This time last year, I was on a TV programme alongside three vocalists. Present were a hip-hop artist with Ghanaian roots, a well-known pop singer, plus a renowned mezzo-soprano. It was deep midwinter. The previous evening, I celebrated a close friend's milestone birthday, squeezed into a pub's event space somewhere in Surrey. It had been a good night, but now, just for something to say, I questioned ways to dodge the common cold when half the people at the party were contributing to a chorus of sniffles and coughs. Incidentally, why do certain individuals blow their noses so loudly, while others are quieter? Something to explore later.
Their Take of the Three Performers
When I brought up my evening, the group of artists in the TV green room did two things. Firstly, they edged away from me. Next, they engaged in a feverishly enthusiastic discussion on how to avoid catching colds which naturally enough given their line of work was almost an obsession. That makes sense, yet I'm personally involved – preventing colds is crucial for me because the colds I get are worse than anyone else’s. There's no doctor's note to prove it, yet I'm certain it's factual. My illnesses drag on. I experience worse nasal blockage, I have a more irritated throat, I suffer from louder, more relentless coughing spells. My relatives, alert to the initial throat noises indicating trouble ahead, sometimes banish me or leave themselves. When I worked as a sports broadcaster, my poor colleagues in the studio gallery learned to recognize the signals. “Cans off!” the studio director would holler to his team before I deafened them all, blowing the wiring in their headphones.
Handling Stuffy Noses
As for my blocked noses, don’t start me. Nasal sprays, decongestants, even the electric shock of fumes of boiling plum brandy my mom advocates … they provide temporary relief until they fail. It's hard to find something more pathetic as a Midlands dialect spoken without the benefit of air passing through the nostrils. That is, it's somewhat nasal on a good day. At least this elicits sympathy, which isn’t always a good thing. During my initial university year, away from my mum and her medicinal brandy, the janitor in our dorm showed me kindness. “I’ve got just the thing for that, you dear. I’ll be back in a minute.” She was extremely kind, distinctly Irish, and very insistent that I ate the uncooked, peeled onion she brought to my sickbed. She observed me eating it. Bless her. It didn't help at all, sadly, except for upsetting my stomach and making my breath smell terrible.
The Mezzo-Soprano’s Prevention Strategy
So no, I loathe winter illnesses and am quite sure that prevention is better than the cures that whether folk remedies or not, don’t work. I paid close attention then along with the rapper and the pop star when the mezzo-soprano walked us through her cold avoidance regime. Due to upcoming holiday performances, she approached it with great diligence. She directed us to use hand gel hourly throughout the winter as far as I could deduce and, extra steps were needed during festivities. Prior to socializing, she suggested a few applications of Vicks First Defence through the nasal passages – regardless of symptoms. Drastic. I appreciated it. Moreover, she insisted on following it up post-event with more spray of the same stuff.
What Happened Next
I followed suit. And I can report I snuffled not once all last winter. There were downsides: the many containers I acquired, misplaced, bought again, found, and more. And the disappointing instant finding you've squashed the gel bottle kept in your jeans and it's oozing out. However, an acceptable trade-off. As the cold season approaches once more, I'm fully prepared with her prevention arsenal. I'm prepared to combat.
