Remember my 2009 trend map? Well look again and you will see an Influenza Pandemic as a global risk top right hand side. Guess I got lucky. Or perhaps not. What I think we have currently is an information pandemic.

News is travelling too fast – thanks to global connectivity – and what is contagious is actually anxiety, which is moving too fast to be contained. For example, I was staying at a hotel this morning and I asked for some bacon for breakfast. I couldn’t have any. It was off the menu due to Swine Flu in Mexico. Give me a break.

Is this a problem? One would imagine it is. First this is adding to existing anxieties (the economy, climate change and so on). Second, if this turns out to be not the real thing – which, I suspect, it will – then we will take less notice when there really is a genuine global pandemic out there.

I suggest that everyone tales a couple of aspirin and calms down.