Two out of five isn’t bad.

For the last five New Year’s, I’ve spent two of them now ill. Very ill. You should see the colour of the snot. In the voice of Michael Caine: “The flu-like cold, has landed.” Quite.

It started brewing a few days ago, but came down last night with a vengence. This morning was even worse. Getting out of bed took four hours, and even then it was only to telephone the people we were supposed to be going to see for New Year in Coventry and apologise for not being fit to travel. Still, I doubt they wanted us to come and share illness with everyone. So instead we braved the local supermarket for some Morgan’s Spiced Rum (for purely medicinal purposes you understand) and, because it turns out they’re closed from this afternoon for a while, most of the contents of their sausage section marked down to 49p per pound. Who would have thought?

This illness has led to an interesting revelation revealing itself. That is that every home contains at least one tub of Vicks Vapourub. What is more, no-one remembers buying it, and it is always several years out of date. Not that Vicks ever actually does go out of date. Not properly. That and Worcestershire sauce would be the only consumables that could survive a nuclear holocaust.