Sick Transit Aurora

‘WHEN Leo Blair makes his debut on Pop Idol, he’ll push his fingers into his rosy cheeks and tell us all about life aboard the good ship lollypop.

‘Leprosy, bits have started falling off of me…’

That syrupy rendition of an old staple will be hard to take – but not nearly as stomach churning as life on the virus-infected Aurora.

The Mirror says that after 17 days at sea, the healthy passengers – 500 of whom have been inflicted with a crippling stomach bug – have been allowed to step ashore in…Gibraltar.

We don’t wish to do down the British outpost, but such is the nature of the place that any of the ill who felt like they were at death’s door might just have thought they’d crossed the threshold when they disembarked on the Rock.

And, just as when faced with the Grim Reaper’s scythe, there is no escape offered. There is no way off the island because the Spaniards have closed the border to their country.

The Spanish stopped all travel between the Rock and the mainland, claiming that the Brits might infect their own people with this nefarious bug.

‘It’s outrageous,’ says Paul Brammer, a passenger aboard the floating hospital. ‘They’re treating us like lepers.’ He then held aloft a shirt on which he’d written the word ‘HELP’.

And help is on its way. You might not be able to reach home for another year or so, but at last you’ll get a new cabaret tonight.

Yes, ladies and germs, we give you Leo Blair. ‘On the good ship dysentery…”

Posted: 4th, November 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink