Trying not to have the man-flu

I've been off-colour since Sunday, hence the lack of any posts on here. Bit of a head cold with, stiff limbs, coughs, sneezes, headaches and a throat that feels like I've been gargling with razorblades. After several days of intraveneous Lemsip, compulsory "character-building" brisk walks, more oranges than a smallholding in Andalucia and plenty of bed rest I'm now feeling much brighter. I know it's almost compulsory for blokes to describe a bit of a cold as "the flu" but I have been resisting all week. Having had a couple of incidents of proper full-blown, "ohmigod there's dancing elephants in tutus in my bedroom" hallucination inspiring flu I know the difference. This cold, whilst not being the 7 stone weakling of the cold/flu world, wouldn't last 5 minutes in the ring with a proper pumped influenza with a grudge. Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything of the bird flu lately ?? I got quite paranoid for a few weeks last winter when every news report had us on the verge of social meltdown brought on the wing from Siberia.
So the cold has gone and I've just been left with one of those irritating coughs that hang around for a week or so after the main business is over. So I've not really been doing much other than partaking of some splendidly trashy TV. The return of the misnamed "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here", has been an unadulterated treat. Lauren Booth has just confirmed all my feelings about the Booth family. They really are quite mad aren't they ? Myleene is just beyond loveliness, everything about her is so close to perfect as to be slightly unreal *sigh*. Jason Donovan seems like quite a nice bloke really, and now I feel guilty for hating him as a teenager.
Other than that, did anyone see that "Dating The Enemy" thing that has been on after I'm A Sleb ? The idea behind it is they make a not easily pleased young woman go on a date with the kind of bloke she can't stand. Tuesday night a posh trainee barrister woman went for a weekend with a nice lad from Essex for a weekend of fish & chips, largeing it with the Basildon massive and being surprised. That went quite well, but the bloke to his credit tired of her constant snobbish references to his friends and family and told her to sling her hook. Then last night I was spitting at the TV as a sadly archetypal Essex girl spent a weekend in Leeds with a nightclub DJ. This woman didn't like northern accents at all, and was full of tons of old prejudices that you thought only really existed in crap old stand up routines. The lad was a good looking, friendly fella and they had quite a groovy weekend. Leeds these days is quite a happening place if you've not been for a while. I can recommend it, and without being mean probably has a bit more going for it than where she's from. Whilst he went out of his way to be nice to her, his mates, the girls in particular took right against her. They let her know in no uncertain terms that she hadn't made a good impression. The most noticeable thing about the whole exercise was that whilst the DJ and his mates didn't really fit any cliches about Yorkshire, she absolutely screamed "Essex" in flashing neon. Her frocks, her make-up, her attitudes. It was as if she'd been made in a factory to order. One of the funniest scenes was when she was insisting that "Pub" was pronounced "paab" and found it ridiculous that people in the north pronounced it "Pub". Nothing wrong with differences in pronunciation, in fact it's quite a good thing but don't go telling people that your way is the only way. I was shouting at the guy not to give a toss about the silly woman and tell her where to go but he was just too nice to do it.
After all that I felt quite exhausted, made myself another Lemsip and went to bed. It's all been happening.