It's only when sat on a coach full of people sniffing, coughing, spluttering or chatting on their mobile phones that you become all too aware of the norovirus doing the rounds.

You know the one - always associated with cruise ships, the 'winter vomiting' bug which gives sufferers a 48-hour burst of violent sickness and diarrhoea. In dramatic BBC language it is sweeping the nation.

The sniffers, coughers and splutterers act as a potent reminder that someone incredibly ill with something is never too far away. The ones chatting on their mobile phones are the ones you wish were spending the duration of the journey vomiting and pooing in the coach toilet.

This is a transcript of the most recent conversation (or one inane end of it), in its entirety. I have not left any word out, nor added any in.

"I'm on the bus. Yeah. Yeah. Mmm, nothing. Err... bye. Yeah, no, I know, I will. Yeah. I might, like, be out. Okay. Yeah. Bye."

Jesus Christ, deliver me from this puddle of norolanguage. How much more pleasant my trip would be if, instead, the conversation were taking place in the downstairs vestibule:

"I'm on the BLAAAAAAAARGH! ... Argh ... Ah ... Ah ... Anyway, I'm BLAAAAAAAARGH ... Shit ... Ah ... What I'm trying to say is BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH omigod omigod oh ... Oh ... Listen I'll BLAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" *click*

There now. Feel better?

My only worry with norovirus, aside from erupting into karma-induced trouser-soiling agony in the next ten minutes, is this: what happens if it does one of those bloody annoying mutating tricks, meets up with something incredibly unpleasant, then kills us all?

I realise this takes the term 'scaremongering' to a whole new level, and that I'm therefore plagiarising tomorrow morning's Daily Mail, but all you biologists out there - is it feasible?

With bird flu we're always hearing about strain this, leaping-species that, and how we're one mutation from the end of humankind at the feathery hand of bird.

What's to stop the inconvenient, messy but ultimately rather benign and cuddly norovirus going tag team with H5N1 and wreaking havoc?

Go on, laugh. But in five years' time, when we're all on our knees and not simply through sheer force of bowel, my dying breath will be, "I told you so". And it'll be on the phone, loudly, in an environment where other people are trying to pass (in several senses) peacefully.