My top five downsides to the common cold

Communication breakdown

I'm an incoherent mumbler that practically needs to carry an Etch-a-sketch around with me just to make myself understood at the best of times, and a cold only really serves to exacerbate the problem. Now I have to contend with a mouth like sandpaper and more congestion than London's central zone while I look at my fellow co-workers with the glazed expression of someone coming down from a 14 hour, alcohol and drug fuelled bender, coughing up the inside of my lungs like a chain smoker desperate for their next nicotine hit. All this in addition to my genetic misfortune. In short, most can't understand a word that I'm saying, and the few that can are probably more concerned with making sure I don't drag them down in to the same germ infested abyss I've fallen in to, which brings me on to -

Quarantine

Walking around with a cold is how I expect the affable supporting character in a zombie apocalypse film that manages to get stupidly and tragically bitten feels. Suddenly co-workers and friends feel the mixed emotions of pity combined with the much stronger emotion of instinctive survival. In no way do they want to catch your fucking cold. Of course, in our hypothetical zombie apocalypse flick they'd long since have clumsily finished you off with a shovel. In the office, it's often the case that you can enjoy a whole bank of desks to yourself. This culminated the other day with fellow commuter choosing to stand up rather than sit next to me on the way to work on a full bus (well, almost full). Of course, when you manage to repulse the general public it's time to admit defeat and enjoy your day on the sofa taking in Challenge TV's greatest, you've earned it. I think it's the lack of a line in the sand that makes it such a difficult illness to manage, how to know when you've transformed from work shy slacker to a burden on your workplace. Trial and error, really.

Lack of emotional support

In 2005 I managed to catch mumps, one of those illnesses I always thought people caught in the 16th Century like whooping cough and, well, the black death. It was a week spent looking like the elephant man and watching the only thing that was on TV at the time -rolling footage of the aftermath of Pope John Paul II's death and the process of Catholics trying to re-recruit. Days of swollen glands and black smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel ensued. Although I would in no way recommend this to anybody, at least I was legitimately ill. I didn't have to go to work, generally people felt sincere concern for my welfare and I just spent a week curled up in the foetal position feeling sorry for myself. The worst thing about a cold is that it's one of the only illnesses where you're pretty much expected to just get on with your normal, shit life. You have to email, fax, write letters, try to add value to meetings you attend. These things are a struggle to maintain motivation for at the best of times, without a feeling of bare consciousness and people asking you whether you 'had a late night last night?'

A plethora of useless medication

I remember studying 18th century patent medicines at University a couple of years ago. It was all complete garbage, things like 'Aunt Wellyworths Revitalising Tonic - for excellent nightvision' or ointments claiming to cure baldness and powder profaning to increase heighten your sense of smell. Of course, everyone laughed at how backward these people were without their iPhones and all their crazy, stupid medicine but actually the rows and rows of cold medicine in every supermarket are exactly the same. Without getting too crude (OK, a bit crude), there's pretty much something for every orifice. Do any of them work? No. It's honestly enough to make me want to take all my future expenditure on cold remedies and pump it all in to the development of time travel as a lump sum. If you're interested then I'd probably then go and stop myself from being coughed on by someone in the ATM queue. Then probably go and invent Pogs again or something, the world would be my oyster.

Sleeping

Without throwing too many superlatives at it, sleep is pretty much the best thing going. I've heard that V Festival is good and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is up there, but really, my mind is made up. The day that my deafening alarm tone sounds and I find myself looking forward to getting up for work should mean that the space time continuum has imploded. I'd expect to go to work in some kind of parallel world where traffic drives on the opposite side of the road and my money actually translates in to enough Euros to buy things. Regrettably lying face down in to a pillow while the sun slowly comes up whether you've had your eight hours or not is a hugely unpleasant experience.