Thursday, April 30, 2009

God help the NHS

So to add to the horror of tube travel, we're now told that it's essentially a massive petri dish, providing the perfect conditions to ensure the spread of swine flu in the capital. Imagine discovering this on your first reintroduction to society and public transport in a week.

As I read through the article in the free London Paper (every literati's publication of choice), I became increasingly aware of each sniff, hack, and cough that reverberated around the crowded carriage. Do you know how difficult it is to discreetly (because we are still English, pandemic or not) lean away from someone in a confined space and not touch anyone else?

I could add agoraphobia to my growing list of London-induced conditions: claustrophobia, mysophobia, obesophobia, toxophobia, and entomophobia. It would make anyone build a bunker, disinfect it, seal it off, and wait for the apocalypse, but then I wouldn't be a Londoner. So we'll just doff our hats to the riots, terror attacks, protests, strikes, viral infections, and financial meltdown, and carry on, wot?

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