Editor-At-Large: For the record, I will be played by me and I won't appear in a Gucci face mask

Spending most of last week in transit from New Zealand, I've had ample time to peruse coverage of the Sars epidemic in half a dozen countries. At Bangkok, I stopped for a relaxing head and foot massage – no queueing necessary as the terminal was empty. In Singapore, no rush for the showers – but then it was 5.30am.

In Sydney, steady sales of Manuka honey in the health shop, but dozens of cancelled flights. Television screens at every stop relaying relentless pictures of the latest trend in media overkill; anxious doctors replacing tanks. The doom-mongering UK press might tell us that the presence of Chinese schoolchildren causes panic on the Isle of Wight, but in Hong Kong they're treating the disease as a lifestyle option. Take the South China Morning Post, for example. The front page of Hong Kong's morning daily may have announced the sacking of top government officials over the mishandling of the epidemic, but let's look on the bright side! And so the diet of gloom is relieved with a Sars gossip column and a haiku poem competition on the very same subject. Hot news is that turnips have soared in price as folk rush to brew a virus-beating soup, and local designers are churning out stylish sequinned face masks, the latest fashion must-have. Fear of falling ill at home has led to thousands of Hong Kong residents jamming roads to country parks and beaches in search of fresh air. Instead of sitting in offices and walking around shops, they cram together on ferries and footpaths. Similar lemming-like behaviour was exhibited by several passengers on the last leg of my journey, who sashayed out of Heathrow wearing face masks. Honestly, can someone please tell them they'd have more chance of catching asthma from traffic fumes on the M4 into London than picking up Sars in the arrivals hall?

I ring Professor Brian Duerden from the Health Protection Agency, which advises the government on infectious diseases, and he tells me: "I know of no circumstances where you can get any benefit from wearing a face mask unless you are in a medical environment dealing with a person who is infectious." So, no need to shell out on the Nike or Gucci version, unless you've had your lips turned into a trout pout or your chin is sporting a hideous boil. The professor tells me that yes, Sars is the first global epidemic of the 21st century, as our sister paper announced on its front page last Friday. But this is because it is a disease that is spreading through global travel.

I'm not saying that Sars, with a death rate of 4 per cent, isn't a serious illness which needs to be contained. But thousands more people have flu, which is equally infectious and, although a lower percentage of them die, they will be greater in number. But regular flu isn't hot news, nor an opportunity to shun anyone with a Chinese appearance or to cancel a visit to a Canadian relative. "Some of the reporting has been excessive," Duerden agrees, "The people most at risk are healthcare workers who have not identified patients suffering from Sars." And not, it seems, schoolchildren returning from a holiday break. When words such as "time-bomb" start appearing on front pages, then we are in the grip of an epidemic – and it's called a media feeding frenzy. The Tories whingeing that Sir Liam Donaldson, the government's Chief Medical Officer, is not doing enough is about as predictable as Robin Cook's bland assertion on the Today programme last Friday that he is happy to return to the back benches. Meanwhile, my next trip is to Papua New Guinea in a few weeks, and I won't be packing a face mask.

Cuzz off, Kim!

My least favourite government minister, Kim Howells, has merged the English Tourism Council and the British Tourist Authority to form VisitBritain, an organisation that has just launched a £4m campaign to sell holidays in England to a younger market here at home. I assume the bizarre double-page spread I've just encountered in the new edition of Esquire magazine represents the fruit of the new body's labours. Howells is keen to attract young people to the countryside and so this advert, written in the style of editorial, contains patronising phrases such as "a romantic break doesn't have to mean Paris and some slimy foreign student slavering over your girlfriend ... take her off for a loved-up weekend in the Yorkshire country". It seems that the top reasons for visiting Britain are "an exciting club scene", as well as the fact that "Sheffield has the biggest artificial ski resort in the country" and Bradford is the "cuzza" capital.

You might as well tell people to visit London because it's got great places to meditate and more plastic surgeons than anywhere in Somerset. Is it not possible to attract people between 30 and 40 to one of the most beautiful counties in Britain – whose dales are featured in countless television and feature films, and whose scenery inspired our most famous artists such as Turner – without waffling on about clubbing and curry? If you want to eat bhindi bhaji, listen to electro-punk and sweat in a club, why drive 200 miles?

Holy cheek

If you do want to enjoy great ecclesiastical architecture in my favourite county, you'll have to shell out – York Minster now proposes to charge an entry fee as the diocese faces a funding deficit. As I have said before, one way for the Church of England to join the 21st century, is to slim down its overheads and cut running costs by sacking most of the deans, bishops and redundant leaders, and ban them from commissioning any more ludicrous costumes to wear. The latest reports reveal that pay and expenses of Church of England bishops have risen by £500,000, over the rate of inflation, while the Church overall has lost £500m worth of assets last year. I hardly think that asking visitors to cough up £5, or whatever, is in the spirit of Howell's campaign to get us to enjoy Britain. Why should one bunch of people live in huge palaces when many of their parishioners can't get on the local housing list? The sooner these underused church lodgings are turned into affordable housing the better.

A gossip column mentions that I have commissioned a play "based on my life". The reality – I'm writing a one-woman show for the Edinburgh fringe this August. Naturally, I will be played by me, and the critics are bound to loathe it. I will be called an egomaniac (correct), a cockney (incorrect), strident (possibly) and foul-mouthed (probably). Called All the Rage, and playing at the Assembly Rooms, there are no prizes for guessing my agenda, from pets to parents and all the jerries, from Geri Halliwell to Jerry Hall to jerrybuilders. Then there's the weirdness of the Welsh (including my mother), the inconsistency of my taste (from men to sofas), and a tirade about my least favourite people, from caravan owners to rude hoteliers. How can I fit it all into an hour and a bit? You'll have to find out for yourselves.