Contagion

My name is Dave and I am a hypochondriac.

For that reason, and that reason alone, the end of the world scenario that terrifies me most is the threat that we as a race could all be wiped out by a supervirus.

Imagine, if you will, a TV news announcement that describes a potential nasty bug that is spreading from person to person in numerous countries with no hope of recovery. From that point on, I would be totally and utterly convinced that the virus was in my system even if it hadn’t reached the shores of the United Kingdom yet.

In the past, I have been slightly perturbed when newscasters have mentioned benign bugs that are nasty but not lethal, even when they are confined to the deepest parts of Africa, say.

A few years ago there had been an outbreak of the deadly respiratory disease called Sars and it had surfaced in Hong Kong. Thankfully, the authorities had it under control eventually and it was then that my project manager asked me to go on a business trip to the city.  I read that the authorities at the airport were screening people as they came and left using thermal cameras in an attempt to detect elevated temperatures in travellers. I wrestled with my inner hypochondriac who told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to catch the disease even though it was under control. Normally I would have been over the moon to visit my favourite city outside the United Kingdom – but not this time.

Deep down I knew that I would be safe but that didn’t stop the hypochondriac inside whispering to me constantly through the flight: “You will catch Sars – that’s if you don’t have it already.”

The temperature in Hong Kong in the summer is quite a lot higher than the UK and you feel it the moment that you leave the aircraft. Such was my paranoia that I thought the thermal cameras would identify an elevated temperature in me as I walked towards immigration.

Of course, I was being utterly stupid and I passed through without a problem. My trip lasted three weeks, during which time I became an expert in the symptoms of Sars. Every time I felt slightly below par I was convinced that I had succumbed to the disease – even a few weeks after my return to Manchester.

I know that I am an idiot for allowing myself to accede to such moronic paranoia but I can’t help it. I wish I could.

Thus, if I were to ever catch a news report telling me that a deadly disease was spreading across the world, wiping out everybody who came into contact with it, I would probably worry myself to death months before the infection claimed me.

I would be an expert and would probably use all of my money to travel to the remotest part of the world, avoiding all contact with civilisation on my way, so that I could sit there in splendid isolation away from any human beings who might pass on the deadly virus to me.

That’s how irrational my inner hypochondriac is.

The perfectionist in me wanted to do some research into the possibility of humanity being wiped out by such a virus so I have had to silence the hypochondriac.

And thank goodness for that because I have discovered that it is highly unlikely that a pandemic could cause the extinction of the human race. Over the centuries, there have been several nasty little blighters that have tried their level best to take us all out – things like The Black Death, Ebola, various flavours of flu, Sars and HIV.

The good news is that there are steps in place to contain such outbreaks and the organisations and institutions that are responsible for this are damned good at what they do.

Yet, as I watch programs like “The Walking Dead” where a virus has wiped out all but the hardiest of humanity and turned them into flesh eating Zombies, I can’t help but think that maybe such a thing could happen. In fact, in the show, every human being actually has the disease anyway so that when you eventually die, you come back to life as a cannibalistic corpse whose sole  raison d'être is to munch on the living.

How nice is that?

My deepest fear is that there is a malignant virus living dormant in every human being ust waiting to be activated and murder us in the most horrible way possible. If I shove this thought aside for a moment (very difficult now it is in my head) the truth is that humanity would find a way were such a supervirus to suddenly appear – even if it were man made. Some form of humanity would survive and find a way perhaps living in a remote part of the world, like the top of a mountain range, the deepest part of the Australian Outback or an African desert. It wouldn’t be pleasant but we might survive.

And if you do live in such an inhospitable yet safe part of the world, get ready to meet me. I’ll be there the moment the first cases of the outbreak are reported.

The Weapon

There is a song I by Rush called The Weapon and some of the lyrics are particularly relevant:

“And the things that we fear are a weapon to be held against us”

The media thrive on it and also use it to make us (a) buy their paper (because they claim to tell us how it is) and (b) force their political agenda on to us.

Here are some headlines related to Brexit that came from The Daily Express - one of the worst papers on the entire planet:

“New EU Rules Wreck Pensions”

“Each Illegal Immigrant To Cost Us £1million”

“Britain 40% Surge In Ethnic Numbers”

“No Job Unless You’re Polish”

All of these headlines are meant to scare gullible people and persuade them to alter their thinking.

I don’t believe a single word of them. And if you read closely they are written by people with a deep political agenda. Of course, the same is true on the other side of the political spectrum too.

Moreover, fear is used as a means to sell us things that we don’t necessarily need. Salesmen use it all the time. Let me give you an example.

The first property I bought was a brand new three bedroomed semi-detached house that was just a lump of dirt when we actually reserved it from the house building company. We were so proud when we eventually moved in to this brand new estate with similar young people. I was 24 years old.

