Why have I still not got swine flu, pig colds, hog pox or similar? Why? At first I thought swine flu was going to be like every other 'pandemic' that's been dangled in front of us, threatening to wipe out billions worldwide over the last few years. SARS was going to turn us all into zombies! 'QUICK! PUT ON A FACE MASK! DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE! CRY EVERY TIME YOU HAVE TO GET ON A TUBE FULL OF DISEASE-RIDDEN MANIACS!' Oh, hang on, no-one seems to be the slightest bit ill. Avian flu was going to rain death from the skies via every bird from wrens up: 'PANIC! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!! SHOOT THAT SWAN!!!' Oh, hang on, it's gone away.


Swine flu was going to not only affect everyone in the world ever, but was, in an improvement on 28 Days Later/that BBC drama that was on not long ago which I can't remember the name of, going to herald, at last, Animal Farm crossed with zombies! Egypt decided to go the whole hog (sorry) and kill all their pigs, just to reinforce the fact that two legs were still good and four legs were bad. Very bad. They're probably still eating bacon sarnies now. We were promised loads of helpful government leaflets, which have still not arrived. 'Oh, business as usual, then', I thought, as the nation remained untroubled by pig-faced zombies. But then, as if by magic, two people I knew succumbed in a week. One of them sits literally about two foot away from me! I started practising Sarah Lancashire/Julie Graham expressions for the ensuing drama.


How bad was it going to be, though? Would my colleague have to be in a special plastic bubble in intensive care for a week? Would there be an army helicopter, trying to deliver Tamiflu to her flat, without her being able to open either the front door or a window (cue hazmatted men bursting through the skylights)? What if she were gathered up with all the other zombies, and sent off as an offering to the aliens, like in Torchwood? Turns out I've been watching too much telly and swine flu is basically just flu, but in the summer and with a fancy name. Yes, it's a good idea not to leave the house for a week, but that's really because you feel pretty shitty and wandering around central London groggily, looking like a club kid who's had too much ketamine, might get you arrested. And apparently you're not even given Tamiflu unless you're in charge of 30 children, or you've only got half a lung that's working usually or something, because it makes you feel 10 times worse than you would if you just sat in front of Loose Women with a Lemsip. God, why do I even pay taxes?


Despite these drawbacks (and a brilliantly patronising notice in our staff kitchen, with photos and text instructing me on how to wash my hands), I still feel like I want to get swine flu. I've missed out on nearly all of the cultural happenings of about the past two decades. I never went to the infamous Sensation exhibition at the RA, because I thought it was a load of pretentious wank and I didn't want to go all Daily Mail about being 'outraged by 'art'. This made it very difficult to have any reaction other than 'Oh', when I finally saw Damien Hirst's shark (by that time looking sadly baggy and a bit rubbish) at the Saatchi gallery about a decade later. I never went to Glastonbury, muddy or otherwise. I didn't go to raves in fields, I avoided ecstasy. I've only ever seen the last 15 minutes of Reservoir Dogs. I refused to read American Psycho (I don't care how ironic/satiric it was, I didn't want to read about a man drilling someone's skull and shoving rats where the sun don't shine for kicks). I even refused to watch the first series of Big Brother on some sort of spurious moral grounds. (No recollection of what those were now - I've long since got over any qualms re: watching total crap on the telly).


So now I want to be a part of it! I want swine flu! I want to say I was there, in the summer of 2009, that I was part of the statistics! But mainly I want a week off work, and am hoping I might lose my appetite, thus creating a free detox wherein I just sup green tea and lose half a stone and everyone tells me I look amazing afterwards. It's pathetic, but it's true.