WASHED AND READY TO EAT

If something didn’t smell right about the UK handling of the pandemic, the British public was never going to notice. But they knew that if they couldn’t smell something, they really ought to get a Covid test sent to them in the post. There has been something incredibly British about the DIY swabs and their delivery via the gig-economy workers of Amazon, hasn’t there? Touch of corona? I’ll pop something in the post to you. Should be with you tomorrow. I suppose it was inevitable that we’d need some new kind of system. After all, the coronavirus outbreak was the first thing in the history of the NHS that couldn’t be cured by paracetamol, rest and plenty of fluids. This understandably left GPs flummoxed and anxious. The UK decided pretty early on that if you were ill with a novel pathogen – which proved deadly in maybe 1% of cases – you really shouldn’t go to the doctor. You should STAY AT HOME and spread it quickly to your flatmates or family members. And because they were now at ...

There is something so bizarrely British about the health response to the assassination attempt in Salisbury on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. A week after the event, everyone who was in the vicinity of the deadly nerve agent has been urged to wash their personal possessions. Now, let’s think this through. This chemical was so toxic that it left two people fighting for their lives. A police officer involved in the early response was also hospitalised and made severely ill by it. The table in the restaurant visited by Sergei and Julia was reportedly so contaminated that it had to be destroyed. But if you happened to be nearby – perhaps even dining in the same part of the restaurant sometime after the unfortunate victims departed – no need to worry. Run a baby wipe over your phone. A week later. What about clothes? The Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies recommends washing them. In a washing machine preferably, she says. Err… as opposed to the o...

My local UKIP candidate, Barry Edwards, opens his leaflet with four powerful words: 'I am a Scientist...' (The upper case his Barry's. For Emphasis.) His profession apparently means that he believes in the 'rigorous scrutiny of information'. So far, so good. We look forward to a level of perspicacity so often lacking in our would-be politicians. 'I know that the other parties are untrustworthy and have lost touch with people,' writes the aspiring MP, no doubt on the basis of extensive scientific research. 'I understand that over-population produced mainly by excessive EU migration is the underlying cause of increasing pressure on our housing, NHS, education, elderly provision and all other social services.' The underlying cause? So science has proved that our housing crisis is the result of immigration? It couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with the fact we haven't built any houses, could it? Or that prices have been ...

Now, I'm as OCD as the next man, but even by my standards, the NHS hand-washing instructions below seem a tad OTT. I'm like HOW many stages? We're told at the end that the whole process should last 15-30 seconds. That's quite a spectrum. They're saying you can wash your hands for half the length of time that someone else does and yet still fall into the 'clean' category. So why would anyone go for 30 seconds? You'd just cheat and do 15, wouldn't 't you? 

If you were holding your breath, it's at last possible to release you from your suspense. The £27m opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics will be a recreation of the English countryside. Complete with farmyard animals clucking and oinking their way around the stadium and 10,000 volunteers turning in cameo performances, presumably as milk maids and scythe sharpeners. Danny Boyle, the man responsible, says that he plans to involve NHS nurses in the show and will give them their own special role. Distributing anti-nausea medication to the British public, perhaps. This mind-boggling spectacle of rustic kitsch - polished with some kind of post-industrial, quasi-environmental veneer - demonstrates a real poverty of ambition. Instead of embracing the Olympic Games as a platform for promoting the UK's future, we use them as a way of projecting an imaginary and idealised past. Let's not pretend this is the Britain that anyone recognises today or believes is going to emerge ...

I saw in the Press Association reports of Claire Rayner's death, the agony aunt had informed her family of what she wanted her last words to be: "Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him." Noble sentiments that we can only applaud. If she can fit in George Osborne too, we'll all be eternally grateful. Note the fact, however, that she told her relatives that these were the words she wanted to be remembered as her last ones. In other words, they weren't actually her last words at all. This is death by press release. Old Claire never lost her chutzpah. I want it to be known that my last words are a very polished soliloqy from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Not 'Oh f***, that bus is heading right fo....'

I enjoyed this American news report about the campaign by Santas in department stores to get H1N1 jabs as a matter of priority. Of course, in the UK, they'd be offered the vaccine on the National Elf.

Until a visit to my local pharmacy yesterday, I'd never heard of the Men's Health Forum. It's a registered charity that seems to be working alongside the NHS to issue a number of challenges to British blokes. Ten challenges, to be precise. I've picked up a leaflet and a handy pocket-sized card that I guess I'm supposed to carry around with me. It warns me that one man under 75 dies every five minutes and is full of matey, patronising advice on how I can avoid a similar fate. Among the pearls of wisdom is the notion that I should eat more fruit and veg. Not only does this reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, but it helps 'keep you regular'. Keep me regular? If I want that kind of advice, I can go to my mum, thanks very much. "Chlamydia isn't a Greek island," continues the wag responsible for drafting the copy, as he 'challenges' me to a check-up. As soon as I've sorted out my constipation, I need to get myself down the cl...