Aporkalypse Now (or I love the smell of bacon in the morning)

The Meedja is constructing an Aporkalyptic scenario, predicting Global Hamageddon as Swine Flu metamorphoses into a virus more deadly than the planet has ever seen before, all of course in the interest of public information (and not to sell more meedja, nonono )

But we have noticed that the Swine Flu meme is virulently evolving into different strains far more rapidly on Twitter (and now on Facebook apparently), here are a small sample of those just in the last 24 hours:

Strine flue - Caught it in Australia

Spline flu is spreading quickly through university mathematics departments worldwide"
[I wonder how many variants there are, counting them could tie you up in knots ]

Shwine flu - Sean Connery with swine flu

Slime flu - use your imagination...........

Shrine flu - an affliction picked up in places of great spiritual significance

Sine flu - your temperature goes up and down and up and down

Stein flu - caught from drinking out of damp beer glasses

Sublime flu - possibly the best flu in the world. [Stein flu from Carlsberg....]

Supine Flu - not to be taken lying down

More scary, we are seeing consonantal shift in the meme's structure:

Prime Flu - only infects numbers of people in amounts divisible by 1 or the infected number itself.

Zwei flu - the second bout of flu you caught this year

Twine Flu: you've had a string of illnesses - but beware of......

Tine Flu - if you get it you are forked.

Brine flu - suffered by cross-channel swimmers

Pine flu - Flu caught in Nordic forests.

Rhyme Flu: symptoms include niggling irritation at ongoing and repeated Twitter memes.

Tyne flu. Prevalent around Newcastle.

Time Flu - likes arrows

Wine flu - caught in France

More scary still are those that have evolved to different vowels:

Sinew flu - caught by anagramists (and crossword fans?)

Quorn Flu - an acceptable vegetarian alternative

And then there are non flu variants too:

Swine flume - a water adventure park for piglets.

Swine flue = pig stuck up chimney.

Swine Flew - the bastard who got you up the duff flees the country

Swine floozy: putting lipstick on a pig. [Sarah be thy name...]

Update - News has just reached us that variants of Swine Flu have broken out in Germany - these are:

- Schwein flu

- Rhine flu (don't drink the water)

- Mein flu (what I got)

- Dein flu (what you've got)

- Klein flu (more of a schniffle, really)

For transmitting this viral outbreak you can blame @Jemimakiss, @Suw, @CTD, @CharlesArthur, @justin_williams, @GarethDEdwards, @adebradley, @joecassels, @Riff_Raff, @LucasBlack, @Ruskin147, @linker3000, @shanerichmond, @willmcinness, @christhall, @GPhire, @linker3000, @megpickard and of course modest input from Moi

If you get it, here is what to do

If you get it, are cured, and then get it again - well, thats Parmageddon.....