Mad Cow Disease

It turns out that a close friend has been advised their recent bout of ill-health was actually swine flu, contracted on a business trip overseas. I happened to mention this in passing to The Boss, but added that it's almost certainly very unlikely that I would have contracted this as the friend's doctor has advised the infectious stage would have passed within 48 hours of symptoms showing.

Thus:

The Boss : "They don't know enough about it yet to know that."

Here's me, not really wanting to engage further with this : "I don't know. That's just what their doctor said."

The Boss : "Sure at the start they said it was nothing but now everyone's dying of it."

Here's me, sucked in : "Er... is not that sort of completely back to front?"

The Boss : "No, sure there's this cruise liner in Scotland and they've quarantined everyone on it, a hundred thousand people or something, and they won't let them off."

Here's me : "A hundred thousand people?"

The Boss : "A hundred. Or a thousand."

Here's me : *sigh* "Anyway, was that not an outbreak of the norovirus, as opposed to 'swine flu'?"

The Boss : "Same thing."

Oh do shut up.