How to ensure everyone knows you're ill

YOU’VE come down with a serious, debilitating illness, although your coldhearted partner says it’s just a sniffle. Here’s how to make sure everyone knows how much you’re suffering.

Moan and groan

Display the agony of your mild illness by groaning your way through making a cup of tea, and gasp pathetically at your struggle to lift it. It’s almost guaranteed that other people will offer to take over. Not from sympathy, they just want you to shut the f**k up.

Avoid human contact

To imply your sniffle is highly contagious, avoid all contact with other humans as if you’ve got a deadly virus from Resident Evil. Refuse to accept any object unless it’s put on a safe surface and the carrier backs away. Ignore the obvious question – if you’re so ill why are you in work? Because you’re a trouper. A martyr. A bloody nuisance.

Inconvenience everyone

If a window is open, ask to close it. If it’s closed, ask to open it. Asking what day it is every five minutes will make it clear how dangerously feverish you are. If these tactics aren’t garnering the care you deserve, faint on the printer. If at home, faint by the router and somehow pull the plug out. Both will get you noticed.

Relate everything to your illness

Feebly joke that your high temperature is making global warming worse. Nobly quip that you wish these paracetamol were going to someone with Covid. Bringing everything back to being ill will be tiring though, so get people to bring you a constant supply of chocolate bars and snacks for ‘energy’.

Cancel everything

That night out on Friday, the dental appointment, your child’s school play – cancel them all. Even your sister’s wedding. You’re just too considerate to spread your germs and ruin an event that just happens to be a lot of expense and hassle for you with no personal gain.

Ramp it up

If you’ve tried everything and are still not getting the attention you desperately want, send ‘Get well soon’ cards to yourself. Scatter funeral plans around and send everyone a link to your podcast ‘The Gift of Life: My Journey to Wellness’. The only risk is you’ll develop a weird somatic symptom disorder and start to feel as genuinely shit as you’re pretending.

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Five reasons why Sunday's final won't be 1966 with women

THE Lionesses are doing brilliantly, but the upcoming Euro 2022 final is hardly a repeat of 1966 with women. Here’s why.

It’s not a World Cup

Yes, Sunday’s match is a final. Yes, England is playing at Wembley Stadium. That’s where the superficial similarities end though. Everything else from the players to the competition to the trophy will be completely different. They’ll still be playing football though, so you can give the Lionesses that.

VAR will verify dodgy crossbar goals

England only won the World Cup back in 1966 because the cameras were so poor they couldn’t verify a dodgy crossbar goal. Did the ball bounce over the line or not? We’ll never know. There’ll be no such luck for the Lionesses though as VAR will bring the game to a grinding halt to double-check dubious goals.

We’re not playing West Germany

We’re playing against a team filled with members from the whole of bloody Germany. Just think how much talent they’ll have to draw from. Of course if we win that’ll make our victory all the sweeter. If we lose though then the Lionesses’ 15 minutes of fame will be over and dickheads will use it as proof that women are rubbish at football.

It’ll be in colour

Not only will the game not be broadcast in boring, flickering black and white, it’ll be in crisp HD. That’s unless you’re watching from the back of a crowded pub, in which case you’ll barely be able to see or hear anything over drunken crowds waving a big flag about. You’d be better off listening to it on the radio.

It’s 2022

Probably the most obvious of all the glaring differences. Sunday’s match will be set 56 years after England triumphed against a different team and won a different tournament. This country’s come a long way since 1966, although in terms of clinging onto the past in order to feel better about itself, England hasn’t changed a bit.

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