Genius

Genius. You can't buy it or teach it, it just happens in strokes. And I had a master one yesterday. The swine flu leaflet finally arrived and what waste of time. The only use I can see for it is as a temporary face mask. Full of instructions of what not to do, all very negative and typical of this nanny state government.

Don't forget to wash your hands
Don't sneeze on your dog
Don't spit in your neighbour's soup
Don't mix your drinks
Don't smoke in bed
Don't let it get you down
Don't stop til you get enough
Don't you (de de de de de de de) forget about me
Don't blame it on the sunshine

Moonlight

Good times

Boogie

Anyway, I now realise that far from being a threat, this flu lark is an opportunity and there are great benefits to be had from catching it, especially for those early adopters. The initial UK cases secured a fair amount of news coverage and I am sure the patients have become local celebrities. 24 year old woman from Bristol area can't go wrong, can she? Few days of work, some spoons of jollop, Max Clifford on the case and I am sure she'll be opening supermarkets all over the South West in no time.

Already the returns on getting swine flu are diminishing and you now risk being lumped in as one of "four more confirmed cases in West of Scotland" rather than a victim in your own right, which hardly has the same cachet.

However, if managed properly there is still publicity to be had. Take all the schools shutting down. It all adds an extra air of exclusivity to the independent ones and raises the bar for the kitchen sink comps. I am sure once this all blows over parents will be queuing up to secure places for their kids, or moving house to change catchment area.

Which is why I have set BUBB staff the task of getting swine flu as quickly as possible so that we can milk the media cow for all its worth.

On a related point I notice we now have a swine flu tsar. There are loads of these tsars but I say, bring it on, we need even more. And more taskforces as well while we're at it. Tsars and taskforces (or czars and cazkforces). It's an approach to problem solving that sets the UK apart. What better images to illustrate the British way of sorting things out than rich, imperialist, Russian madmen and a convoy of battleships steaming in all guns blazing.

Obviously these all need monitoring which is why I propose a taskforce tsar (me), and a tsar taskforce (run by BUBB and chaired by me).

Finally, I have had the great fortune this week to have had a facebook encounter with a real God and guru of European umbrella academia, Dr Helmut Knobbgagg, a towering intellectual beacon of Euro cream on a rancid butter mountain of gampstration.

If only there was someone with the same brolly nous, kudos and clout in the UK. Sorry? What's that you say? There is? Who? Robbie? No? I can’t hear you. Oh Robin. Robin Bogg. Why, how very kind of you to say so. Just stick the peerage in the post, recorded delivery, fao a genius.