DON'T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE.

HEALTH RISK OR PRESS PIECE

          

Whenever something goes awry in Franco-American relations, I’m the first to hear of it. This year alone, record high temperatures, racial tensions and the British royal visit have had alarms ringing among my correspondents.

           Now it’s bedbugs. “They creep, they crawl, they feast on your blood as you sleep,” says the Associated Press. “They may travel in your clothes or backpacks to find another person worth dining on – on the train, or at the cinema. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis.”

What crisis? Until I read these reports, it was the first I or anyone I know had heard of it.

Fortunately, I’m able to report on what exactly is going on, and from the horse’s – or, in this case, bedbug’s mouth.

My work often brings me into contact with the insect community. In fact, I can honestly say that some of my best friends are vermin. So I had no trouble getting an interview with the bedbug press officer Cimex Lectularius.

There were some complications in communicating with a creature the size of a rice grain, though it was far from my most difficult interview (Remind me to tell you about film director Michael Winner. Give me a bedbug any day.) However we soon reached a meeting of minds, even if the waiter in my local café did look a little surprised at me carrying on a one-sided conversation with the air.

“You know as well as I do, John,” said Cimex, “that this demonising of the Arthropoda is nothing new. In many ways we never recovered from the stigmatising of our Siphonaptera brothers and sisters over the Black Death. The same old story. Blame the fleas – never mind the rats. Did you see Ratatouille? Pure propaganda. We have cast-iron proof that half the film producers in Hollywood have rodent blood.  Our friends in the crab lice community have come up with some startling revelations. I could give you the names….

“But anyway, this bedbug scare. Well, of course, I don’t have to tell you who’s behind it. The American medical community! One sniff of an infestation and the tourists come running back to their local sawbones– who, of course, assures them that such things are bound to happen in a country with socialised medicine – but, just to make sure, they will need to run a few very expensive tests…

“And then there’s the Olympics. Who in America benefits from them? Not Nike, not Adidas, not any of the big sporting goods firms. No advertising, so no income from their overpriced products. Are you trying to tell me that Big Sport isn’t pulling the strings?”

“You make a good case,” I said. “But…while we’re chatting, Cimex, what about these rumours that your people are in discussions with de Santis about an Insect World to replace Disney World? A bedbug scare sending tourists back home might work for you. ”

“Now, John, that’s just the kind of negative thinking….”

“My best to the boys at the hive,” I said, and left him there, expostulating.  I hope the next person who took that seat was someone nice.

Apparently the Co2 we give off is like catnip to bedbugs. It’s nothing compared with the whiff of media bullshit.

“So how was your holiday? France? Really? Don’t happen to feel any itching?”