Swine Flu hit near us this week just as I came into contact with another pandemic – Affluenza. I caught it off my son – Affluenza, that is.

Hearing of my hope to stand at the General Election, he challenged me in two ways.

“Dad” began his first query, “just what part of the word ‘retirement’ don’t you understand?” His second testing went for the jugular. “What’s your take on the economy?”

My answer began with “Well...” – as you do when faced with your first political heckle. To Son, Peter, it was blatant hesitation.

“Get Affluenza!” he jumped in. So I did, and when Amazon sent me the book, the enthusiasm was contagious from page one.

“Affluenza,” it describes itself, is “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from dogged pursuit of more.”

Had my Son allowed me to develop more fully my response to the heckle that began and ended with the word “Well...”, Affluenza is what would have poured out of me.

Perhaps not precisely as funny, fantastic and fabulous; maybe not as entertaining, nor containing the same stunning facts and almost certainly a wee bit short on the searing insights, but I reckon a sermon or two of mine on humanity and possessions would have compared quite favourably.

“Affluenza,” states this seemingly God-inspired book, “should make all of us realise that material possessions are never enough to satisfy spiritual hunger.”

This summer, whether basking on the beach or in swine-flu-recovery mode, try my son’s advice, “Get Affluenza!”