Killer swine! Yes, those notoriously filthy beasts have been at it again, only unfortunately this time they've been mixing it up and cavorting with pigs would you believe? Hence, mutated viruses, yada yada, resulting in a human-contagious swine flu sweeping the world. To an extent at least. As yet, the World Health Organisation isn't declaring it a proper pandemic, but it has caused 6497 cases of illness including 65 confirmed deaths, spread between 33 countries as of yesterday apparently.

The UK Government even made a little booklet about it to send to every citizen, so it must be pretty much as serious as terrorism no less. And yes, the book is not all that far off being as pointless and patronising as the terrorism handbook was – suggesting such wacky concepts as not sneezing a nose full of infected bogies into your dearly beloved's face. Still, the previous Governmental advice to walk away from, not towards, a roaring fire in a building has kept the Poorhouse alive so far, so can't complain.

Some people can complain though. Yakov Litzman, the Israeli Health Minister for one. He is insisting that "swine flu" is an offence to the nation's sensibilities. Not the flu itself, you understand, which we can live with (well, excluding the 65 who already couldn't). Rather, the problem is in the name "swine flu". His reasoning is that pigs are considered unclean animals by the Jewish religion (and Islam as well, as it happens). And what with flu being famous for being spread by...errr...cleanliness (?) it would be morally wrong to put the two words in close proximity to each other, despite the fact that it is a fair description of where the superbug originated.

So, his idea for a less offensive name for the worrying illness? "Mexican Flu". Not even Mexico Flu, but Mexican Flu. Clearly Judaism doesn't think Mexican people are anything special so it's far less offensive to suggest that it's all down to them. Good times.

Another factoid came the Poorhouse,s way, thanks to these sneezy piggy times. Afghanistan – so far untouched by the flu – has a pig population of 1. And it's in quarantine. Not to protect it, you understand, but in case visitors to the pig zoo (which to be fair does contain many other animals too) catch swine flu from it.

Eager-eyed observers might note that the chance of this entirely isolated sole pig of the country (with not even a flight to Mexico going nearby) giving flu to the hoards of interested visitors is rather minimal. As does the director of Kabul Zoo apparently, who explains the actions via slating the visitors' ignorance, saying "most people don't have enough knowledge. When they see the pig in the cage they get worried and think that they could get ill".

In a way, it's probably better to be safe than sorry, for the pig's sake anyway. This isn't exactly Whipsnade.

Mujahideen fighters then ate the deer and rabbits and shot dead the zoo's sole elephant. Shells shattered the aquarium.
One fighter climbed into the lion enclosure but was immediately killed by Marjan, the zoo's most famous inhabitant. The man's brother returned the next day and lobbed a hand grenade at the lion leaving him toothless and blind.

That was a while ago now though, it's probably much more of a nice day out now.

Finally, to raise/lower your paranoia level, here,s the distribution of swine flu cases in humans per country so far below, thanks to Yahoo. You can tell it's not the Eurovision Song Contest Results, because a) the competition isn't happening until tomorrow, and b) Britain has a nice high score

Argentina: 1
Australia: 1
Austria: 1
Brazil: 8
Britain: 71
Canada: 389
China: 4
Colombia: 7
Costa Rica: 8
Cuba: 1
Denmark: 1
El Salvador: 4
Finland: 2
France: 14
Germany: 12
Guatemala: 3
Ireland: 1
Israel: 7
Italy: 9
Japan: 4
Mexico: 2446
Netherlands: 3
New Zealand: 7
Norway: 2
Panama: 29
Poland: 1
Portugal: 1
South Korea: 3
Spain: 100
Sweden: 2
Switzerland: 1
Thailand: 2
United States: 3352