So I come back from the US and I hit my normal problem at this time of the year with the first flowering of rapeseed. The fields around us are becoming a patchwork of yellow and blue, the former from rape the latter from linseed. I have a long standing allergy to rapeseed flowers and I am sneezing in consequence. However it seems the local population (i) assumes that Mexico and Washington are adjacent and (ii) that the odd sneeze is a sign of immanent pandemic. This illustration (hat tip to the NHS Blog Doctor for it) is excellent. This cartoon is also brilliant and my thanks to a tweet from Richard Sambrook for it. Reading the Daily Telegraph would have me thrown out of the family for political deviance so I am reliant on others to reference interesting material from that source.