YIKES! Monkeypox! WTF is all that about? Horrible blisters all over your face. A disease from Africa which has decided to come over here for a bit.
Transmissible from animal to human and vice versa. Don’t s**g any monkeys, then. And if you must, then wear protection.
There are currently 78 cases of this illness in the UK. It had been largely confined to people in Africa.
It is now spreading across Europe, mostly among the gay population — though it looks like the NHS and World Health Organisation are playing down the gay side of it.
It has also been reported that we should avoid eating meat, or only eat meat that has been “thoroughly cooked”.
What? You can catch it from a medium-rare ribeye steak? How?
No, you can’t. I have the feeling that we’re being wound up by folks who seem to be yearning for another pandemic. And another lockdown.
Already, our beleaguered Prime Minister has refused to rule out a lockdown. And health protection teams say that anyone who has been risk-assessed for monkey-pox and remains well should isolate at home for THREE WEEKS.
So what’s going on?
First things first. No, you can’t catch it from a medium-rare ribeye steak. Or even a very rare ribeye steak. Or a Chicken Zinger or a pork kebab. What wasn’t in the headlines was the KIND of meat you shouldn’t eat.
Turns out the riskiest stuff is monkey, squirrel and rat. Bush meat.
So try to avoid chowing down on rat biriyani, sauteed squirrel in the basket or chateaubriand de singe (that’s chateau-briand of monkey, you plebs). And if you can’t, then ask the restaurant to make sure it’s well cooked.
Transmissible from animal to human and vice versa. Don’t shag any monkeys, then. And if you must, then wear protection.
Is it like Covid, then, and really easy to catch? Nope, it isn’t. Getting jiggy with an infected person may do it, sure. Any exchange of bodily fluids is a risk. But otherwise you are in very little danger. It is MUCH harder to catch than Covid.
Does it kill you? Nah. Almost certainly not. There’s a death rate of between one and three per cent, which is quite high, sure. But that’s largely because of the poor health systems in the countries of West Africa, where it is prevalent.
Otherwise, it will be a bit uncomfortable for a couple of weeks, maybe three. And you’ll have those blisters, a bit like chicken pox. Then it will go.
But what if the virus mutates, like Covid did? And gets more contagious and more lethal?
Nope, it almost certainly won’t. Almost all the evidence says monkeypox is a very stable virus, not given to mutating. It tends to behave itself.
UNLIKELY TO BE FATAL
So all in all, it’s not really very much to write home about, is it? Hard to catch, still very rare and unlikely to be fatal.
And yet we’re being whipped up into a bit of frenzy about it.
Don’t worry. People have the heebee-jeebees as a consequence of Covid. And now every virus that arrives here is a cause for great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And there will always be those clamouring for another lockdown. Probably because they liked the previous ones so much.
So, for the rest of us — carry on, as you were. Nothing much to see here. Unless, tonight, you were planning to elope with an attractive gibbon who has been feeling under the weather recently.
THANKS a lot, then, to the greedy members of transport union the RMT for threatening to bring chaos to the country on June 6.
No trains running anywhere. They’re very proud of this, the union.
The country faces rampant inflation and these selfish clowns are determined to make it worse.
The average basic pay for a train driver in the UK is £54,000. That’s a lot more than an average teacher’s salary.
The Government must not give in to them.
BETWEEN FROCK AND A HARD PLACE OVER STATUE
DIFFICULT one for the deranged wokies, this.
They’ve just unveiled a statue in Halifax to the 19th-century “Gentleman Jack” — Anne Lister, known as “the first modern lesbian”.
Not sure why someone’s sexual preferences warrant a statue. I quite fancy women dressed as pirates but nobody ever suggested knocking up a statue to me.
Anyway, the actress Suranne Jones — who plays Lister in the BBC drama — attended the opening. But now it has become clear Lister benefited from the slave trade.
Oooh, what to do? I suggest that as soon as the statue is unveiled, they cheer for a bit then throw it in the River Calder.
I SEE football violence is back with a vengeance.
Port Vale fans physically attacking Swindon Town players. An Everton fan taunting Crystal Palace manager Patrick Vieira (and getting a good kicking in return). Northampton fans going doolally on the pitch. A Nottingham Forest fan assaulting a Sheffield United player.
My first thought was that if any of this had involved fans from my team, Millwall, there would be statements in Parliament and the ground would be closed.
And second, are the authorities really going to proceed with their plans to reintroduce standing at games?
KILLER DOGS A CURSE
HERE’S another terminally deluded dog owner — Chanel Fong, of Wrexham.
This is what she said about her American Bully-type hound: “So many people said what a passive dog Cookie was, but Cookie hasn’t attacked Kev, it wasn’t a vicious attack — it was a tragic accident.”
What actually happened is that passive, gentle Cookie tried to eat her partner’s dad. And in doing so, killed him.
And here’s the thing. Every time I suggest that people who have powerful dogs need their heads examining, a whole bunch of similarly deluded owners will pile in saying what wonderful pets they are.
And more and more people will be killed.
Meanwhile, a man quoted on Reddit thinks he’s pulled an hilarious prank by calling his dog Askim.
So when people enquire as to what his name is, the owner says, “Yep, side splitting, innit?”
It’s apparently annoyed people in the park where he walks the pooch.
Wherever it is, they seem a miserable bunch.
My own dog is called Jessie.
But she also is referred to as Lionel Jessie or Didier Dogba (just like Jeremy Clarkson’s hound).
Also as Slobberdog Milosevic, after the former Serbian leader, and Otto Scamperer, after a musical conductor.
Occasionally, my wife will refer to her as Princess Pickle Paws and I sometimes call her Doggrich Dogg of Doggville.
Truth is, dogs don’t give a monkey’s what names they’re called, do they?
BORIS SAVED BY WAR
GORDON Bennett. They even had a karaoke party while the rest of us were in lockdown!
According to the famous Sue Gray’s report, there were SIXTEEN separate parties. Or get-togethers. Or p***-ups, call them what you will. One bash went on until four in the morning.
At another, someone puked up and two people had a fight. Civil servants, I assume. “Say that again and I’ll shove a bottle of hand sanitiser up your a***, Oliver.” “Yeah, you and whose army, Tarquin, you ponce? I’ll open you up like a can of peaches. ’Ave it, you muppet.”
It is infuriating to know that, from Boris Johnson down, they believed the rules they enforced on US were not intended to apply to them. “Do as I say, not as I do. Lock-down is for plebs.”
If we ever have another lockdown, will anyone take it seriously? Knowing that THEY won’t? And the Prime Minister is lying through his teeth about it all.
There’s no doubt in my mind that if all this had come out BEFORE Putin invaded the Ukraine, Johnson would be dead meat by now.
He may still be dead meat with the electorate. But the war has focused the minds of the Tories and I suspect that, rightly or wrongly, Johnson will not be shifted now.
WOKE’S A JOKE
A BRILLIANT evening of entertainment from Ricky Gervais’s new show, Super Nature.
The highlight was an unrepeatable section where Ricky, having transitioned to being a woman, pulls a lesbian. Of course, the wokies are going bananas.
One said that Ricky, through his jokes, was “literally killing people”.
Deranged, no?
Two points. As Gervais says, jokes are fiction. They are not the same thing as reality. They are just jokes.
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And second, any concept, idea or belief that cannot stand a bit of ribbing is almost certainly based upon a misconception.
Gervais, meanwhile, goes from strength to strength.