A Sunday Afternoon at Home #1: Coughs and Sneezes

If I felt motivated enough, I’d spend my Sundays raging against the pointlessness of Sundays. Maybe if I wasn’t such a frightful heathen the day would mean something to me, or it might offer respite if I had much going on during the rest of the week, but to me Sundays have always been terribly, crushingly dreary. So, to give some purpose to this most maddening of days, I shall be posting random stuff; basically, whatever takes my fancy. And yes, I know it’s Monday now but today felt like yesterday all over again. Well, more like Sunday²… oh, don’t get me started on Bank Holidays…

Today, as the populace is gripped and confused by the threat of another terribly scary pandemic, this time “swine flu”, I was looking at some of the old “coughs and sneezes spread diseases” posters that inspired the Hancock clip above. Check out some awesome design work among the selection I’ve gathered together below – even the grimmest of them are inventive and aesthetically pleasing. I particularly love the Chinese propaganda poster from the 50s, “Are You a Fifth Columnist?” and the first two “Trap the germs in your handkerchief” designs from WWII. Those that graphically display spittle spraying from mouths are particularly disgusting but undeniably effective, although I can’t help but think of the Brundlefly when I look at “Cover coughs, cover sneezes”. The final two are very recent: love the humour of the cartoon and the photography on the last poster turns sneezing into something almost beautiful. Get the sniffles just looking at it, don’t you?

Oh, just realised it’s now Tuesday. The whole thing’s become a farce already…

UPDATE @ 8.35am : Nooo! Click here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/europe/5955534.stm
 
 
 
 
 

And just for a laugh, here are a couple of information films from the 1940s:

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