And then the vultures appeared.

We were swamped by door to door salesmen trying to acquire what little money we had left. One in particular sticks in my mind.

He arrived at 8pm and tried to sell us a burglar alarm. We stupidly let him in and allowed him to demonstrate his device to us. After an hour of his high pressure sales pitch he offered us a piece of paper to confirm the purchase.

“It’s too expensive,” I said. “We’re not interested.”

He was one of those middle-aged salesmen who refuse to take no for an answer. At first he offered us a package where we could pay in monthly instalments and when we refused that, he offered us a deal.

“I can get you 10% off the asking price,” he told us. “My boss will have my guts for garters but I’ll do it for you.”

“What part of “NO!” do you not understand?” said my (ex) wife.

 He tried another tactic.

“Do you care about your family?” he asked me.

I was taken aback by this.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

“It doesn’t seem that way,” he replied. “If your wife came back and surprised a burglar, who knows what could happen? With this alarm, that will never happen because no burglar will get past you front door.”

I didn’t like this one little bit.

“Get out,” I said, now quite angry. “I’m not interested.”

That didn’t deter him. He then started talking about another scenario where my brand new house could be wrecked, my wife injured and my property destroyed.

He was trying to scare us both into giving him money so that our house would be protected. My ex-wife was also not taken in by this. She actually got up, opened the front door and said “Please leave!”

“Are you sure?” he asked me again.

“Yes,” she said, answering for me. “Now go before I call the police.”

She gave him a taste of his own medicine because he said “No need to be like that!” before leaving.

It taught me a lesson about dealing with salesmen, particularly those high pressure types who squat in your house until you sign the bit of paper just to get rid of them.

If you think about it, there are certain companies that use fear to con you into buying things you don’t need. As well as the home security example above, we have things like:

Products that make you look younger. Obviously there are a plethora of anti-ageing products for women that will get rid of those wrinkles but for men we have hair-dye that miraculously turns a decrepit grey-haired old man into an Adonis who has to beat off women with a shitty stick. Like this load of old bollocks:

Products that stop you catching a disease. We all know that if you catch a bad cold, you may need to take a day off work. But certain adverts imply that without their flu remedy you will have to take days off work and probably be sacked as a result. As a hypochondriac, I feel particularly vulnerable when it comes to disease prevention. These bastards are targetting me.

The media. Yes, I know. I feel that I am constantly moaning about the newspaper companies using lies and sensationalist headlines to make us buy their newspapers and even influencing the way people think as I mentioned above. I am certain that they invent stories to scare people and when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of them, there is no substance.

Insurance companies. Mrs PM and I were conned into buying pet insurance for our cats. And then, when I thought about it, and did all the maths, I realised that that I would only save money if the cats became very ill once a year and had to be dragged clawing and screaming to the vet. I am glad that I cancelled it because Jasper and Poppy are now fifteen years old and I shudder when I think about how much pet insurance would have cost in the meantime. There are some insurance policies that you need, for example home and car insurance (but even then home insurance is preying on your fears of being burgled). But do people really need to insure their body parts, for example?

Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue have supposedly insured their arses; Julia Roberts has insured her teeth; Mariah Carey has insured her legs; Dolly Parton and Madonna have insured their boobs; Keith Richards has insured his hands.

I wonder what body part I should insure? Actually, there are no bits of my body worth insuring. At my age, most of it is defunct and drooping now anyway.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 15

Today’s song is a classic from Pink Floyd’s amazing concept album The Wall, called Comfortably Numb.

There is a common misconception that this song is about drugs, particularly if you watch the video from the movie, which shows attempts to revive the main protagonist, played by Bob Geldof, who appears to be in a drug induced stupor.

Instead, claims Roger Waters, the guy who wrote the song, it is about a state of delirium brought on by illness – and the lyrics do confirm this could be the case.

Regular readers will know that I am a bit of a hypochondriac and have almost made myself ill on one or two occasions simply by reading symptoms of diseases, illnesses and ailments and convincing myself that I actually suffer from them.

I am largely over this now because I have trained myself to avoid reading about such things and as a result I live in blissful ignorance of all of the nasty little bugs that can render me useless.

Part of the problem is that I am rarely ill.

As a kid I caught everything going, but thinking about it, so did everybody else. I had mumps and measles but somehow managed to avoid chickenpox, despite my friends, sisters and even in later life, my kids succumbing to the disease.

I’ve had flu once.

I knew it was flu because I could barely move for a week. I spent several days in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, barely able to find the strength to eat or go to the toilet, opting to crawl to the bathroom when it became necessary. It was a totally unpleasant experience and, I guess, the closest I have ever been to being comfortably numb – although the truth is that I was uncomfortably numb.

