talkmagic.co.uk

Several years ago we were all about to die from "dirty bombs" exploded by Muslim extremists in our city centres. My wife ran out and stocked our shelves with tinned goods, huge bottles of water and duck tape. She wasn't quite sure what to do with the duck tape, she just knew the news had told her to buy it.

Then there was the bird flu. We were all going to get it and many of us were going to die. Ultimately I believe a swan in Norwich was found dead. The unfortunate creature may have succumbed to bird flu, but no-one was quite sure. It may have simply died from, well, death. It is inevitable I understand.

Then came the credit crunch. We were all going to lose our homes, our jobs, our money, and western civilisation was about to crumble. The Revolutionary Communists (all 4 of them) looked very smug while the rest of us started shopping at Netto and decided to buy cheap packets of crisps rather than those posh ones that go well with wine.

Now it's pig flu. We're all going to die. Sky News, and to a lesser extent the BBC, have reporters located in Devon, Scotland, airports, Mexico City, and anywhere else that people have been observed sneezing. Experts are being wheeled out - "so tell me professor, just what exactly is flu?" - while Beechams Powders are doing a roaring trade.

Is anyone else just about sick of the media encouraging us all to run around screaming like school kids locked inside a ghost train on hallowe'en? Personally I think it's a huge scam concocted by the pharmaceutical companies to shift more of their products. After all, remember Duck Tape? Wonder who owns the company that makes that product? Hmm...

Add to that list Mad Cow disease which killed off the UK Beef trade for almost 2 years, European beef suppliers were rubbing their hands with glee at all the extra trade and, not unconnected, declined to accept UK beef exports for a considerable period of time afterwards. My number one choice is the all time classic Government leaflet about what to do in the event of a Nuclear war. I remember something about having name tags ready to label the deceased and everyone else sitting under a doorway or under a table but couldn't quite figure out how that would stop radiation poisoning.

There are those who firmly believe that this Pig Flu is a laboratory mutated strain, deliberately unleashed by (insert name of agency/country here) simply to draw attention away from the credit crunch and the reasons behind it.

Whatever the reason, yes the media take great joy in sending numerous reporters to the scene to stand in front of house/hospital/other bit of scenery to do a sincere and concerned (yeah, right!) piece to camera inferring that we're all doomed. Way OTT but great for sales of face masks, tissues, Ibuprofen, Paracetamol and other Flu medication !

Mandrake wrote:There are those who firmly believe that this Pig Flu is a laboratory mutated strain, deliberately unleashed by (insert name of agency/country here) simply to draw attention away from the credit crunch and the reasons behind it.

Clowns, I heard.

The media appears to be blowing the sotry out of all proportion as usual and in doing so are scare mongering.

If this was a real pandemic as reported, I'd hae thought that by now there should have been hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people affected and not just the few hundred that are being reported in Mexico, particularly with their apparently poor health service.

We also get told that it's mutated into a less virile strain over here in Europe that isn't much different than normal flu.

Time will of course tell but for the time being I wish that they wouldn't refer to it as a pandemic because it's not even anywhere near epidemic levels yet, let alone pandemic.

It give the Government a chance to post a few million leaflets through peoples letter box and look as if they're doing something constructive. They'll hide a few billion pounds under this effort.

The government or theiving knobs as most know them have bought 3.4 billion masks out of task payers money....where this is just a rumour...... WHY THE HELL DOES A COUNTRY OF 20 MILLION NEED 3.4 BILLION MASKS.

I do not know about you guys but I have only one mouth.



Besides has it not been proven that the skin can allow harmful toxins to pass through...... we need 3.4 billion chemical suite pronto.

Swine flu
Bird flu
vCJD
SARS
Ebola virus
Necrotising Fasciitus (sp?)

Welcome to this year's "everyone is going to die" story - yawn

So far 8 people have died and the few people in the UK who may have it are "responding well to treatment". Wow - scary stuff I'm sure if you are a bit thick or gullible.

Slow news week by any chance? Wonder what it will be next year.

Necrotising Fasciitis (fash-ee-i-tus). It's a good'un. As is ebola, what with the bleeding out of every orifice.

Reading what wikipedia has to say about ebola, it says that only this March past, a 45-year old woman in Germany pricked her finger with a needle used to inject ebola into lab mice. She was given an experimental vaccine, and she seems to be all clear (although it's obviously not known whether she was ever infected).

Still... you'd be sh*tting yourself, wouldn't you

Don't get me started on this, I'm having a real bad week and the kid thing has set me off I don't want to talk about pig flu, I'm bad enough when i've got man flu

The thing that I find even more ironic is the fact that 100 of times more people died in car accidents since the whole thing broke but that is ignored!

This is also brilliant:


http://www.theonion.com/content/news/millions_and_millions_dead?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Hey, I got back from Mexico a couple of weeks ago; I've sneezed about 4 times this morning, does anyone want a hug?

Has anyone here ever had influenza?

The Swine Flu thing may give a whole new meeaning to the name, 'The Masked Magician'...

The media are doing what they do best and they are on form as usual.

Tomo wrote:Has anyone here ever had influenza?

I had the flu around Christmas time and I don't mean a bad cold, either. It was the proper flu and it knocked me for six. I was off work for a week and bedridden with serious aches and pains. People who say they have the "flu" don't know what they're talking about. If they did have it, they sure as hell wouldn't be standing there telling me about it.

Stil, the flu is preferable to catching that ebola virus. Nasty.

Tomo wrote:Has anyone here ever had influenza?

yes. 20 odd years ago And i never want it again.. i felt like i was going to die.

and as a result man flu, and the old " ive got flu so i wont be comming in today" excuse cuts no mustard with me I'm afraid.

I don't really know much about all this to comment on it but I was watching the news the other day and there was this reporter smack bang in the middle of Mexico outside a hospital where half these cases have been taken and they were showing clips of thousands of people in masks and yet this reporter was standing there in holiday clobber with no mask nothing. It did make me wonder a little he either knows something I don't or he extremely stupid because if it was me and I beleived this 100% I wouldnt even be coming out my house let alone travel to the very place its happening to make a report.