Man Flu

Man Flu, what is this? It keeps popping up all over the place. It was mentioned in the Times today in some wishy washy article that I read while dribbling snot into yet another limp hanky. ( i have a filthy cold)
The article in question is a weird one, mildly condescending and twee in equal measure. Are men really so wimpy and selfish? Are women really pramagatic warriors who battle on no matter what the ache and pain?
Not this woman.
It is one of life's great irks to hear people say 'I've got a touch of flu' or 'I had flu last week and couldn't come to work for a day or two.' Or whatever. Having a touch of flu is like having a touch of pregnancy. You can't, you either have flu or you have not.
If you HAVE flu then you'll know all about it. I have had flu exactly once in my life and believe you me, there is no mistaking its 'symptoms' for they will include not being physically able to lift your wracked/shivering/vomiting/shitting/too hot/too cold/semi-blind/semi-deaf/hallucinating and more vomiting body out of bed for the best part of 7-10 days. It is NOTHING like a cold- and you can get some really nasty colds, I know. But flu? Flu is serious business, flu can kill you, and no amount of Lemsip Max Strength ( it sorts the men from the boys?? really?) is going to save you.
If flu is kind enough to not kill you it will most definitely incapacitate you for a while. My abiding memory of flu is being eight or nine year old and managing to crawl from the toilet to the kitchen where I lay in a chair, alternatively rattling hard enough to hurt my teeth, sweating through my second set of jammies. I was unfortunately found by Gamma's husband who declared he could 'fix me' with some concoction of stew.
I told him, through gritted teeth, that I could not keep any such mixture down, but he poo-pooed that notion and went about creating his 'cure all'
Upon being presented with a cup of some filmy orange gloop I again made my feeble protests, but he was not to be told.
'Get it down you.' he said, 'it will do you good.'
So I drank it.
It slithered down my fevered throat, sloshed into my empty churning hissing stomach where heated by gases and bacteria it became molten lava and then it did what I predicted it would. It came back up on me, him, the chair, the fire place, the blanket, the kitchen table and quite frankly anything within a six metre radius.
It took almost four days for that fever to break and another four before I was approaching anything remotely like well. Poor Gamma had it worse, she was truly walloped with it, almost two weeks worth, after which she had lost almost one third of her body weight.
So what I'm saying is should anyone tell you they've had a touch of flu or flu over the weekend you are to wap them one upside the head. I still don't know what man flu is, but I'm guessing it's not dissimilar to road rage or PMS, you know, a learned behaviour accepted by the masses, tolerated and mocked in sneering contempt. But real flu it most definitely ain't.