Achooh! Mercy posting of killer cold remedy

If the seasonal presto changeo of the weather has left you with a horrid sniffle | help is at hand. Here’s my kill or maim cold rescue remedy. It does taste nasty, but the effects are nearly as good as Class A drugs.

Send someone out to get these goodies:

1 large clove of garlic (peel and slice)
nub of ginger (around the same size as chubby garlic clove, peel and slice)
juice of half a lemon
4 -8 whole black pepper corns
cinnamon stick (just use half of one)
chilli flakes (optional, so as many as you like)

What to do now?

Flop on the sofa under your cuddleblankie, and moan gently to yourself, while some one else does the following:

Boil the kettle and in the meantime - put all the ingredients into a sturdy mug. I use one of those french cafe coffee cups from the 70s. You know the ones, they were school uniform green, with a gold rim around if your mum liked fancy.

Pour ‘as hot as you can manage’ (just boiled) water onto the ingredients and then take a pessle (or is it mortar? No it’s definitely a pessle.) and lightly crush the garlic and the ginger.

Try and drink this as quickly as possible - you don’t have to eat the bits, but you do need to inhale the vapour to get all that volatile oily goodness up your hooter.

Take a couple of these cocktails a day and you will be as right as ninepence in no time.

Garlic is your friend…

If you can bear it, chop up some raw garlic and swallow it with water. Do this 2 - 3 times a day and your aches, pains and chills will disappear along with that annoying oik from finance.