Big Sam, the pickled poor and Salut: all sick as parrots

This is what the Wikipedia entry for norovirus says:

The disease is usually self-limiting, and characterised by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain; and in some cases, loss of taste. General lethargy, weakness, muscle aches, headache, and low-grade fever may occur.

It sounds as if that’s what I’ve had since not too long after the Fulham boredraw. It’s been nicknamed the skiver’s complaint and no virus, but a measure of its impact on this self-proclaimed sufferer is that he has not only avoided a drop of alcohol for 72 hours but has never felt less like taking one.


Do I blame our uninspiring performance at Craven Cottage, worth a lot less than the £35 it cost? Probably not, since supporting Sunderland has accustomed me to much, much worse (eg same fixture last season).

Maybe it was the real ale in Pete Sixsmith’s company. But how could it have been when I was down to halves, albeit after a bit of a start on everyone else, long before we made our way to the ground?

Big Sam Allardyce’s latest fall from grace? No. For a start, it came too late to have the power to inflict some sort of sympathy-driven sickness. In any case, while he seemed to be doing a tolerably decent job at Blackburn, he must by now be pushing the Forbes world richlist on account of his payoffs alone. So his dismissal neither caused the illness, not made it worse.

But what about the spectacle of the exceedingly well-fed Eric Pickles justifying the most savage public spending cuts in living memory? Yes, we all knew cuts were coming whoever won or least lost the election, but is it good PR to get your most heartily nourished minister to lecture their principal targets, the poor and vulnerable, about not only their reasonableness but their acceptability to the Local Government Association (immediately denied by the LGA)?

We’re getting closer, doctor, but still not quite there.

My younger daughter, who joined the rest of the family in being ill, so ill that she had to pull out of an important game for Acton Ladies, blamed my chili con carne. I blamed her two-year-old princess, who came home from nursery and proceeded to vomit over anybody within range.

But wherever the fault lies – overindulgence at Parsons Green; underperformance by SAFC; dodgy Mexican food; dodgier Tory ministers; babies with contagious ailments – I’m still sick as a parrot, along with Big Sam and the poor. I’ve never been entirely sure how sick that is actually meant to be, but will not be resuming normal service here until I am not.

Appeals have gone out to the usual culprits whose fine words sometimes grace these pages.


Monsieur Salut

3 thoughts on “Big Sam, the pickled poor and Salut: all sick as parrots”

  1. A few years ago when my poor demented mother still lived we took her on a wrinkleys holiday, She couldn’t find her hotel room unaided but without fail found her way to the bar unassisted The second day there the up chucking began as the Norovirus hit and pensioners began dropping like flies.

    To avoid infecting the Town they quarantined the hotel and cancelled all the coach trips to visit the surrounding area. With all the aplomb and ignorance of the aged no one was to be seen in the hotel. far from confining themselves to their rooms or the bars they all hopped onto public transport visiting every visitor attraction they could find. How the entire country was not laid low with what is a very nasty vomiting problem I will never know.

    Happily Lady Sue, my gin soaked mother and I were unaffected, I put down my well being to the free whiskeys I was consuming, on average 20 a day.

    You have my sympathy MS

  2. Don’t you love, by the way, that whinging Wenger is blaming the Old Trafford pitch for last night’s defeat? He’s running out of excuses, though. One of these days, he’s going to be reduced to, “It was that guy sitting 10 rows behind the goal. He distracted Szczesny (or Fabianski or whoever) with his loud gum-chewing.”

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