With Silly Season in full swing, the big lighter-side story of the last few days (narrowly beating an item on penguin couture) has been the revelation that a man who starred in a Swine Flu prevention campaign has now himself got Swine Flu.

We should probably take this as indication that Swine Flu is now well and truly not scary anymore. Were it still a threat to the human race, this ironic twist would be a tragedy, rather than an excuse to come up with amusing pun headlines. Although once we've stopped chuckling over the guy's interpretation of the word "catch" to mean "contract", we might be slightly less inclined to trust Government warnings.

Take food scares. I can't recall any food item that hasn't had some scare levied against it, and I sincerely doubt that a recent recommendation to get tough on ham sandwiches will convince anyone to change their child's diet. This being akin to the boy who cried wolf...who then claimed that the vast majority of the townspeople's favourite foods would attract further wolves.

My current favourite piece of Government nagging has to be the new drug-driving campaign (they're against it, I checked). In a new multi-million pound ad, a group of youngsters in a car are nabbed by the police as a result of their massive frigging eyes. At first glance, this might seem to condone profiling based on genetic mutation, but as it turns out, pupil dilation is apparently a dead giveaway that you've been taking illicit substances.

There has been much criticism of this campaign, based on fears that it might be taking funds away from technological investment to improve roadside drug testing - which, being based on pupil dilation, currently suffer from false positives near bright lights. However, I foresee a more damaging side effect. A nation of children will sit, hypnotised by the TV and think "If I take drugs, I'll turn into Manga...WOW!"

Soon an entire generation will degenerate into a mass of addicts, hooked on a cocktail of amphetamines, hallucinogens and Pocky. British civilisation will fall to its knees, followed the revelation that the actor featured in the drug-driving campaign has several drug-driving convictions to his name. The Government will be forced to resign amidst a storm of mild irony and we will descent into anarchy! Or maybe we'll just stop watching Japanese cartoons. I still shudder when I hear Mungo Jerry's In the Summertime.