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.

Useful advice for any night out (part 1)

Just give in and smoke

As I understood it, the 2006 smoking ban was supposed to mean that smoking was going to be so unbelievably difficult that nobody would bother doing it any more. Smokers would become abject, lonely figures trying to light cigarettes in the rain while staring disconsolately at their friends having a great time toasting marshmallows by rustic, roaring log fires. Eventually there would just be packs of cretins standing outside dismal looking offices holding those Nicorette fake plastic cigarettes. All those years of not giving in to peer pressure were about to pay off thanks to sweet, sweet litigation. What has actually happened is that people still go out to smoke en masse and I've just ended up holding their coats. Oh, and because there's no sweet smelling smoke to cover it, venues now smell like some kind of body odour ravaged secondary school youth club. Well, frankly, fuck that. In response to the 'you wouldn't start your night like this' ad, I may not have planned to get ketchup on myself and fall asleep in my clothes, but I didn't plan on becoming becoming a human coat rack either. Life is full of surprises, really. I do often think on one of my drunken jaunts in to smoking that it does regrettably taste fantastic and is definitely something I could get addicted to with enough commitment and perseverance. I suppose that's how it starts, I'm going to end up walking around chewing nicotine flavoured chewing gum and it'll serve me fucking right.

Beware the dangers of drunken midnight cookery

One unexpected effect of alcohol is that it has tended to increase my sense of ambition in the kitchen. I don't know why this is, but I've come in from a night out more than once and thought stupid things like 'wow, I could murder a Sunday roast right now, where's my Jamie Oliver book?' It's that kind of hazy logic that has resulted in me waking up next to broken eggs all over the floor, my Jamie cook book covered in flour and the hob being left on while I tried forlornly to whisk batter the night before. Worst Yorkshire puddings ever, for the record. There have been other times when I've woken up with my arms folded, tried to recount my actions and realised that I was actually waiting in preparation for some kind of frozen pizza to be ready which I have since cremated in the oven after an accidental 60 minute ordeal at gas mark 8.

For this reason, allowing someone else to take care of food preparation is generally a good plan. In fact you can usually tell how drunk you are by how much food you buy at the end of any given night. 'Yeah, hello mate, can I get a, er, 15” pizza, then can you put a kebab on the top of it and then stick another 15” pizza on top of the whole thing and just drizzle chilli sauce over it all? Yeah, yeah like a giant sandwich, nice one. How much is that? 23.40? Sure, here's 30'. If you're feeling more wasted than usual you might even order something else to eat while the skilled staff at World's Best Pizza & Kebab construct your pizza kebab abomination which you can fall asleep face first in to if the urge takes you. In the past I have known people who have acted like they are the owner of a British Airways gold card because the owner of one of these shit heaps gives them a free Coke every time they order their avalanche of food. This really isn't the bargain you think it is. You've qualified for this sweetner because over the last month you've managed to fund new iPod Touches for the owner, his wife and their seven children.

Don't argue with bouncers

Having a disagreement with a bouncer is a lot like when you accidentally hit your toe against a chair and then decide to start an unwinnable fight by taking retribution against the chair. Kicking the shit out of an inanimate object, it's a move that generally does more damage to you than it. My main disagreement with bouncers is usually a difference of opinion around whether I am or am not to too drunk to enter their one word syllable named venue. Naturally, I am clearly completely off my face because no sober person would ever go in to somewhere called 'Chaos' (ficticious venue name– other bars are available) to pay 3.70 for a pint. What's more, some blonde girl carrying test tubes full of shots has already tried to sell Choas to me with the promise of cheap drinks so we all know why we're here. This is therefore a mute point, of course I'm drunk. That was always the plan, it's like KFC turning away fat people, it's a nonsense. I don't really understand - I'm standing at the entrance to the door, I'm holding the money I've just gone to the cash point a second time to withdraw, even if I don't manage to spend it all on more drinks the chances are I'll drop most of it in the floor. I think that I have plenty to offer as a customer. Despite this irrefutable logic, I have yet to convince any doorman in this scenario.

Don't use Red Bull as a mixer

It's hard to imagine that someone realised that Red Bull and vodka were a good combination by any other method than dire necessity because it was the only possible mixer they had available. It was probably that or soy sauce. There are few more uncomfortable feelings in life than writhing in bed trying to get to sleep when you're high on the amount of caffeine that only 18 cans of Red Bull can provide. Not only that, it also gives you the kind of raging hangover that requires the ingestion of about 6 pints of water to rehydrate you. You have to wonder what the pioneers of this were thinking. As an added bonus, because energy drinks are something you encounter in day to day life, you might also experience relive your restless night as some kind of Vietnam style flash back which may even prompt some light sickness while at work sitting next to comotose coworker looking for an eleven o'clock pick me up. Well there's something to look forward to.