Man flu with strange side effects. (Version 1).

It all started quite well this week, and by this week I mean starting on Sunday, which is officially the first day of the week. I felt rested and quite cheerful and was looking forward to the coming week. I had been feeling quite tired in the period leading up to this particular day so the sudden burst of energy felt pretty good.

Then on Monday I woke up with what felt like a cactus buried halfway down my throat. It was not a cactus of course, but it was the worst sore throat I have ever had. "Oh no". I thought. "I hate sore throats". I got up and headed to the kitchen for the dreaded garlic cure. The garlic cure has worked well for me over the last few years. I'm talking about the garlic and Vitamin C cure that can work quite well for the common cold, but not sure if it works for flu, not now at least. I chop it up into small pieces and munch away on about a quarter of a clove, yuk, but I know this will cure my throat, it usually does. That plus ginger root chopped and boiled and drunk with honey and lemon, which I just happened to have in the fruit bowl.

"Ah well I'll take the day off". I think. "I can get someone to cover for me thats not a problem, I'll probably shift this later today, I just need to rest." Back to bed I go thinking that a break and a few days off wont hurt me. I fall asleep and have the weirdest dream. I'm in a cellar type of bar and I'm with some people that I know quite well in real life. They are telling me they think I'm probably jewish. "I'm not jewish". I tell them. I'm adamant about this fact, but they insist. At a certain point one of them says. "But just look at yourself in the mirror." As I look in the mirror Ron Moody's Fagin looks back at me, and I know in that moment they are right. "Oh my God!" I think. "I am a Jew after all."

Like I said, I know these people in real life and some of them are Jewish, so when I wake feeling pretty miserable and quite spaced out, I console myself that it is the unconscious making up something to amuse itself and entertain my nocturnal wanderings. My throat is now much worse and I can hardly swallow. Suddenly I think. "Swine flu!" I get up and stagger to the computer, to the great Google Goddess and I type in, 'swine flu symptoms'. VERY SORE THROAT is the fist thing I see. I look at it a bit more and see that it is rather vague this whole issue of the dreaded swine flu. It seems it's very similar to normal flu and can virtually be treated in the same way. The only time to worry is if you're very young, very old, or have underlying health problems. I fell into none of these categories, so I went back to bed feeling a bit disappointed really.

I continued to take heavy lashings of garlic and Vitamin C all to no avail. I continued to get worse with a temperature and aching limbs and misery multiplied by at least a million. "Man flu." My wife says laughing. "Ahhh there, there you'll be alright, shall I call an ambulance?" "Stop it I'm sick, really sick" I whimper. Because you know what, I really was sick.

I went deeper into this state over the next three days, and In the deepest depths I remembered as a child always becoming very ill with flu's and colds, much more than anyone else I knew. I would get very high fevers and get quite delirious and mental, walking in my sleep, and stuff like that. So the swine flu mickey taking went away after the realisation dawned on my wife that I was really very ill. "Ahhhhh". I can hear you go. Thank you very much people.

It is now Saturday and although I still have some slight cough and a bit of a throat I'm feeling very well again. I have no idea what the 'being jewish dream was all about. I will have to consult my jewish friend who is a hypnotist to find out if I have some hidden past. But that could take me into a whole other drama and Im not up for that right now.