For most of us, the flu costs nothing more than the price of a box of Lemsip and a couple of days off work. For Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, the illness has turned out to be a bit more expensive than that.

Like $19 billion more expensive. Which, when you think about it, probably works out at a couple of hundred million dollars per sneeze.

It took me until Friday last week to realise what was going on. Every time I looked at my iPhone's home page, I saw something unusual- Apple's share price symbol was in red, followed by a negative number.

All this was made more baffling by the presentation given last week by Mr Jobs on the new, cheaper, souped-up iPhone at a conference in San Francisco. I've been to these events before, and they are like rock concerts. Music blares. Huge video screens loom. And then on comes Mr Jobs, in black turtleneck, frameless John Lennon glasses, jeans and trainers. He always looks slightly extraterrestrial - as though he is still readjusting to such novel concepts as gravity and an oxygen-based atmosphere. Predictably, the analysts loved every minute. The new iPhone prices could have a short-term impact on profitability, they said, but on account of Apple's imminent world domination, they would upgrade their long-term forecasts.

So what happened? The problem, it turned out, was the video of Mr Jobs's presentation that circulated on YouTube. Bloggers noticed that the Apple chief looked a bit thinner than usual, which - naturally - led to speculation about his imminent death. I say naturally, because Mr Jobs recovered from pancreatic cancer a few years back, but didn't announce it publicly until he was in the clear. This time, Apple went on the offensive, announcing that Mr Jobs had a “common bug”. Alas, that wasn't enough to stop $19 billion vanishing from the company's stock market value.

Which proves, I think, that the description of Mr Jobs as a “rock star” is no longer accurate. After all, dying is usually a good career move for a rock star. No, he is a deity - a messiah in Apple's corporate theocracy. And when God catches flu, people get worried.

A basket case

Here in LA, we have other things on our minds - such as the National Basketball Association finals, in which the LA Lakers have several times come close to being slamdunked into oblivion by their arch enemy, the Boston Celtics. Now I've never had much patience for spectator sports (I blame a malfunctioning Y-chromosome) but these finals are riveting - the Lakers are down 3-2 in a best-of-seven format, and every game seems to come down to the last 20 seconds.

According to Tim Donaghy, a former NBA referee, there's an entirely sensible explanation for this - the games are rigged. He says that during the 2002 playoffs, referees were told to calls bogus fouls to keep the sides close and the advertisers happy. Granted, Donaghy might not be a particularly reliable informant - he has pleaded guilty to charges of betting on some of the 772 games at which he officiated - but polls show that more than a third of NBA fans believe him.

Alas, I'm too hooked to tune out. Besides, for the first time in my life yesterday, I was able to use the phrase “dribble penetration” in casual conversation.

Trial and errors

Last week I brought you news of Ira Isaacs, producer of such wholesome fare as Hollywood Scat Amateurs, who was about to stand trial in a highly unusual obscenity case in LA - unusual because it's typically assumed that the crucial legal benchmark of “community standards” doesn't exist in this great pornotropolis. In the end the prosecution was impossible for another reason: the presiding judge Alex Kozinski had to stand down. Why? Well, something to do with the judge's “personal” website, which features photographs of a man cavorting with an aroused farm animal. No doubt it will also soon emerge that the jury was made up of cast members from that 1984 X-rated classic, Romancing the Bone.

Unsuitable job for a woman

Don't get too excited by California's legalisation of gay marriage, which came into effect last night. Enough signatures have been gathered to ensure that a “proposition” against same-sex unions will be on the ballot in the November election. It will almost certainly be approved by the same conservative voters who made Arnold Schwarzenegger governor in 2003. Arnie seems to be trying to stay on the fence - perhaps for fear of upsetting his Obama-supporting wife, Maria Shriver. Asked to weigh in, he boomed: “I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.” Make of it what you will.

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