I have never taken drugs, if you discount alcohol that is, so I’ve never been in a situation where I’m delirious, hallucinating or high on a weird powder. Also, I’ve never smoked although I have to confess that I did try it one time. I was at university and drunk. A friend offered me a cigarette and I stupidly took it and had a quick puff.

“That’s not what you do,” he said laughing. “Take the smoke right down into your lungs.”

Like an idiot, I followed his instructions and something terrible happened. My entire chest felt as if it were on fire and my mind was enveloped in a wave of dizziness which, when added to the effects of alcohol, triggered a rather nasty physical reaction.

I was in a night club at the time and I somehow managed to get to the toilet just in time to puke my guts up. Everything I had drunk and eaten for the past couple of hours was hurled into the toilet bowl and accompanied by a weird blue fog as the remains of the smoke I had inhaled also decided to leave my body.

That cigarette left me in a bad place and I promptly left the night club and returned home, vowing never, ever to allow a cigarette to approach my lips again.

Thankfully, now we have a smoking ban in the UK, I rarely have to even smell the stuff. In days gone by, a trip to a pub usually meant that the following day my clothes would stink of stale cigarettes. Pubs are now smoke free and I can tell the difference just walking into the places.

I often wonder what years of passive smoking did to my lungs. I can only hope that all of those years where we had to endure other people’s smoke didn’t have a bad effect.

I would look it up on the internet  but, being a hypochondriac, I think I’ll resist.

Mr Squeamish

The other day, I sat down on my sofa with my evening meal and started watching a television programme that both Mrs PM and I really like. I started eating and watched the next scene – and almost retched.

I saw a man lying on an operating table with his chest cut open and a doctor probing the red mess inside.

“Oh for God’s sake!” I exclaimed covering my eyes. “I’m eating  my dinner!”

I kind of hoped that the doctor on the TV would turn to me and say “Sorry Dave, we’ll move on to a more tasteful scene while you eat!”

Of course, he didn’t and I did my usual trick; I turned to Mrs PM and said “Tell me when it’s over.”

She just laughed, as she usually does and watched avidly, chomping on her food as if nothing odd was happening.

Deep down, I knew that the bloody scene on my television screen was not real and, in fact, was the product of the special effects department at the studio. Yet I couldn’t help myself. I waited until Mrs PM gave me the all clear.

There’s a deep irony here, dear reader, because a lot of the shows I like contain a lot of gore and blood and guts are frequently exposed. Yet each time I cringe inwardly and my stomach lurches because I simply cannot stand the sight of blood, real or otherwise.

I am squeamishness personified – I am Mr Squeamish.

I think if I were to injure myself I would pass out, not from shock, but from the sight of my own blood.

It’s embarrassing.

Many years ago, I had a blood test and, as the nurse, prepared my arm, she could tell that something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I’m a little squeamish,” I said.

“Most men are,” she said in a tone that was not meant to be mocking but somehow made me feel ashamed. I had to look away as she inserted the needle and drew out my lifeblood.

“There – it’s all over,” she said with a smile when she had finished. I felt like a child.

I’m not a big fan of needles, generally, and have similar experiences when I have to have a vaccination for trips abroad. One nurse actually told me off once because I was so tense that she was struggling to push the needle into my skin.

“Just relax,” she said, again as if I were a five year old. “The tenser you are, the longer this will take and the more it will hurt.”

It’s the same story at the dentist. My last major dental operation was to have a crown replaced and that experience was totally unpleasant, from the injection in my gum to the ripping out of the existing crown. I hate the sound of metal against metal or metal against enamel and I had to endure what seemed like an eternity as the dentist grinded his pliers against my crown in a desperate attempt to pull the thing off.

I also have a thing about eyes. My eyesight is terrible and many years ago I wanted to try contact lenses so that I could play football without being blind. The cost of a contact lens trial at the optician was £10 and I may as well have simply set fire to the note instead of handing over to the optician.

As soon as he went anywhere near to my eye, I flinched and pushed him away.

“Look,” he said in exasperation. “You have to let me do this.”

In the end, I turned as white as a ghost and felt extremely nauseous, so much so that he stopped immediately and offered me a glass of water.

“Are you going to be sick?” he asked, now looking concerned (probably more for the state of his consultancy room than for me).

“Maybe, “ I said trying desperately to hold onto the contents of my stomach.

Thankfully I survived and after five minutes I managed to pull myself together and walk out of the optician with his words ringing in my ears:

“You are too sensitive for contact lenses.”

Really he meant:

“You are too squeamish for contact lenses.”

