🔗 Share this article

Around this period the previous year, I was on a TV programme alongside three vocalists. Present were a Ghanaian-origin rapper, a major pop celebrity, plus a renowned mezzo-soprano. It was deep midwinter. The previous evening, I attended a longtime friend's 60th birthday, packed into a local bar's party area in a Surrey location. The festivities were fun, but now, to break the silence, I wondered how one could prevent getting a cold when half the people at the party were contributing to a chorus of sniffles and coughs. On a side note, what explains the trumpet-like nose blows, and others don’t? A question for another day.

Their Take from the Three Performers

Upon referencing the party, these three musicians backstage at the TV studio took two actions. Firstly, they shrunk away from me slightly. Second, they launched into an animated conversation on how to avoid catching colds which understandable due to their profession was almost an obsession. I get that, but I have skin in this game too – I need to dodge colds no matter what 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. My nose is more blocked, my throat is scratchier, my coughs are harsher, more persistent and seem infinite. My family, familiar with the early throat signs that signal an oncoming cold, sometimes banish me or evacuate the area. Back when I presented football on ITV, my poor colleagues in the studio gallery learned to recognize the signals. “Cans off!” the studio director would holler to his team to avoid auditory overload, damaging their headset equipment.

Handling Stuffy Noses

When it comes to congestion, I could go on and on. Nasal sprays, decongestants, even the electric shock of fumes of boiling plum brandy my mum prescribes … they help briefly before admitting defeat. It's hard to find something more pathetic than a Brummie tone delivered with no nasal airflow. That is, it sounds a bit nasally restricted at the best of times. On the plus side, it draws pity, which isn't ideal. During my initial university year, away from my mum and her medicinal brandy, the cleaning staff at our accommodation felt sorry for me. “I’ve got just the thing for that, you poor thing. I'll return shortly.” She was extremely kind, with a strong Irish accent, and very insistent that I ate the uncooked, peeled onion she presented to me. She stood and watched me do so. Bless her. No improvement resulted, sadly, except for upsetting my stomach and making my breath smell terrible.

The Mezzo-Soprano’s Health Routine

So no, I loathe winter illnesses and am convinced prevention beats cure which onion-based or otherwise, are ineffective. I listened intently 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 instructed us to apply hand sanitiser on the hour, every hour all winter long as far as I could deduce and, specific measures were necessary during festivities. Ahead of any such engagement, she advised several sprays of a preventive product through the nasal passages – even if healthy. Drastic. It appealed to me. And, get this, she insisted on following it up post-event with more spray of the same stuff.

The Results

I followed suit. And I must admit I remained cold-free. It wasn't perfect: the countless bottles of First Defence I bought, misplaced, reacquired, rediscovered, and so on. And the disappointing instant when you discover you've crushed the hand sanitizer stored in your pocket and it's oozing out. Still, an acceptable trade-off. And now winter’s upon us again, I’m re-armed to the teeth with her prevention arsenal. I'm set for the fight.