Few things suck quite as much as being sick when you’re on the road. I managed to catch a cold in Istanbul, and it’s managed to reach that really unpleasant stage where my nose runs constantly. I must have really looked poorly, because even my slave-driver of a client suggested that I should probably take myself home and get an early night (mind you, it was already 7:30pm, so it’s not like I was working a half-day or anything). I figure giving him my cold will be a sort of parting gift…

Drugged up to the gills!

I’m using up the remains of the cold medicine I bought in Turkey. It seems effective enough, but I suspect it’s actual a combination of horse tranquillisers and morphine, because it leaves me high as a kite. So each morning you’ve got to make that fateful judgement call: do I suffer and sniffle all day with a clear head but a blocked nose, or do I take another sachet of the Turkish cold medicine and struggle through the day with a clear nose but a foggy head?

Not quite Mom’s chicken soup. (Who are we kidding — even she’d admit that she used to heat up a can of Campbell’s!) The closest thing I could find to chicken soup came in a coconut. A bloody coconut.

The second challenge with getting sick on the road is actually tucking yourself up in bed. It’s bad enough that there’s no one nearby to whinge to (in a last-ditch attempt for sympathy, I was even tempted to pour out my heart to the woman at room service, but was thwarted when she misunderstood my lamenting for “one prawn cocktail starter”). No, worse still is the fact that it’s awfully hard to find comfort food when you’re a long way from home. So you either have to drag yourself out someplace (not fun, especially when it’s pouring with rain outside) or you have to settle for what’s on offer at the hotel.

The plan was very simple. I made a list of what I would like from Aude for Christmas this year. At the top of the list was this:

Instead of a nice, new, shiny Corvette, what I got from Aude was this:

A stinking cold. So I’ve spent most of the day sitting at home feeling sorry for myself as I battle this case of ‘man flu’ with all the brave stoicism you’d expect. In other words, I’ve been whining all day.

In situations like this, I generally turn to the Jews. After all, the religion that brought us the Kosher hot dog and the word “schmuck” can’t be all bad. And they know a thing or two about curing a cold, so I’ve decided to self-medicate with Jewish penicillin – the theory being that chicken soup will cure all ails. And it turns out that there’s some medical evidence to back up this theory…

My favourite quote from the article: “It should be added that to benefit from Jewish penicillin, one need not be Jewish.”

A pot of chicken soup boiling on the stove. For any Jews making notes, the Goy version contains chicken, onions, carrots, celery, turnips, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and a bouquet garnis.

In other news, I’ve chosen the wine for our New Years Eve dinner. We’re spending the dinner with French friends in Brussels. Stubborn as I am, I’ve offered a French Chinon to go with the starter, but have stood my ground and selected a nice California Zinfandel, which should go nicely with our steak with Roquefort sauce.

A nice Chinon to go with our smoked duck salad, and a Californian Zinfandel to go with the main course.

Since this is likely my last blog of the year, I just thought I should wish everyone a Happy New Year! See you in 2007…