Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Herself was ill, worse than she'd been since pneumonia many years earlier, throughout December. We'd just got back from Japan and South Korea.

The Gang of Four guitarist, Andy Gill, reportedly succumbed in the December in China to the virus. Late the following January, we were penned in to exit control at Bangkok airport, masked up as recommended by an old mate who lives there and has seen these viruses "spread like a Khmer hooker", as he put it.

His Khmer wife was less than impressed but passed us a fist full of masks for the journey back to Europe, nonetheless.

Even if it did only get to Britain in March, it was known at the beginning of the year that this was a virus unlike anything witnessed in a century. We had two months and a 21 mile moat advantage and one man - because whatever he says, it was ultimately down to him - wasted it , not because he was incompetent (although he undoubtedly was, and is), but because of sheer idleness.