Sicko.

I don't know about you, but i'm getting sick of all this talk about swine flu. Having a part time job in a doctors surgery probably isn't the best way to get around this problem but the media's handling of the sitch is also making me re think my chosen career path somewhat.

If we believed what the media had told us as a collective then by 2010 we would all catch swine flu, the emergency services wouldn't be able to cope so the service sector would shut down causing us all to die and the world to end. Truthfully, swine flu is no worse than 'normal' flu and the number of fatalities are of a similar rate.

But is the reason for this scare mongering as straight forward as it appears? Hasn't it almost masked talk of the recession? And aren't certain industries benefitting financially from it, from producing the tami flu medication to setting up a national helpline providing hundreds of jobs just as employment rates hit an all time low...

It seems strange that something should come along at about this time which is as newsworthy as a global recession. Pandemic predictions have faded in and out of the media over the years with bird flu and mad cow disease (it's those bloody animals fault i say!) but never have they made such an impact as this.

Perhaps this moral panic will end in a couple of months but another distraction will hit our front pages. Yet again the government have manipulated the public by puppeting the tabloids to distract us from the real problems which exist in our society. If that's the best you can do Gordon, then you might as well stand down now.

So, if you start to feel a bit head achey, have a cough or cold, then don't panic. Perhaps use the time quarentined in bed to think about the real problems we are facing right now, problems which have been cleverly masked by some Mexican pigs.