Pigs in a blanket

Some school kids from New Zealand visited Mexico recently, and brought back a souvenir that kick-started a worldwide media beat-up; namely, the Swine Flu virus.

Now this really is a case of the media following a pattern of: “Panic first, ask questions later”.

TV news channels had reporters standing outside everywhere announcing that nothing was happening yet, but dammit they were ready for when it did.

So, here’s the deal. People have been getting the flu for years. No biggie, right? Stay in bed for a few days, watch the soaps and croak down the phone to your mates. Chicken soup and orange juice topped off with paracetamol.

Except that just after World War I there was an outbreak of Spanish Flu that killed millions. It was the last real global pandemic. The thing about this flu virus was that it didn’t just attack one organ of the body; it went for a full-on systems meltdown. It attacked everything until the whole body shut down.

Well, the Swine Flu is from this same family of viruses. Hence the media frenzy. Although the modern media – watered down by many years of editorial cost-cutting – completely failed to make this point.

That said, there’s Tamiflu for anyone who sneezes and it seems most people’s immune systems are having little problem handling Swine Flu anyway.

But can you say “paranoia”? Egypt promptly decided to kill all its pigs. Afghanistan quarantined the country’s only pig. China quarantined its Mexicans. The Philippines ordered that all sick people stay away from pigs.

Anyway, as long as idiots are busy over-reacting, I feel fully comfortable sharing with you the better Swine Flu jokes I’ve either made up or picked up off Twitter.

- They said pigs would fly before America would elect a black president. Obama’s in office for 100 days … swine flu.

- Swine flu kills 90 people worldwide and people wear face masks in the airport. HIV kills 20 million a year and people still don't wear condoms.

- Breaking news: The Muppets have been released from quarantine. There were fears Miss Piggy had contracted swine flu, but it turned out she just had a frog in her throat.

- So if someone isolated the swine flu virus and combined it with avian flu virus - would you get flying pig flu?

- If you get swine flu, but only a small dose, would it be guinea pig flu?

- Did you know: The Greeks believe the origin of Swine Flu is that one of Odysseus's men whom Circe turned into a pig had a cold.

- I heard Kermit the Frog died from the swine flu. His last words: “That pig told me she was clean!”

- Ah-ah-ah-aah-OINK! … uh-oh.