Dear Reader,

This week I have been sick.

Usually, I try not to make a big deal out of it. Take a couple of days off work. Check my emails. Work a few more days from home, to make sure I am not getting on the nerves of my colleagues with my constant coughing and sneezing.

I even have a trick for it – after a couple of days of being thoroughly ill and irritating my wife (who honestly believes I am faking every time I am ill – man flu in action) I ‘declare’ myself healthy. Take a shower, shave, go out for a walk. Kinda works.

But not this time. This time, once I declared myself healthy, the flue came back with a vengeance. And I did the unthinkable. I stopped reading work emails.

I spent a large part of my working life in the UK. And when UK politicians say that they offer a gateway to Europe for the USA, those are not empty words. This translates into the working culture. Most people do read their emails at any time.

I have now been living in Switzerland for 5 years, and 2 years in Germany before that. It’s not uncommon for people in these countries to take 3 week’s holiday in one go, and not read their emails during that time (well, more so in Germany, but still).

So, I guess me stopping reading my emails because I was ill represents an important cultural milestone. I finally became comfortable with my surroundings and succumbed to the local culture. I stopped reading my work emails, and somehow the world didn’t end.

Sadly, that means I don’t have an article to share with you today. On the one hand, that wouldn’t go down well with my boss (I don’t think my boss is reading my blog, but who knows…). If I am not well enough to work, I can’t be well enough to write blog articles.

And, frankly, I just wasn’t fit enough to write one anyway.

I did have an illuminating discussion on Facebook in the meantime. One of my University classmates shared a post about a study comparing the health of kids that were vaccinated with the kids that were not. I found the study, quickly went through it and noted the obvious shortcomings. Then I googled for the critique and got some more explanations on why the study was no good (without going into details here, the main sticking point was that the study was conducted by asking parents and not checking medical records). Naturally, a discussion ensued.  A total of 7 people voiced their views. All of them from the same university course. Of the 7, 4 were anti-vax and 3 were pro-vax. Sad statistics.

Now comes the plot twist. I said that the discussion was started by a post shared by my university classmate. Would you care to find out what I studied? Fucking Biology!!!

Yes, the 7 people whose views were so opposed were all biology graduates.

To be fair, the argument anti-vax people were primarily making wasn’t that vaccines were inherently bad. They were saying that their kids are injected with bad vaccines. Because the vaccines offered by the government vaccination programs are old, poor quality and getting proper vaccines is out of their reach. Which doesn’t explain why one of them had the urge to share questionable research…

Anyway, enough of me going on about things. You’ll get the article next week. It’s going to be clever and insightful. But you’ll have to survive the week without deep and thoughtful ideas from me. And something, deep inside me, tells that you will manage 😉

See you next week!