Time for a letter methinks…

To: Andy Kerr, Health Minister, The Scottish Executive, Edinburgh.

Dear Mr Kerr,

I write to enquire into the criteria you will be using in dispensing anti-viral drugs in the event of an outbreak of avian flu, but can I preface my remarks by stating that not only are you the best Health Minister Scotland has ever had, but also that you must find it extremely tiresome to be persistently confused with Holywood star and fanny magnet, George Clooney.

While I’m sure that less insightful observers might pass unfavourable comment on your bum-like chin, can I assure you Minister, that I for one have always thought your bottom-like cleft most attractive to both hetero and homosexual men alike.

But looks aren’t everything and any reasonable person would note that your singular ability to discharge your health brief so ably stems from your atypically high IQ and almost supernatural ability to digest and act on well-argued arguments. Which brings me to the criteria likely to be adopted in deciding just who will win the 1 in 4 lottery that will be the anti-viral drugs programme.

First, I’m sure you’ll agree, that in selecting potential beneficiaries for treatment, key-workers must receive priority attention.

Between ourselves, may I inform you, that I am just about to embark on a programme of research that will, in no particular order, find a cure for cancer, deliver double-digit economic growth for ever and ever, end the scourge of sectarianism, alcoholism and obesity.

Additionally, I will provide an answer to the age-old question that has exercised the mind of Man since Antiquity, namely, "How long would it take an infinite number of monkeys, working with an infinite number of typewriters to create a decent script for River City? "The answer, entre nous, is of course, "a really, really long time".

Second, anti-viral drugs should only be dispensed to those people most at risk of death due to infirmity. Without looking for undeserved sympathy, I have just been diagnosed as suffering from a condition called "Not a bit of me is hingin straightitis".

Indeed, so tenuous is my failing grasp on the slenderest twig of the tree of life, that my GP regularly clears his diary of undeserving malingerers like old people and ill children, the better to spend time ministering to the many needs of someone who deserves help. That someone being me.

Thirdly, and finally, you handsome devil, it is vitally important that people receiving the life-saving drug keep quiet about it and don’t go blabbing to their mates thus triggering an unreasonable level of demand. Can I just assure you, that if I'm personally in receipt of the blessed jag that I’ll be saying nothing to nobody - and that includes the wife and kids.

I mean, you don’t want to start a panic do you?

Yours, in anticipation of a right good result (if you know what I mean!),