Happily, I am not the most squeamish person I know. There is a guy at work who cringes at the very mention of the word “needle”. This weakness was exploited to maximum effect the other week. For some reason I mentioned the fact that the vaccination nurse had struggled to insert the needle in my arm because of the tense knotted muscles and he visibly looked shaken. I shall call him Mr Ultrasqueam.

“Just shut up,” he ordered.

“Why?” I asked.

“I pharrking HATE needles; they make me feel ill!” he exclaimed.

My desk buddies at work love this kind of stuff. When a member of the desk exposes a weakness, it is exploited with maximum prejudice and we all join in an attack, like sharks circling a drowning man in the sea.

Another desk buddy started laughing and told me in no uncertain terms that I was an utter wimp. He then went on to describe an operation that he had had in great detail involving needles, scalpels, a local anaesthetic and a very, very vulnerable part of the male anatomy.

He went into great detail including the mishaps. I won’t mention this in detail (in order to maintain the good taste element of my blog) but suffice it to say that Mr Ultrasqueam covered his ears with his hands and started shouting:

“For phark’s sake SHUT UP!”

There was blood in the water now and no mercy was shown. Other tales of needle mishaps and nasty operations were mentioned by other buddies and in the end the colour started draining from Mr Ultrasqueam’s face as he desperately implored us to shut up.

“I thought I was squeamish,” I said laughing, “but in my case I have to actually see the needle.”

“STOP MENTIONING PHARKING NEEDLES!” he screamed.

At this point we relented, in case he actually threw up. But it was hilarious.

A little later, when he had recovered, he said:

“If I EVER have to have even a minor operation, I will order them to give me a general anaesthetic so that I don’t have to be there when they start cutting and hacking.”

“You do know that they give you a local anaesthetic with a needle,” I said.

“STOP MENTIONING PHARRKING NEEDLES!” he shouted again.

I will remember this next time I am the victim of our wonderful banter.

In fact, I think I might start calling him "Needles"!

How about you, dear reader?

Are you as squeamish as Mr Squeamish (i.e. me)?

Are you as bad as Mr Ultrasqueam?

The Most Dangerous Creature In The World

When people are asked to think about dangerous animal, they normally consider big vicious animals with huge teeth or massively poisonous snakes or spiders.

The truth is that the most dangerous animal in the world is in fact a tiny barely perceptible little vampiric bastard that is responsible for more illness and death than any other creature.

This little monster is responsible for transmitting disease to over 700 million people every year, resulting in over 2 million deaths.

Can you believe that?

This demonic blood-sucking little fiend is the mosquito and has terrorised me for the last month or so, as well as several times in in my recent lifetime.

Regular readers will know that I am a barely recovering hypochondriac and I have recently fallen off the wagon and spent hours fretting over potential illness. My trip to Brazil meant that I had to be vaccinated against Yellow Fever, a disease spread by these damned insects, and that in itself caused me major mental problems, convincing myself that I would catch the disease before my feet left the shores of Britain (you can read about it here) .

In the past, going to places like China, I have had to take malaria tablets to protect myself against another disease spread by mosquitos. Worse, the bloody tablets made me feel ill anyway with the list of possible side-effects being almost as terrifying as catching the disease itself.

I travelled to Brazil armed with enough mosquito repellent to thwart a vast swarm of the little buggers. If you haven’t used mosquito repellent, let me tell you that it is one of the most revolting substances ever stored in an aerosol can.

First, I had to smother myself in high factor sun screen to protect my delicate skin from the powerful rays of the sun. On top of that, I then had to spray all of my exposed skin with mosquito repellent. 

There are three other things you need to know about mosquito repellent.

First of all, it absolutely stinks. If you want to go out at night time and wear something that makes you smell nice, forget it. My paranoia informed me that the people would probably keel over as I walked past due to the stench of this foul liquid protecting me against blood-sucking mosquitos.

Second, mosquito repellent is nasty stuff. The warnings on the can tell you not to spray it near your lips and eyes because it will cause a lot of irritation. I speak from experience. One night, I was a little overenthusiastic and some of the foul substance hit me in the face. I could feel it on my lips. I was in the bathroom, swearing and cursing as I vigorously removed all traces with copious amounts of water.

Finally, this stuff ruins your clothes. Again, in another bout of overenthusiastic squirting, I managed to spray loads of it all over my shorts, leaving a nasty little stain that made people think I had had an accident on the way to the toilet. I also managed to spray some onto my black leather watch strap, resulting in a black stain on my skin that I had to scrub for hours to remove.

After a week and a half in Brazil, of covering ourselves in this crap, we were delighted to report that no insect had bitten us.

However, something happened that caused the hypochondriac within to surface with maximum prejudice.

There is a disease called Dengue Fever which is prevalent in the tropics, including South America. Brazil has had many problems with it over the past few years. It is spread by a variety of mosquito called aegis aegypti. 

