“Traction Man” is a freelance journalist trapped in traction in a NHS hospital and author of the blog Notes from a Hospital Bed. These notes are a grimly amusing read, particularly for those of us familiar with the sharper ends of English cuisine (having read of Traction Man’s plight, l now regard the meals of my childhood — a dollop for mince and two vitamin pills was one champ — with strange new respect), but today he has excelled himself:

Desperate situations call for desperate measures… like the prisoner in a British jail who recently managed to get himself drunk on the alcohol-based hand gel that was brought into the prison to counteract the threat of swine flu…Amazingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has decided to mix a Swine Flu Sling in the absence of any other tipple. Last March The Royal Bournemouth Hospital announced that it was one of many hospitals that had taken the precaution of removing alcohol-based hand-cleaning gel from reception areas in a bid to stop visitors drinking it. Such is the desperate level of life here in the UK that people are obviously stopping off at the hospital on the way home from work for a ‘quick gel’ with their mates. I knew we were in a recession, but I never realized it was that bad.

Buy that man a gel.