Life's a swine

Blogs, traditionally, are all about News. Most of them seem to convey information that's much more "immediate" than the musings here on the Year-Long Lunch Break. But, in a break from tradition, Lunchista is going to "do News", just for once, because it has a bearing on the Lunch Break philosophy, and anyway it might be useful.

As I write this, the WHO have raised the swine flu alert level to "5" (the highest being "6") and the first few cases of human-to-human transmission seem to have been found. It appears though that no-one can tell whether this will be another avian flu (yawn) or another 1918. Confronted with this information (or lack of it), on such a gothic evening, what should we all do?

It looks as if we're back to Battenburg Cake.

Because people can travel from one part of the country (or of the world) to another in less time than it takes for any flu symptoms to show, cutting down the risk to zero would involve not seeing anybody, until the whole thing blows over. This is clearly a case of Pink Square No. 3 costing far too much. However there are lots of other Pink Square No 3s which either cost a lot less, cost nothing, or which it is always useful to do, swine flu or no.

There is a lot of talk about the various types of face-mask and why they are ineffective. But Lunchista has to ask, who is telling us this? Why, it's Her Majesty's Government. And they do have to think about appearences rather more than Lunchista does. Specifically, can you imagine the effect on morale if people started going around hiding their faces behind masks? Until fairly recently in these parts, the only people who did this were in the process of committing some crime, in the throes of being tried for it, or hired to behead someone. Think of the opprobrium heaped on "hoodies". You could call it our cultural prejudice: you can see why someone innocently sporting a Niqaab, the full veil, comes as a bit of a shock to the system. In Japan, on the other hand, it is considered the height of rudeness, if you have a cold and have to be out and about, not to wear a mask.

You might have to forego the live footie and the rock concerts (though Lunchista appreciates that a real fan will risk death for the cause). One thing you can forego with the greatest of ease is the wretched "compulsory leisure": by that I mean all those far-too-expensive visitor attractions aimed at children, or more accurately at their parents' wallets.

You could attempt to work from home. Especially if, like Lunchista last year, your commute involves six crowded vehicles a day, at least five of which contain one or more people who are coughing or sneezing. Though that's tough if you're a hotel receptionist or a nurse. You could ease off the working hours if you're self-employed or in short-term posts via an agency.

We now move on to a Pink Square No. 3 which costs very little. A stock of food in the house is always useful. Stick to stuff you eat anyway: in Lunchista's case that's rice, pasta, beans/lentils of various sorts, cheap tins of fish, dried milk (use it for cooking once it's not needed as a store), tins of soup and the ever-useful Italian Plum Tomatoes, bread-mixture if you like your bread with character, honey, and so on. I count medicine as a type of food. Otherwise if there's panic-buying in your town all in one wave, you'll be left short, or else in a shop full of people sneezing (sans masks).

But the two best precautions cost nothing and are good to do anyway. One is simply washing hands, properly, whenever needed. The second is a bit more obscure. Research is beginning to find, not only that we are all desperately short of vitamin D, but also that it's an effective defence against unwanted microbes including viruses. So, you can either have six lunches of fish and deep green leaves every day (which would require a very long lunchbreak) or you can go for a walk in the sunshine.

Or you could tough it out and risk Pink Square No. 2. However, Lunchista's Glasgow-Edinburgh commute included walking past a small nondescript house in which a plague-stricken family were barricaded in and subsequently died. Which is far too Gothic for most people's tastes.

Happy Walpurgisnacht.