Unpleasantness

Big blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is either in Provincetown Massachusetts or (more likely) in Washington, reports that he has the flu, and that he feels wretched. In fact, he says the following.

Man, this is brutal. I can't remember a worse bout. Now I know what everyone was going on about earlier this winter. I had one of those day-nights when you don't seem to be sleeping but you also don't seem to be awake. In bed, I get drenched every two hours. Out of bed, I get the chills. Thanks for your many emails. Is this a new genre: flu-blogging?

I can only agree. I have also still got the flu to some extent, and I am feeling slightly less than wretched, but I was wretched as recently as yesterday. Worse, I have had it for something like three weeks, and I simply had not been able to shake it. (The various bodily abuses we subject ourselves to over the Christmas / New Year period probably haven't helped. I should have gone off the booze for the whole time, but I didn't really want to. This had horrible consequences on New Year's Day in particular. But like him, I have to agree that this is just about the nastiest bout I have ever had in my life. And half of the people who I know in London seem to have it too. (This is a big factor behind the negligible posting on Transport Blog, and the low posting on Samizdata). I don't know if it is actually the influenza virus that I have had, but I suspect the answer is yes. If so, it is those bloody Southern China / Hong Kong chickens and pigs again, of course. These viruses cross the world and cross the Atlantic incredibly quickly these days.

Of course, a really nasty influenza virus actually kills lots of people, so we should be grateful. We got a little bit of a demonstation of this last year, although SARS was really just a a hyper-powered version of the common cold. An airborne hyper-powered version of influenza is far nastier, and we are not prepared for it.

But, for about the first time in three weeks I feel sort of okay rather than disgusting. May this last.