Thursday 16 February 2017

I blame the Queen


I have finished the hugely important (not to fuck up) job for the hugely important client at his hugely important house, and I am cautiously optimistic that it is a success. It is so huge that I cannot get far enough away from it to be 100% confident until the scaffold comes down, so I am staring at square yards of it from a distance of five feet maximum, whereas this will be the first thing anyone looks at when they arrive at the house, 80 feet down in the drive.

In the run-up to it, I have had two identical chest-colds, and during the execution of it I have had a third. I am still having it. I put this down to worry and stress, as well as getting frozen on the first week (whilst using water sprays) and soaking wet for the second, increasing my susceptibility.

I have a friend who I see in the pub, and if anyone shows the slightest sign of having an ordinary  cold, he almost runs away from them, turning his head and shielding his face as if confronted by the Gorgon or Dracula. For him, someone must be personally responsible for giving him a head-cold. One person must take the blame, and he spends a lot of time thinking about who that person must be before confidently blaming them for infecting him.

Last night he was in the pub, and when he noticed that my cold had returned, he moved his stool ten feet away from me and ostentatiously turned his head away. I have the same cold as everyone has had in Bath, if not the whole of the South of England - including the bar maid on duty last night. She did a lot of dramatic coughing to let everyone know she wasn't feeling too good but needed the money by working, and this because she too is of a somewhat juvenile disposition - sometimes childish rather than her usual child-like self.

This morning I had a text from my friend saying that he had spent the previous evening at a party with the barmaid and they had both stayed up all night, weakening their constitutions by having lots of fun, if you know what I mean.

As a result of his exposure to her, me and the other few hundred people in his daily life, he now has the chest-cold and blames us for the loss of income through taking time off work, plus he will not feel well enough to go to the pub for a beer for the next few days. He named, blamed and shamed the barmaid for this turn of events, with me coming a close second thanks to the fact that I do not kiss him.

I replied that if he wanted to be 80% sure of not catching a cold during the Winter, he should barricade himself in his flat from November to April, allowing no visitors in or out.

I pointed out that this infection is an epidemic of such great proportions in England, that even the Queen has had the very same chest cold.

I said that to blame me or the barmaid for his particular chest infection was about as pointless as blaming the Queen because he happened to pass through Windsor a couple of days before and picked it up from her.

We always want someone to blame for an epidemic, which is why 'Hong Kong Flu' was named as such. I am surprised that this infection has not been blamed on immigrants.

26 comments:

  1. Usually I blame children...they're walking/talking viruses.

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    1. While they are busy building up their immune systems, they are busy destroying ours.

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    2. LIttle typhoid Marys, that's what kids are.

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    3. Your S was a sweetie though. I like to think I set her out on her NASA career when showing her the stars and trying to explain light-years to her one night of baby-sitting in Pulteney Street.

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  2. Is that what you call a man cold? (first time i resd about it it was here in blogland).

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    1. No, a man-cold is the sort that women find no problem aside from a little inconvenience, but puts men into bed for a week. I noticed a medicine on the shelves of our supermarket yesterday called 'Man-Flu Remedy'. It seems to be a recognised phenomena now.

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  3. Now let me see who I can blame...
    Descriptively well-written. Take care.
    Greetings Maria x

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  4. I think I caught my cold in Bath a couple of weeks ago. I blame you.

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  5. Intensive care units , including my own, are filling with flu cases.....despirately ill people clinging onto life...

    Perhaps your dissapearing pub mate did right by scampering away!

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  6. Since I started making the Dracula sign (by crossing my forefingers) and retreating from people with colds I have been cold free since November. Too early to claim success, I'm afraid. Hang in there your majesty, your country needs you more than ever. Another 20 years should do it.

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  7. On the bright side, you are making antibodies for a year or two to come.

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  8. I'll come and visit you in The Tower after the Queen had read this ( as she does). I think that your knighthood has gone the way of David Beckham's !!!! XXXX

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    1. I have only been overlooked because of grasping bastards like Beckham. The truth will out and my lifetime acheivement award will come, albeit posthumously.

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  9. Like something else I always blame the dog

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  10. Your work will do you proud, like it always has done. Your client will be absolutely delighted, I know that.

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  11. Your care for your work is evident and will long outlive you. How's the cold today?

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    Replies
    1. Oh it's following the usual course thanks Libby.

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