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At this point the previous year, I found myself filming a television show with three singers. There was a rapper of Ghanaian heritage, a major pop celebrity, and an acclaimed classical singer. The coldest season was upon us. The previous evening, I’d been at an old friend’s 60th birthday, crammed into the function room of a pub in a Surrey location. It had been a good night, however at that moment, simply to make conversation, I pondered how it was possible to avoid catching a cold when half the people at the party were contributing to a chorus of sniffles and coughs. By the way, how come some people have nose-blows like trumpets, and some do not? Something to explore later.

The Response by the Singers

When I brought up my evening, this trio of troubadours in the TV green room responded in two ways. To begin with, they edged away from me. Second, they launched into an animated conversation about preventing colds which understandable due to their profession was something of an obsession for them. I get that, but I'm also deeply invested – preventing colds is crucial for me as my symptoms are harsher than most. There's no doctor's note to prove it, yet I'm certain it's factual. My symptoms persist. My nose is more blocked, I have a more irritated throat, I suffer from louder, more relentless coughing spells. My relatives, alert to the initial throat noises which herald the coming storm, often shoo me away or leave themselves. When I worked as a sports broadcaster, my poor colleagues in the studio gallery grew attuned to the warning signs. “Cans off!” the producer would yell to the staff to avoid auditory overload, blowing the wiring in their headphones.

Handling Stuffy Noses

As for my blocked noses, don't get me started. Aerosols, liquids, even the electric shock of fumes of boiling plum brandy my mum prescribes … they all work for a while until they fail. It's hard to find something more pathetic as a Midlands dialect delivered with no nasal airflow. That is, it can sound nasal even normally. On the plus side, it draws pity, though that's not necessarily beneficial. In my first year away at university, away from my mum and her medicinal brandy, the cleaning staff at our accommodation took pity on me. “I’ve got just the thing for that, you poor thing. I'll return shortly.” She was wonderfully sweet, distinctly Irish, and demanded I eat the fresh, skinless onion she presented to me. She stood and watched me do so. Goodness gracious. No improvement resulted, unfortunately, except for upsetting my stomach and creating bad breath.

The Vocalist’s Cold Avoidance Regime

Thus, I hate colds and am quite sure that prevention is better than the cures which whether folk remedies or not, fail to help. I paid close attention then alongside my colleagues when the mezzo-soprano walked us through her cold avoidance regime. With seasonal gigs on the schedule, she approached it with great diligence. She instructed us to sanitize hands regularly all winter long based on her explanation in addition, extra steps were needed during festivities. Before any event, she recommended a couple of blasts of a preventive product through the nasal passages – even if healthy. Extreme. I like it. And, listen to this, she insisted on following it up after the party with another couple of squirts of the same stuff.

My Experience

I adopted the method. And I must admit I remained cold-free. There were downsides: the many containers I acquired, misplaced, reacquired, located, and so on. Plus the frustrating time when you discover you've crushed the hand sanitizer kept in your jeans and it's leaking all over. Still, an acceptable trade-off. As the cold season approaches once more, I'm fully prepared with the mezzo-soprano’s recommended ordnance. I'm prepared to combat.