By FRANCES GRANT
The next person who sneezes around here won't be getting any sympathetic "bless you" from me.
"Thank you," I will say, "for releasing around 100,000 tiny droplets of mucus, at a speed of 40 mph - equivalent to a Force 8 gale, by the way - into my breathing space."
Uncharacteristic sarcasm, I know. Blame television, which has shown me, and all who watched TV3's new British documentary series Body Story this week, what someone else's "atishoo!" could expose you to.
Now I am armed not only with fascinating facts about the speed and contents of a sneeze but also with a clear picture of the grisly flu virus and the havoc it's hanging out to inflict on the nearest available victim.
Last year's hit series exploring the dark interior of our physical selves, The Human Body, crossed new frontiers in the images it gave us of our inner workings.
Still reeling from that unforgettable journey to the centre of presenter Professor Robert Winston's lughole, I approached this latest series on the subject with caution. There is such a thing as spending too much time in the orifice.
Here we go, I thought as the nasty invading virus encountered a forest of human nostril hairs. Bring on the body fluids. Squeamishness soon gave way to the drama of what is actually going on in there, however.
Like Prof Winston's series, Body Story lays on plenty of impressive facts about what's beneath our skin: miles of blood vessels and billions of cells.
It relies more on computer animation, however, than the Human Body which boasted some extraordinary footage from the most unlikely locations.
This series is structured as a drama, following characters and creating tension by juxtaposing their external lives with what's really going on inside.
The first of the show's opening two episodes, Under Pressure, the story of stressed-out 45-year-old John's heart attack, was the television horror show of the week.
Hamburger-chomping John, we learned, wasn't having lunch. He was carrying on a life-time habit of "polluting his blood with globules of free-floating fat." Cue vivid illustrations of the horrible stuff accumulating in his arteries.
Don't do it, don't play that game of footy with the lads, you wanted to yell, driven to desperation by the relentless soundtrack of the frantic beating of John's ailing heart.
In came the medics with their defibrillators. Kapow! The jolt, the narrator tells us, is 130,000 watts - "enough to power a football stadium." You don't get that kind of ironic detail on Shortland Street or ER.
The second episode, The Cold War, went in for more subtle chills. The invasion of young healthy Holly by a strain of flu virus was as suspenseful as Alien.
There she was going about her business with no inkling of the subterfuge being practised upon her cells by the insidious virus or the battle which was starting to rage in her throat.
And, like a good Hollywood horror, the ending left room for the sequel: we saw the last remaining clone of the virus lurking ready for the chance to infect the next victim.
Just writing about it is enough to bring on the shivers and a reflex bout of the sneezes. Who's been bugging me lately? I think eyeing up the many pests around the office who, bless them, deserve to be sprayed.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from Lifestyle
Hacks to make things easier for you in the kitchen
Tried and tested kitchen techniques to help you save time and energy.