PANIC is far easier to spread than anthrax, as this week's newspapers proved. "Anthrax panic spreads as top US senator is targeted" - The Guardian; "panic spread worldwide" - The Mirror; "anthrax panic spreads throughout the globe" - Daily Mail.

Clever swines, these terrorists. Anyone can stuff some second-hand spores into a few envelopes. The important bit is selecting the addresses. By targeting media outlets they have turned a drop of poison into a tidal wave of terror. Evacuate a newsroom and you guarantee a front page. Anthrax isn't contagious, but fear is, and a free press is the carrier.

Whoever is behind the anthrax attacks worked out that this was just the twist needed to jar barely-calmed nerves.

After the horror of September 11 and the first few days of raids over Afghanistan, public alarm was subsiding. Now it's off the scale again.

North Yorkshire police is on its highest alert. A mail sorting office in Liverpool was evacuated after white powder spilt from a package.

Britain's holiday trade has slumped: people are afraid to open their mail, let alone leave their home for a week. Who knows, bin Laden might come round and stuff 200 funnel web spiders through the letter box.

All this from 15 people contracting the disease in the United States, 14 of whom have survived.

The murder of the Florida newspaperman was chillingly random. But it is still only one death in a country many miles away.

To keep this in perspective: a farmer died in Egypt earlier this year when a sheep trod on his loaded rifle (source: The Darwin Awards II, published by Orion, £9.99).

The odds of being shot dead by a ruminant must be on a par with being killed by a real poison pen letter.

Unless... you don't think that bin Laden is training crack flocks of sheep assassins to target infidel shepherds, do you? I must circulate that on my website, Batty Conspiracy Theories dot com.

This is what panic is all about - losing control. The terrorists want us to be too afraid to think straight.

The more rational our response, the less successful they will be.

So I was glad to discover there is less panic on the streets than in the headlines on my trip into York yesterday. Everything seemed reassuringly calm and normal.

People queued grim-faced at bus stops. Fast-food cartons sparkled in the autumn sunshine as they floated down the River Foss. A golden labrador shook his head good-naturedly as the ash of his blind owner's cigarette landed on his head.

But then we've always been a fearless and stoic bunch, us Brits. I was saying just this to the orphan boy I've hired to open my post.

It takes more than the threat of biological warfare to send us into a mass panic. For that we need a light covering of snow, or a restricted supply of the year's top Christmas toy.

Our stiff upper lip does us credit. Compare this self-control to the Americans, who seek therapy if their manicurist takes an unscheduled week off. Or to the pathetic reaction of those so-called hard men, the Aussies.

The Australian rugby team has finally plucked up the courage to come over here for a truncated tour. Well done them.

They had originally cried off when America and Britain attacked Afghanistan.

Now these brave boys (sponsors: Big Girl's Blouses Co) have agreed to play three games, as long as a someone tucks them in and reads them a bedtime story at night.

This is worth remembering in case an Aussie ever again dares to have a go at Poms for our lack of bottle.