I'm not trying for sympathy by acting all despondent because I am ill, I am merely stating that I have a massive cold. The only reason that I mention it is because I write a daily blog, and this is the only thing that has happened to me at the moment. The expression 'man flu' is something that I have always found to be sexist and unhelpful; the implication being that men are no good at being ill and that they exaggerate their symptoms to get out of putting the bins out. This apparent joking about the male inability to be just a little bit poorly takes the seriousness away so that nobody believes him when he really is ill. If I had the flu, and said out loud that I had the flu, then people would immediately respond with a disparaging comment about man flu.

It is high time that this derogatory slur was stricken from the public vernacular, and that in years to come we'll look back on 'man flu' as one of those things that we used to get away with saying, and future generations will be aghast when they read a book or watch a film from today and hear people saying 'man flu'. In the same way, (although perhaps not as serious) as all the sexist and racist expressions we hear in old sitcoms and recoil in shock at.

By the way, due to illness and the fact that I am a (medicinally) drugged up mess at the moment, there is no new edition of The Sound Of Nottingham UK this week. I usually record it on a Friday and send it over, but I didn't feel well enough and a repeat will be aired this weekend on Connecticut's Robin Hood Radio.

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