DO you remember the Sars virus from two years back? Most of the Far East was wandering around wearing facemasks and here in the North-East boarding schoolgirls from exotic countries were placed in quarantine. It seemed only a matter of time before we were all wiped out.

Do you remember that Ebola infection from Africa? The virus leaped horribly out of the bodies of the dead to infect the living - rather like that terrifying scene in the film Alien where the baby alien shoots out of its dead host's chest. It was only a matter of time before Ebola destroyed us all.

And what about that nasty flesh-eating superbug with the very long, unpronounceable name? Only a couple of years ago it was going to devour us all alive.

Yet we are still here... now facing an influenza pandemic that may well wipe us all out. Anywhere between 2,000 and 50,000 people in the UK will die of it. Perhaps more. Perhaps someone's guessing.

And then there's the weather to worry about. Have you seen the long-range forecast? Apparently there's going to be a negative North Atlantic Oscillation which is going to force Siberian winds over us. It's going to be the coldest winter since 1962 - and for every degree that the temperature drops below the average, 8,000 people die.

There's going to be carnage. You won't be able to move for frozen corpses on the streets. Then the flu pandemic will sweep in. Even Match of the Day will have to be cancelled for fear of Alan Hansen spreading the virus across the airwaves into your TV set.

We are all doomed (which is entirely true because there are only three inevitable things in this life: taxes, Tory leadership crises and death. Although that may be four if you take into account cries of "sack the manager/board" at St James' Park).

The figures from the prophets of doom look terrifying until you realise that even in the course of a normal year, 32,000 people die from the cold in this country. And at least 12,000 are carried off by the flu annually.

It is wholly right that we are as well prepared as we can be and that we are as vigilant as we can be - indeed, we would be leading the uproar if the Government wasn't focusing on the possibilities of pandemics.

But don't panic. Life's too short as it is for that.