When the crown gets you down, how about gallows humour to get rid of COVID frown?

WAS it a fruit bat, was it some slothful sun bear? Even if your taste in food quarry was at some point equally carnivorous and adventurous as any hot-blooded man from Wuhan (pronounce Woo + hen), you should not let the flu epidemic get you depressed nor downright dizzy.

Comedy – they say, is the elixir in times of trouble. Gallows humour however might not sit well for some but mirth, merriment and laughter is antidote however blue the view.

Now I am an early riser – 3:30am to be exact, simply because I have to check in at the office Mondays to Fridays by 4:30 am to prepare to start work at 6:30 am.

One Thursday last week, as the alarm rang the first time at 3:15 am I immediately reached out for my phone – who doesn’t?

The first pending WhatsApp message was one that alerted me to the discovery of a new virus – Kononnyavirus!

For the benefit of those new to the Malay language, this is a play on the coronavirus that is wreaking `pneumonic’ havoc with daily deaths in China.

`Kononnya’ means supposedly – so taken together with virus; sounds rather like coronavirus.

What tickled the funnybone was the caption that announced; “When someone pretends to be ill to get away from work, it is called Kononnyavirus. Touche!”

Then there is parody. Hongkong singer Kathy Mak has become a YouTube sensation as she `murdered’ the lyrics to Torn whose cover-version by Natalie Imbruglia took the song to the top of the music charts in the late 1990s.

Who would have thought a song originally penned about a woman thinking she found Mr Right but who turned out to be Mr Horribly Wrong could resonate today?

You get an idea of the extent of her regret when she croons about ending up cold – having to sleep alone perhaps; shamed and lying naked on the floor.

With coronavirus clouding the air; what ostensibly harped on a relationship breakdown has been revised as current comment on the coronavirus outbreak.

Listen to the re-written lyrics and see if Kathy has got the zeitgeist just right.

She starts off singing: “So I’m kinda scared of being here; There’s lots of talking, lots of singing without protective gear.” Clearly a comment on how some medical workers had to make do with limited resources at the start of the outbreak back in December last year.

She goes on; “I sterilise, I sanitise My hands are always frickin’ dry. Compare that to the original “There’s nothing where he used to lie; My conversation has run dry.”

While these sideshows might not lead to the discovery of a virus antidote – for which Jackie Chan, no less; has offered a reward of one million yuan – it would at least be a soothing salve for any troubled soul.