Worse, this disease is incurable.

We arrived in Búzios at the end of our holiday for a relaxing couple of days by the sea and quickly fell into the routine of lazing in the sun. Sadly, we were so free of stress that we forgot to spray ourselves with mosquito repellent.

The result? We woke up on the first morning with a few bite marks on our legs.

Mrs PM thought nothing of it.

I, on the other hand, mutated into The Hypochondriac, and instead of calmly reading a book by the pool, I spent hours searching the internet on my phone looking for symptoms of Dengue Fever trying to calculate whether the little bastards  that had bitten us where in fact mosquitos or some other nasty little blood-sucking critters.

Within hours I had become an expert on Dengue Fever – and I didn’t like what I read. The chances of catching it were slim (only 250,000 cases out of 180 million people in Brazil), and even if we had been bitten by a mosquito, the chances of it being an aegis aegypti were even smaller.

What's more, the aegis aegypti would have to be infected with Dengue Fever anyway as the disease is spread when the mosquito bites a person infected with the disease. Furthermore, it was spring in Brazil and peak mosquito time is in the summer (December to March).

At university I studied statistics as part of my degree and all of my common sense was telling me that the bites were totally harmless and the chances of catching something nasty were very slim. Logic was thrown out of the window by The Hypochondriac.

The thing is that Dengue Fever is like a really nasty bout of the flu, with added

For the rest of our stay in Brazil, we saturated ourselves in mosquito repellent (I virtually SHOWERED in the stuff) and we weren’t bitten again.

Mrs PM took it all in her stride and enjoyed her time without worry.

I tried to but I struggled to silence the voice at the back of my mind trying to convince me that I was doomed to Dengue Fever.

Thankfully, the bites have disappeared and the incubation period over so I will not succumb to Dengue Fever.

However, my fear of mosquitos is now instilled and I know that in order to eliminate that fear, I have to soak myself in an obnoxious liquid, allow a nurse to stab me with a needle full of an unspeakably vile substance or take tablets that I know will make me ill.

All this because of a tiny buzzing, six-legged little horror that the eye can barely perceive – the most dangerous creature in the world.

I want to go on record right now to reiterate the fact that mosquitos, like wasps, are right up there in the list of creatures that I would eliminate from planet Earth if I were given omnipotent powers.

And, like wasps, I will endeavour to eliminate them one at a time, whenever the opportunity arises.

At least then I will never accidentally spray mosquito repellent in my face again.

The Hypochondriac (Part Two)

I have a confession to make.

My name is Dave and I’m a hypochondriac.

Actually, that makes me feel like I’m sitting in a meeting of Hypochondriacs Anonymous. I’ve told the world before that I suffer from hypochondria in an early blog post (you can read it here) and I have learned to stop reading about illness and asking Mr Google about symptoms.

Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, I fell off the wagon and spent a week convinced that I was suffering from a major illness.

It all started when a work colleague who had been on a trip to Brazil advised me that I need to look at vaccinations for my forthcoming trip to that country. Now normally, I’m not too bothered about vaccinations because ultimately they protect you from all manner of nasty viruses that can wreak havoc with your body.

Being well travelled I am used to trips to the doctor to check on what he needs to inject me with. I don’t like needles but I look away as the nurse administers the vaccine before going home as if nothing has happened, with just a small pain in the arm.

I made an appointment and the young nurse told me that I should have Tetanus and Hepatitis A boosters but that I also need to have a vaccine for Yellow Fever.

“Now there’s something I need to warn you about with the Yellow Fever vaccine,” she said. “It can have side effects.”

My mind started working overtime and before I knew it, my imagination was running amok. I envisaged everything from keeling over in a rabid seizure to growing a new head and turning into one of those lizard people that conspiracy theorists think rule the world.

I had a vaccine last week! Now look at me!!

“What sort of side effects?” I said, trying to control my shaky voice.

In a nutshell she told me that one in ten people felt ill with flu like symptoms but there have been cases of people falling really ill up to ten days after injection.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve never known anybody actually turn yellow, but if you do just go to A&E!”

She said this with a smile on her face as she stabbed me with what I now imagined was an alien virus from the Planet Tharg that would make me disintegrate into a mutant creature, like Jeff Goldbum’s character did in The Fly.

She then told me that my immune system would fight off the virus and in ten days I would be fine. But then it got worse. She decided to make casual conversation by telling me that I shouldn’t have the virus if I am ill or that people over 60 are recommended not to have it.

“I’M ONLY EIGHT YEARS AWAY!” I screamed. “AND I’VE GOT A COLD!”

I didn’t really. I smiled and nodded, feigning interest when all I wanted to do was rush out of the surgery screaming.

