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Is it a cold, superflu, or Covid?


Covid, flu and colds share many of the same symptoms, so telling them apart can be difficult. Here is our handy guide to what you’ve got:


  • You need a day off for Christmas shopping – it’s a cold

  • You need a week off for a break in the sun – it’s flu (unless you’ve already used that excuse, in which case it’s Covid)

  • You need to get out of drinks with the awful people up the street – it’s a cold (although if you tell them it’s herpes, then you might get out of next year's event as well)

  • You are Lando Norris – it’s all three, but you won the F1 championship anyway

  • You are the PM – it’s Covid, and it’s all the fault of the previous Tory government

  • You are Rachel Reeves – it’s none of these trivial illnesses. It’s probably the Black Death or psittacosis

  • You are Michael Jackson – it’s monkeypox

  • You are waiting in A&E – it’s all three, plus a bonus Hospital Acquired Infection

  • You are an England cricketer – it’s none of the above, unfortunately. Maybe do some more practice?



Image credit: deep dream generator

Reeves appoints Black Wednesday the hamster as new OBR chief


"The last chairman of the Office of Budget Responsibility had to go for being very irresponsible and not agreeing with me," said chancellor Rachel Reeves, stamping her foot and sounding like Queenie in Black Adder.


"He refused to tell people that my policies for growing the economy were working and making Britain rich, traitorously arguing that the figures weren't showing that.


"This is despite me launching sure-fire policies such as: taxing people more so they have less to spend in the shops or invest in their businesses, wishing upon a star and drawing pentangles on the floor, not to mention panicking the City by sacking the head of the OBR.


"To mark a new beginning," continued Reeves, flourishing a sceptre, "I have appointed my pet hamster, Black Wednesday, to be the new OBR chief. He's the only creature in the country guaranteed not to ask awkward questions when I spell out my wonderful economic quickfixes."


"Black Wednesday will be a perfect fit for this government," chuckled a Man in Red Braces in a City dealing room as his colleagues sold off UK government bonds by the tanker-load.


"It runs very fast on a treadmill getting nowhere, and it's been busy storing up provisions to face the really appalling times that we will all be living through under this useless government very soon indeed."



Lies about the budget were within government's set limits for duplicity, says Reeves


"Kemi is saying I lied to the public in the run-up to the Budget, softening them up for tax rises they didn't really need to pay," whimpered Rachel Reeves, wiping a customary tear from her eye.


"But my lie was well within the limits for day-to-day deception that this government has set itself," continued Honest Rach.


"For example, I said on my CV that I had worked for 10 years as an economist at the Halifax, when I actually worked in their complaints department.


"This year's lie wasn't half as false as that one so, in real terms, I'm getting more honest.


"My golden rule is not to mislead the public any more than is strictly necessary to ensure our political survival.


"I had to persuade you I had to raise taxes because I needed to get the money in to remove the child benefit cap. I didn't tell you the last bit.


"But I had to remove the cap to mollify all those left-wing backbenchers who wanted me and Keir out. f that had happened, you'd have had some quasi-communist like John McDonnell as chancellor, and Diane Abbott as PM.


"Is that what you want? Because that's what you'll be getting unless you're prepared to swallow one or two tiny little fibs from me."



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