You cannot avoid airline flu, germs are everywhere

WHEN I was a youngster it was considered a good thing to have all the standard childhood diseases as early as possible and “get it over with.” If any of our relatives or friends developed measles, chicken-pox or mumps we were sent to play with them in the hopes we’d catch the disease. We knew once we had had measles or chicken pox we were unlikely to get them again and they were far less severe in childhood than as adults.

I wonder whether there’s any modern equivalent for “airline flu.” It’s a disease that travels in every airliner and is almost inevitable. You pack a couple of hundred people into a hermetically sealed metal cylinder and let them breathe on each other for six or more hours.

To ensure an equal distribution of germs the air in the cabins is circulated continuously during the flight. Very little uninfected air is brought in from outside during the flight. When they open the aircraft doors at Heathrow, that’s good old South Africa air that spills out into London; together with good old South African germs.

It’s one of the most perfect examples of modern democracy. No matter whether you’re rich or poor, in Business Class or Economy, Russian, Chinese, Sudanese, Swiss or South African, you get your equal quota of germs and viruses. Two days after you land your nose starts running and you develop a sick headache. That’s airline flu. Pharmacists stock an “Immune System Supporter” and I make sure I swallow a couple before every flight. Sometimes they help to make the AF attack a little less severe.

I think it helps a little, but like the common cold, there’s no real cure for airline flu.

Hearty Whisky

Still on medical matters, I was wondering the other day why doctors tended to recommend whisky as the drink for people with heart problems. There’s no real reason why whisky is any better for you than brandy.

My friend Dave Hughes, who is an internationally respected judge of whisky, says he suspects it might be because so many doctors were trained in Scotland. He grew up in what was then Rhodesia and says almost all the doctors he knew were Edinburgh trained.

Of course, medical wisdom is passed on from generation to generation and if your father was a doctor and recommended whisky, and you become a doctor you’ll probably do the same, even if you studied medicine in the Cape, where the world’s best brandy is made.

Last Laugh

Two young Nigerian doctors were walking along the passage in the obstetrics department of an Edinburgh hospital chatting and the one said to his companion: “It’s ‘whoombah’.”

His friend disagreed. “I think it’s more like ‘whoom-beh,’ he said.”

Two rather snooty young British doctors overheard this and said: “Actually, you’re both wrong. It is pronounced ‘womb’. The ‘b’ is silent.”

A little further on the one Nigerian said to his pal: “Silly buggers! They’ve probably never even heard a hippopotamus farting underwater.”