Jim Hopkins: Cell horreur, WHO, you've given us the wrong number

Photo / File

The World Health Organisation says cellphones are "possible cancer-causing agents".

The classification has been made in Lyon, France, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer - News Item.

Sacre merde! Cell horreur! WHO do vous think vous r, WHO? Une bunche of heartless plonquers?

Have your nokias shrivelled? Or do you regard the milk of human kindness as a "possible cancer-causing agent" too?

There's no need for this, vous twits. It didn't have to happen.

Vous didn't have to pooshe le panique boutton. Vous could have softened le bleu. That would have been much kinder.

Heck, we've got enough dans notre plates as it is, what with slow World Cup ticket sales, corruption at Fifa, the looming menace of tainted Spanish cucumbers, ACC going down le gurglere and mean old 'Scrooge' Stephen Joyce refusing to foot a footling $3.2 bill bill for a tunnel Len can stick his trains in. (Best place for them, if vous asque moi, provided they never come out.)

But that's beside the point, Messieur smarty-pants International Agency for Research on Cancer. What's at issue here is the general state of our mental state. Which isn't good, mon alarmist braves. We're up to our armpits in angst.

Our chakra's unbalanced, our food's full of additives, the water's poisoned, there's measles at the movies and no one's put a health warning on the air. Sue Kedgley's so upset she's gone to bed in a darkened room with a damp cloth on her brow.

Now vous come along and appset us with more unwelcome news.

Smart phones aren't - that's what you're saying. If, pour example, oui tape one to our head and use it constantly 4 200 yrs, oui cd, mayb, get a very rare brain tumour, that's what you're saying.

Although the one study undertaken to establish if there is a link between phone use and glioma couldn't make any connection because the number of people it investigated was so small it was impossible to reach a meaningful conclusion.

But that's not what you're saying. What you're saying is much more melodramatic and spooky and generally likely to frighten le chevaux. You're saying cellphones are "possible cancer-causing agents".

Without quantifying the risk. U don't say that if oui use our phones for, say, 1 hour a day, there is a 2 Degree chance or a 10 Degree chance of triggering a tumour.

You just say you've looked at all the research (some of which is sure to be shonky) and there may be a link between cellphone use and two types of tumours.

Phone the crows, mes ami! Is scaring fearful phonies one of votre KPI's, vous dorques? Do u get a bonus 4 frightening folk without due evidence or cause? U lot have done this b4, with swine flu. And that swine flu away leaving nothing in its wake except massive stockpiles of unswallowed drugs. All of which are now past their expiry date, like yourselves.

This will end in tears, my dears. Now that your report is out there will be a predictable response. The worldwide wowsers will upwise, demanding warnings and labels and bans to avoid "passive phoning".

Poor people will be hired to answer rich people's phones. We could "possibly" see a modern version of the medieval norm back in the days when nobles ravished maidens at the drop of a portcullis and every king worthy of the name had his own food taster as an essential perquisite of office.

If some scantily clad wench, cleavage heaving 'neath her damask blouse, approached the monarch to deliver a steaming bowl of Maggot soup, it was never Sire who sipped it first. Quelle no! That was a job for more expendable lips.

And only after the owner of said labia had confirmed the safety of the broth by not falling to the rush-strewn floor, clutching his abdomen and groaning while his employer's corgis gnawed hungrily on his shin bones would His Royal Highness be given a napkin and spoon and told it was okay to fall face forward into the bowl and ingest its contents through his nostrils.

Well, that's what'll happen now. Not with food tasters, but phone testers. When some scandalmongering journo rings the Prime Minister, it will be a quivering flunky who answers: "No, this is not the PM. I'm speaking on Mr Key's behalf to protect his brain. Arrggggghhh! I think I've got a tumour! Goodbye!!!"

Vous have opened a Phondora's box here, WHO. Reckless and unquantified, your alarmism has thrown us to the Lyons. It's official. The World Health Organisation should come with its own health warning - Caution. Must be taken with a grain of salt.

I have a little iPhone
It gives me loads of cred
And I would use it constantly
If only I weren't dead
So when I come back next time I wanta cellphone-friendly head
To make my calling super-safe I'll have one made of lead.