I drove home with my weird imagination in full control. I had a slight cold and, in my mind, my immune system was going to be fighting that instead of the Yellow Fever and I would end up turning yellow and being strapped to a bed in Intensive care surrounded by lots of armed men in Hazmat suits.

Could it get worse?

Of course it could. The second I got home, I was at my computer asking Mr Google “What are the side effects of the Yellow Fever vaccine?”

What followed was panic as I read all possible effects.

One in three people suffer  from mild effects such as headache, muscle pain, a mild fever and soreness at the injection site.

One in 130,000 suffer an allergic reaction.

One in 250,000 suffer a condition that effects the brain and nervous system causing confusion and coordination problems.

One in 330,000 people can suffer a condition that effects internal organs which can in even rarer cases, actually lead to organ failure.

Guess which category I thought I was going to fall into?

Mrs PM had had a Yellow Fever vaccination about eleven years ago when she went to Nigeria with work and she had to have a booster this time. When I broached the subject with her, she told me that the vaccine caused her to bleed from the eyes for three days. No she didn’t – I made that up.

She suffered no ill effects whatsoever and told me in no uncertain terms that I was being a big baby.

The rational part of me agreed but the Hypochondriac fuelled by Captain Paranoia told me to expect the worst.

I became obsessed over the next few days. Remember that cold I told you I had? Well that got worse, and at work, I looked up yet more symptoms and worked myself up even more.

“Oh God NO!!” I yelled at my desk.

“What’s up?” asked my work colleague.

“Nothing,” I stuttered. “Just a stupid bug in my program.”

By day three, I genuinely felt ill. My cold had got worse, I had a headache and I had flu like symptoms, just like one in in three people apparently suffer from.

I got home and lay on the settee feeling sorry for myself – a bit like this guy:

Thankfully, the next day I felt a lot better and went to work with no ill effects.

That was a couple of weeks ago and I am now officially immune to Yellow Fever with a little yellow certificate to prove it.

I didn’t turn into Jeff Goldblum’s fly.

I didn’t grow a new head.

I didn’t turn yellow.

The only thing that was injured was my pride.

I pledge to you, dear reader, that I will never ever ask Mr Google again for advice about symptoms.

I’m looking forward to the next meeting of Hypochondriacs  Anonymous.

American TV Commercials

I’ve just returned from a very pleasant trip to the United States and, I tell you something, I’m glad I didn’t fall ill over there. If I had succumbed to an illness that required drugs of some kind I am certain that I would have perished as a result of a horrific treatment related side effect.

Mrs PM and I arrived in Boston around ten days ago and, whilst unpacking, I switched on the TV and started to flick through the channels, searching for something to watch as a background activity. It took a while because every single channel had a TV commercial on it – I was beginning to think that Americans had given up on the idea of watching TV programmes in favour of an endless loop of adverts.

Of course, we have commercials in the UK but in the US, they have millions of the things. I was drawn away from the necessity of packing and sucked into the world of advertising American style. Mrs PM seemed immune and unpacked, making sure that her clothes were impeccably hung up or popped into drawers. I simply watched the TV like a hypnotised idiot.

Here are a couple of commercials that grabbed my attention:

First, a very scary man, with a beard that made him look incredibly sinister, tried to convince me that I could use his services to make sure that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) would not overtax me. I couldn’t drag my eyes from his beard; it was so perfectly coiffured in perfect harmony with his hair, that for a second I thought I was watching a talking doll. The expression on his face never changed and neither did the tone of his voice. Was he a robot? He certainly scared me into thinking that I should engage his services (otherwise I would have to pay the taxman millions of dollars) – and I’m not even a resident. But he was scary looking and I mean SCARY, so scary in fact that I later had a jet-lagged induced nightmare about him, picturing him as an immigration officer, accusing me of not paying my taxes.

Next came a dreadful advert for fast food with camera close-ups of seafood drowned in a weird looking sauce, all available for the cool price of $1.99, including a bucket of coke (and I mean a huge bucket). There were kids involved and parents smiling as they bit into this horrible looking gunk, with a catchphrase that made me cringe, a catchphrase that somehow stuck in my mind, causing me to suggest trying it for dinner later. Thankfully, Mrs PM hadn’t seen the advert so she replied “WHAT? ARE YOU MENTAL????”

Other products and services were being advertised with a phone number being drilled into the viewer’s skull by being repeated endlessly throughout the commercial:

Call 1-800-BUYJUNK. That’s 1-800-BUYJUNK. By the way, did I tell you that you need to call 1-800-BUYJUNK? If I didn’t then don’t forget to call 1-800-BUYJUNK. That’s 1-800-BUYJUNK. Have you called 1-800-BUYJUNK yet? Why not? Why haven’t you called 1-800-BUYJUNK? Are you insane? This is a once in a lifetime chance for you to call 1-800-BUYJUNK.

