Despatches From The (Sofa)Bed Of An Invalid.....

Pity me gentle reader for I am ill.

My limbs ache, my head throbs, my breathing is wheezy and I cough like a car backfiring…. In short I have Man-Flu.

I undoubtedly contracted this most dolorous of maladies from one of my co-shirkers at the office. All week he has been coughing pathetically, and rolling his eyes in a most irritating and overly theatrical fashion, as if at death’s door. I have been tutting and flashing him dark looks intended first to convey “Pull yourself together man it’s only a cold”, until Wednesday I switched scowls to a “If your really that ill why are you still here infecting all of us” grimace. But to no avail, nothing would satisfy him but that we too must all feel his pain.

Although not a proper doctor, I feel I can state with some certainty however, that the disease has mutated in transmission (flu does that you know) as I clearly have a much worse strain than him. I shouldn’t wonder if it is not actually new to medical science. In fact, I do have a shred of supporting evidence for the seriousness of my condition, as the new drugs I’m taking for arthritis, work by suppressing the immune system, thus leaving me at increased risk of infections. Therefore I’m bound to be worse off than other folk aren’t I?

I have not presented this interesting case to my doctor yet, as in the past he has been, frankly, quite unsympathetic. Once when laid low by what any fool could see was a life threatening chest infection, he told me to “go home and rest” and added that “there’s a lot of it about”….as if becoming a statistic was likely to make me feel better!

I’m not at all sure he has found his proper vocation, but I don’t like to say anything.

Another thing that irks is the abject failure of modern science, in an age where Walt Disney can put men on the moon, and small Asian men can deliver pizza hot to your door in a matter of minutes, to find a cure for such a common complaint.

Or if not a cure, then why can’t Britain’s much vaunted National Health Service, the second largest employer in the world, (beaten only by the Indian Railways system) at least provide a little palliative care. Surely Myleene Klass in a nurse's outfit with a concerned look on her face is not too much to ask…...... I pay my taxes dammit!