Calling in sick

Maybe the stress events of the past few days are taking their toll but not for the first time the world started spinning and I felt pretty much like someone had removed my legs then sent me to walk across a floor made entirely of blancmange.

Dig says it is probably a virus and I need to take it easy and stop fretting.

He is, of course, sadly mistaken. I have found out the truth from a reliable source called Dr Internet. He is medically qualified in pictures of flesh-eating bugs and horror stories of brain tumours. He thinks I have hours and maybe seconds to live.

Don't tell me Dr Internet's diagnosis is incompatible with the neurological brain disease that I also surely have. The one which will see me degenerate and drop to bits over a time span of agony, say fifteen years. Because I found a website which says I have that too. And the bug flesh thing. With lice.

So I am trying to rest and stay calm and not die because the cost to us all would be truly horrendous. And of course I feel guilty because just at this moment in our delicate negotiations, Tiger, Shark and Squirrel deserve better than this. They should have someone here who is indestructible and sure and never fails to buy enough fruit juice and onions; someone who doesn't hold onto the wall and then make a joke about the cooking sherry here in Asia being the best stuff you could ever pour over your cornflakes.

But I discover there is also a positive to feeling a little bit wobbly and lightheaded. Hallucinations are not part of the deal. So maybe I was right about being followed by a fake monk.