what I wanted to tell you about before my name goes down on the list at FF HQ and I become just another ‘disapparo’.
A Fianna Fail-owned barn near Leixlip
The wide-eyed and white coated students fall back as it lumbers to its feet.
‘Its him. Its really him,” screams one fourth year med student before she faints away. The … thing … looks down at her for a moment, muscles in the face tightening and relaxing reflexively. A great dry cough and the political creature points at the girl where she lies, skirt ridden high on the firm young thighs. “Huuuuurrr.Bring.”
“Yes! Yessir,” yelps a fearful doctor. “Do- do you remember..?”
The grotesque figure swivels to fix the medic with the stare that adorned many a front page. “Haaaauuugheeeeey.”
It remembers.
“Daaaaiiiiiilllllllll. Ceeentraal Baaaaannnk.”
With a snarl it crashes its way through the timbered walls. The medic turns to his terrified colleagues. “Its really him. Five more years!”
250,000 people die every year from influenza, you know the one we get every year, the one that hasn’t got a fancy name. Yet somehow, in a slow news week something tagged “swine flu” which will probably top out at a couple of hundred per country affected is called a Pandemic. Give me a break. And a facemask, I’ll use it for hallowween.
Captain – Please don’t write things like that. It sends shivers down my spine. Those hooded eyes!! I would be worried but I made a point of making sure he was well and truly planted.
Paulo – Could I ask you to please refrain from referring to Sw*ne Flu? That name has been banned by the WHO. From now on it is H1N1 Influenza A. OK?
I don’t know why a washed up British band should be dictating what we call anything. Fuck Pete Framton or whatever his name was. !!!!! ???????
Don’t let Pete Townshend hear you say that!!
I will not rest until every pig on earth is dead (or on a frying pan). Then, I’m going after Martian pigs, Plutonion pigs, Saturnian pigs, and so on, and so forth, until I’ve fanned out across the galaxy and removed the full intergalactic threat of swinery.
Did we learn nothing from Foot and Mouth? Pigs and cows are the barnyard equivalent of the possessed kid from The Exorcist. Pure evil. It’s us or them, at this stage. We can start by amassing all known copies of the film ‘Babe’ (and to a lesser extent, Babe 2: Pig in the City) and burning them in town square (do we have a town square? If not, we’ll rename O’Connell Street ‘Town Square’ and burn the old ‘O’Connell Street’ sign along with the babe DVDs).
Your get her back, we kept sending Bush out of the country but nobody else wanted him.
Send Him To Me.
There was someone round here wearing a gas mask (second world war style) the other day. We haven’t even had one outbreak round here, so I’m not sure what that was about. A few people on the tube have been wearing surgical masks as well. The mind boggles…
JA – Maybe he was making a protest against your government [though they don’t stink as much as ours]?