However, there was an advert that genuinely terrified me.

As you may know, I have suffered from hypochondria in the past (read about it here). Imagine my shock at seeing a US advert for a drug that could cause more harm than good. For non-American readers, let me explain and give you a detailed description of the commercial. I won’t use the real name of the drug – instead I’ll make on up; for the sake of the description, let’s call this wonder drug Phawxx.

Picture the scene. A smiling middle-aged woman is sitting on a sofa, looking at old photographs. Then she starts to describe, in painful detail, the dreadful medical condition she has and how Phawxx has saved her life.

“Phawxx has helped me live my life again,” she says. She is accompanied by music that, quite frankly, is so melodramatic that it either makes you want to sit there saying “AWWWWW” or (in my case) makes me feel like throwing up.

“Since I discovered Phawxx,” she continues, “I now have a reason to live. Suffering from Dragwart Syndrome is so debilitating it has made me question my very existence.”

“Dragwart Syndrome?” I ask myself. “What in blue blazes is Dragwart Syndrome? Is it some exotic disease I can catch in America? What the hell will happen to me if I catch that?”

I make a note of the name “Dragwart Syndrome” in my notebook, promising to look it up on the internet at the next available opportunity. I also start to plan to buy Phawxx – just in case.

She then goes into great detail about how the wonder drug, Phawxx, has made a difference. We see her in a sun filled garden laughing contentedly with her children; we see her lying in the arms of her devoted husband, both smiling adoringly and staring into each others eyes as if they are love struck teenagers. And the dreadful music plays on.

And then the warnings start. The commercial has lasted around six seconds until this point; the remaining twenty four seconds are devoted to the side effects of Phawxx. A voice over appears and then spends the remaining time warning you what can happen when Phawxx goes bad.

Always consult your doctor before using Phawxx. Possible side effects include: pregnancy, blindness, headaches, vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach cramps, deafness, hair loss and loss of toes. If your skin starts to turn crimson, stop using Phawxx. If your breathing becomes shallow or you fall asleep while walking, stop using Phawxx. In extreme cases, Phawxx can cause Dragwart Syndrome-related death. In some cases, you may grow an extra eye in the middle of your forehead. In others, your left leg and right arm may both wither and drop off unexpectedly. Do not take Phawxx if you have blonde hair, are Chinese, wear purple spectacles or own a cat. If you are male, Phawxx may turn you into a woman. Do not give Phawxx to children under the age of forty. Do not take Phawxx if you are receiving any other treatment for Dragwart Syndrome as the two treatments will combine and turn you into a fish. Ask you doctor about Phawxx.

And all the time, the voiceover man is telling us the ways in which Phawxx can mutate human beings, the nice woman is sitting in her comfy chair, smiling like an angel and laughing with her family. And the dreadful music plays on.

Of course, for any fellow hypochondriacs out there, Dragwart Syndrome is in fact a figment of my imagination (at least I hope it is).

I could go on all day about adverts on American TV but I will leave you with a complaint.

In the UK, on commercial channels, we are warned that adverts are about to come on. Let’s take the sitcom “Friends” as an example of how adverts are shown in the US and the UK.

In the UK a typical episode of Friends, a man will introduce the show and one set of commercials will appear about halfway through the show. A couple of commercials are also broadcast before and after the show.

In the US a typical episode of Friends will be split into about three hundred parts with commercials appearing every few seconds. Adverts will appear between the opening credits and the first part of the show, numerous times during the show and then just before the last scene and the end credits. For a foreigner like me it is impossible to know where the show starts and the adverts end. Even when Joey and Chandler are chatting, there are banners at the bottom of the screen advertising the next show to be ruined by adverts. Incredibly, just before the show ends, you get “close captioning for Friends was brought to you by Phawxx, the wonder drug for Dragwart Syndrome”.

Annoyingly, I was actually watching a sitcom I had never seen before and stupidly left the room and completely missed the final quirky scene.

“That was the best bit of the show,” said Mrs PM.

“Bollocks!” I said.

To be honest, I hate TV commercials as a rule. British commercials are awful but American ones are far worse on the whole. In Britain we at least inject some humour into them to make them a little bit interesting whereas humour is largely omitted from US adverts – either that or they simply aren’t funny.

If it were up to me, I would remove all TV adverts. The BBC is a commercial-free zone and it is small wonder that on the whole more viewers watch it than the other 3000 channels we get over here. The only things the BBC advertises are other BBC shows. That’s good enough for me.

I can do without “Just For Men” and “Phawxx the wonder drug” thank you very much, for my sanity at least.

