Vine flu

The latest issue of Private Eye pokes fun at a reporter who apparently tried to compile a story on swine flu by using Twitter -- "send me a tweet if you've had it, tell me what it's like", that kind of thing. No such problems for another journalist. Sarah Vine, "beauty editor" of the Times, solved the problem by going out and catching the disease herself.

Needless to say, it's been good for a lot of copy. At the start of last week, the Times gave two whole pages to Sarah bemoaning how ill she'd been, how the Tamiflu made her throw up, and how unbearable the whole experience would have been if she hadn't had a child minder. In fairness, she does seem to have been quite ill, though I can't help thinking that any man daring to go into print with such a self-pitying litany of woe would have faced a barrage of scorn about "man flu" and men's general inferiority when it comes to tolerating illness.

On Friday Sarah's back. She's getting better but now her husband, Michael Gove, is ailing, so Sarah decides to try the new emergency phone line -- which she finds seriously wanting. She compares the questioning she receives to a "survey" and slags off the operator for stumbling over terms like "Relenza" and cystic fibrosis. It's condescending almost to the point of being downright offensive. Sarah also recounts the story of a hypochondriac friend who calls the emergency line and, through strategic lying -- porkies about swine flu -- manages to get a dose of Tamiflu that she almost certainly doesn't need.

Sarah is mortified at having to deal with amateurs, thinks "at a minimum" that the emergency line should be staffed by nurses. Precisely where the NHS is supposed to find enough nurses to take this on isn't readily apparent. In any case, I'd have thought the NHS has better uses for its trained professionals than to have them talking on the phone to mendacious hypochondriac friends of Sarah Vine, or to Sarah herself, for that matter.