Come flu with me, lets flu, lets flu away ....

Flu is a swine of a thing at the best of times. Is swine flu the past tense of swine flies? Every night a news reporter deposits themselves outside Rangitoto College to stake our claim to fame as one of the first nations on the planet to have imported this “deadly” virus.

Trouble with this sensationalist reporting is that it may create the boy-who-cried-wolf mentality. I would call for more measured reporting, or else we may end up saying “there you see ... it amounted to a hill of beans just like the bird-flu panic”.

Sensationalist reporting: Flu victim becomes international celebrity. It all started with this particular pig. If 300 die, it will affect the economy to the tune of 235 million dollars. On a scale of 1-6 (the pandemic scale) it is a 7. One sneeze is all it takes to infect 1000 people around you. Pigs and birds get together to create a pig of a bird flu… a swine of a bird flu …

Meanwhile ... its back to stockpiling Tamiflu and masks …

Oh wheel of fortune, don’t pass me by …

Kate Star sang it back in the early 1950s

Jason Gunn – old motor mouth – is back. Not only do we have to suffer him on “dancing with the stars”, but now he returns to “wheel of fortune” some time soon.

He is a symbol of old Nu Zulun and the lack of alternative stars available. No other star makes me reach for the remote as fast as he.

However, in all fairness, thanks to Jason, I have recovered my love of reading and early nights. I get out the telescope also and gaze longingly at real stars.

But why is Mr Gunn – so ubiquitous over the years – celebrated?

It is a question that comes just under “what is the meaning of life?”

He is just so passed his used-by-date.

Or folks ..... can he just possibly .... reinvent himself?

Oh here we go again! Give me the remote somebody!!