Ignore that sniffling and wheezing you hear from the other side of this journal, it's not swine flu.

It's not that I worry about it being swine flu, I just think that it's clearing up entirely too quickly to be a globe-threatening pathogen.

Well, it's highly unlikely that it's swine flu, as my tail remains uncurled, I haven't been hunting down truffles, and my urges to wallow in mud remain... no stronger than usual. (On the other hand, the presence of a tail at all may be something I should consult a physician about.)

It's probably just allergies, although I've not had my sinuses filled with concrete and my skin crawl off my body in search of prey due to allergies before.

Given these symptoms, it's more likely that I'm turning into a zombie than down with swine flu.

I did have a serious point to mention, on this the day that the World Health Org. declared a global pandemic. I am astounded at the impotence of our knowledge and technology to halt or even slow the spread of a pathogen that we identified within the first week of infection and first few hundred cases. The globe is lucky that this is only a flu of average severity (which has still shut down whole countries for weeks.) Something a bit more virulent might just tip us civilized, rational people into animal fear, paranoia and riots. We admittedly haven't hit the level of societal collapse and fighting in the streets for survival, but people around the world seem awfully worried about a fairly run-of-the-mill flu.

You know how fascinated I am by how the dichotomy of our humanity, trapped between a primal animal existence and beings using reason and technology to master our worlds and our minds. Even in the modern world we regress daily to act as our primeval ancestors. And this growing pandemic is a spectacular example of how close we are to tipping from controlled societies into an irrational, terrified herd of beasts. And it only takes one simple flu, a microscopic and unsophisticated element of nature, to remind us just how little control we actually have over the world.

Of course THIS cough can't be swine flu. There is a much less virulent explanation for my own muscle ache and stiffness-cum-rigor mortis.

I can't explain the sudden craving for brains though.