Being is sort of doldrum today, I got to thinking about setting Hercules Twelve Modern Labours - any one have an idea to add to the list?
1. Empty and stack away the contents of 365 dishwashers in one day. Possible but Oh the Misery.

3. Finding a way out of the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been other pandemics over the centuries; the one we mostly remember now is what is referred to as the Spanish flu (what trouble people get into now when they refer to Covid as the Chinese disease, but the Spanish flu doesn't seem to raise any hackles. Does anyone know if the Spaniards resent the term?).

It was of course only called 'Spanish flu' because that is where it was first widely reported in the press (including the news that the Spanish king, King Alfonso XIII, had contracted the illness) since in Spain, being neutral in WW1, reporting of the disease was unrestricted by wartime censorship. During the first reported outbreaks in northern France during Spring 1918 the French press initially called it 'grippe américaine' (American flu) as it seemed to have arrived along with troops from the US, but the term 'Spanish flu' was soon adopted in line with many other countries and to avoid antagonizing the new ally. As the first widely known outbreaks occurred in military bases in Northern France and Belgium, British soldiers initially called it 'Flanders flu' while German soldiers referred to it as 'Flandern-Fieber' (Flemish fever). In Spain itself the disease was sometimes known as the 'gripe francesa' (French flu).

In a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association (October 1918) a Spanish official protested, "we were surprised to learn that the disease was making ravages in other countries, and that people there were calling it the 'Spanish grip'. And wherefore Spanish? … this epidemic was not born in Spain, and this should be recorded as a historic vindication." I don't think the modern Spanish particularly 'resent' the term as its historical inaccuracy is now generally understood but in Spain it is usually referred to as the 'pandemia de gripe de 1918'.

It was mildly amusing to see the medical community and the news media insist that Wuhan sars be referred to as ‘covid-19’ but then come unstuck when they subsequently had to differentiate between the various mutations and communicate these to the public. Using dates can sometimes be useful such as the 1918 flu epidemic, the 1957 flu epidemic and the 1968 flu epidemic rather than Spanish flu, Asian flu and Hong Kong flu respectively, but when a global sars outbreak occurs and then mutates several times within the space of a couple of years, then geographic identifiers become the obvious solution.
 
Just as the outbreak of Wuhan sars in 2019 was a different strain to that of Foshan sars in 2002, similarly within Wuhan sars there are differing variants such as the Kent variant, the Brazilian variant, the South African variant and the Indian variant. After first using these geographical appellations, the medical community and news media then (true to form) began switching to a system based on the Greek alphabet hence ‘Alpha’, ‘Beta’, ‘Delta’ and ‘Gamma’ with the lame argument that these would somehow be easier to understand by the public. Not only is the World Health Organisation’s alphabetic labelling system a daft suggestion (and not to mention confusing), but to insist that it is easier understood than geographic labelling just insults the intelligence. Keep your ‘Alpha variant’ label WHO and hands off our Kent variant label.

Pleased to report that Hercules has delivered my parcel. Thanks, Herc.


3. Back on task and topic  - can Hercules sort out the UK deliveries problem please? Can we get him driving a big HGV lorry for M&S?

4. Do not under employ this bloke -keep him really busy and tested. I recall an incident in my childhood where a lady in a local block of apartments that she owned was fed up with some awful tenants who never paid rent, menaced everyone else and who had begun chopping down their interior doors for firewood. Getting access to the roof from her side and using some big biscuit tins and a bucket, nightly she capped their chimneys and smoked them out. Perhaps this might work on smoke spewing factory chimneys in say, China - a Herculean task but might get the message home.