Looking back February was rather a thin month postingwise (probably not a "real" word but what the heck...). Seems it must have been busy. Thinking back fron the cosy distance of the 5th March it probably was actually. You see Ambridge has been stricken with a plague of Biblical proportions, and that despite being home to very few Pharaohs, or at least very few that I know to.
This year, for the first time in a decade or so we have seen significant numbers of folk with real honest to goodness 'Flu. And this despite being about as far away as it is possible to get from Norfolk and still be in England.
'Flu? I hear you say sneeringly. We know all about 'flu. We've seen the ads for Lemsip and Beechams. Those poor souls take a couple of capsules and are back on their feet in no time. What the heck is the matter with folk in Ambridge. Do they all have delicate constitutions like heroines in eighteenth century fiction perchance?
Well no. They don't. And here's a newsflash for you. Those ads you refer to, they lie. I know, shocking isn't it. But it's true. Those nice people in them are acting. They never had the 'Flu in the opening frames, so they had no trouble looking miraculously better by the close of the ad thirty seconds (or "in just three days!") later.
The real problem is that every year hundreds of folk hereabouts go down with a bad cold and call it "The 'Flu". After all it sounds so much better when they have been away from work for a few days. And yes they did feel grotty, perhaps snotty, definitely feverish, and porper poorly for a few days. Poor things.
But when they get the real thing, it's like they've been hit by a truck. Even opnening and closing their eyelids hurts. Death seems to lurk just beyond the doorway, and even after the first flush of lurgy has passed they are left feeling drained and lifeless as one of Dracula's hapless victims for weeks on end afterwards. And no amount of patent nostrum will do the trick.
But this can't be the 'Flu. After all those nice people in the ads got better so much quicker so this must be something much worse....
So for the benefit of those reading this who think they might have the 'Flu, let me just say this. You haven't. If you did, you wouldn't have had the energy to read it in the first place. Just take a Lemsip* and get on with it like they do on the telly. For those of you having it read to them because they feel too ill to read it for themselves, then yes, you might well have the 'Flu, but unless you have other more scary symtoms to go with it like very bad breathlesness or neck stiffness so severe you can't lift your head off the pillow then I'm afraid the best you can do is get whoever is reading this to get you a nice Lemsip* to take the edge off things and catch up on some much needed sleep. Of course if you are that breathless or stiff necked then you might be wise to call your Doc for helpafter all, and tell them I sent you.
* other cold and 'flu remedies are available.
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9 comments:
Cripes I am glad my boss doesn't read this blog...he'd see right through me in a wink. Gah.
Just make sure you don't get 'flu, Doctor J. We don't want to have to make 'physician, heal thyself' quips. Or worry about you.
I'm in Norfolk. I spend my time counting chickens, of course.
My favourite flu test is the £10 test.
There is a £10 note outside your front door. If you would get out of bed to pick it up, you haven't got flu.
Regards - Shinga
wendz-- surely not. Anyway I'm assuming current boss is Fracophone and my accent is truly affreux so you should be fine ;-)
z-- You'll be ok, so long as you boil 'em all for three hours befoire letting them back into the wild, or was that last years Anthrax advice, it's getting so hard to keep up...
shinga-- in the good old days 'twas known as the Ten Bob Note test. And yes, it's pretty much diagnostic still, though with a 2000% mark up!
We've had swine fever, foot & mouth and bird flu all around us. No wonder we're so healthy. Hugely powerful immunity build-up.
If you remember ten bob notes you are older than you look!
Worse yet. I can remember when a Ten Bob Note would get you forty Mars Bars :-(
(But me mum would only let me get two. I had to put the remaining 9/6 in the Post Office).
And they were proper big Mars bars you could cut into slices and make last all afternoon too, not the weedy modern apologies for confectionary we have now....
Ooops, I seem to have "gone off on one" rather.
I'm so glad you posted this. I'd not heard of the 10 pound note test before.
One of my pet gripes, is people saying they have flu, or even worse "a touch of flu". I remember ranting at one team member who'd taken one day off sick, that she obviously had a cold, not flu. My immortal line was "People die of 'flu, you were down the pub last night, not dying."
I too remember ten shilling notes, sixpenny and thrupenny bits and if any one so much as twitched their noses in our household, Mummy would dose them up with Fennings Fever Cure.
One really daren't show any signs of weakness.
It was only half a crown a bottle too.
Mars bars were considered a luxury for us, we had to share a block of Bluebird toffee which came in a tinfoil tray with a hammer to break it into pieces.
Hear Hear! I get totally peeed off with people saying that they have the flu when they have nothing more than the good old common cold.
I had flu once, and it was not fun!
I've always wondered how Docs manage to avoid picking up everything that's going around as their exposure must be higher by default.
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