This post was brought to you by The Plastic Mancunian. Warning - Do not read The Plastic Mancunian after consuming Phawxx as it may turn you into a baboon. Phawxx was brought to you by the weird and sordid imagination of The Plastic Mancunian and should not be taken ever - particularly if you suffer from Dragwart Syndrome.

The Hypochondriac

I’ve had every disease and medical condition known to man.

Well, when I say “known to man” I really mean “known to me”. I’m much better now. Do you know why?

Because I used to be a hypochondriac.

When I was a young lad, my parents bought a book entitled “The Home Medical Encyclopedia” and foolishly left it lying around so that a stupid, young idiot like me could read it.

I opened the book and started to read and within minutes I had started to panic.

The title of the book should have been called “You Are Going To Die Painfully and Horribly Within The Next Two Days and Here’s How.” By the time my parents found me twenty minutes later, I was gibbering wreck.

“I’ve got scabies,” I cried.

“What?” yelled my dad. “Give me that. Why do you think you’ve got scabies?”

“I’m itching,” I wailed.

My dad then read the entry for scabies and started laughing.

“That so-called spot you have on your face is a zit, you idiot,” he laughed.

“But it could be a nest of insects and monsters burrowing under my skin,” I wailed.

He hid the book but, being a tenacious little sod, I found it and read it from cover to cover. By the time I’d finished I was convinced that I had malaria, sleeping sickness, chickenpox, smallpox and cancer. Not only that, I had a heart condition a brain tumor and a fractured skull. I was dying even though I could still run around like a deranged lunatic.

I swear that if somebody had told me that an alien virus was wreaking havoc in England, I would have been checking myself for symptoms. Imagine this:

“The symptoms include turning green and growing an extra arm. In the latter stages your hair will turn blue and you will start croaking like a frog. Death will follow when your brain explodes out of your ears.”

Most people would have laughed. I on the other hand would have believed that garbage and examined my skin convinced it was turning green.

Of course, I have never had any of the ailments that I read about in that evil book; it was all in my mind. My normally wonderful and reliable imagination had run amok and let me down magnificently.

The truth is that I wasn’t ill as a child and, in reality, I have hardly been ill at all. As a very young tot, I had measles and mumps but that’s about it. If you don’t count colds and flu and the odd stomach upset, I’ve had a relatively disease free existence.

Nevertheless it has been difficult to convince myself that I am healthy. When I was nineteen I humiliated myself at the doctor when I tried to convince him that a prickly heat rash was in fact a flesh eating virus devouring my skin. As I spoke to the doctor, I was desperately trying to stop myself from crying like a baby.

The doctor was professional and kind but I know that he was thinking “you bloody idiot, wasting my time”, even though I’m sure that’s what he was thinking.

I am so glad that I decided not to become a doctor; I would have spent the last twenty years in mental anguish every time I discovered a new microbe or virus. I would have been the world’s worst medic, with patients running screaming from my surgery as I chased them shouting:

“Bugger off! It’s ME that’s ill, not you. Look at me! I’ve got an alien virus that’s turning my skin green.”

Thankfully, I got over hypochondria after that to a certain extent, mainly because I forced myself to stop reading medical tomes. Ignorance was bliss.

I did have a little bit of a relapse when I bought my first home computer about fifteen years ago. And before you think I am a complete moron, I can confirm that I didn’t consider it possible to catch a computer virus that would erase my brain.

The cause of my relapse into hypochondria was the internet. As wonderful as the internet is, it introduced me to yet more diseases, conditions and syndromes and allowed my colossally vivid imagination to work overtime.

Whereas home medical books listed ailments in alphabetical order, the internet with all of its powerful search engines and splendid web sites allowed me my hypochondria to flourish.

For example, on one site I have found, you click on the symptom and it opens a door to a wondrous list of possible causes, most of which are harmless. The problem is that a lot of them are not. Through websites like this I have discovered many hundreds of new ways to depart this life in the most painful and unpleasant way possible.

If you click something as common as “headache”, you uncover 149 possible causes.

149!!!!

That’s enough to keep a hypochondriac gibbering for life. What can cause a headache? How about migraine, allergic rhinitis, flu, whiplash, stroke, depression, meningitis, brain aneurism, pneumonia, concussion and premenstrual tension and that’s just for starters.

Thankfully, years of self-induced panic and stress have taught me that my symptoms are probably due to my own stupidity and I am no longer concerned about illness. Perhaps I should be, but I know that the moment I start reading about diseases and medical conditions I will be back at the doctor’s screaming blue murder.

Mind you, as I get older, I have noticed that there are more odd aches and pains appearing. And my eyesight’s getting worse. And I’m slowing down. And swine flu is around. Maybe I should stop this post right here before I am tempted to look up the symptoms. Or perhaps not.

Be calm, Dave, be calm. There is no flu that turns you into a pig.