BASTARD.

Liveinadive wrote:

Manuka honey, the expensive stuff. Two teaspoons a day until it clears. Also standard honey and real lemon juice with boiling water, then fresh air, hot curry/chilli, bag of satsumas, paracetamol/ ibuprofen. If you have a sore throat toast, cloudy lemonade and salt and vinegar crisps. That lot sorts me out in a couple of days normally. Forget beachams etc.

Balls x 1000!  Reg, stock up on symptomatic relief.  There's no cure obviously but proper actual medicine can cut the symptoms down to a teeny level, so get nasal sprays, throat sprays, Strepsils, cough medicine, and some cold/flu pills.

If honey, lemon juice, chilli etc actually do anything then it's either not as effective as actual medicine or it's a big old placebo.

My doctor told me to take a paracetamol with a glass of thick hot squash. Apparently the squash coats the throat and eases the irritation and the paracetamol numbs the pain, the same as any commercial remedy.

regmcfly wrote:

I have a cold. What is the best cold cure.

Time, basically.  It's a self limiting illness, it'll get better whatever you do.  So yes, manuka honey will give the illusion of working, as will any of Pliny's cures so helpfully provided by krs.  (So long as you don't actively poison yourself.)

However other stuff will genuinely help relieve symptoms in the interim.  Paracetamol and/or ibuprofen (if you're not asthmatic and don't have stomach problems) work really well.  Get the cheap and cheerful 16p stuff.  The expensive ones add nothing other than perhaps a bit of caffeine (which is what "Plus" usually means).  To be fair there is some evidence that caffeine potentiates analgesia, but you might as well have cheap medicines and coffee.  Most cough medicines are a bit of a con, and basically just line your throat for a bit to make it transiently comfortable - so for that you might as well stick to honey and lemon.  (Cheap honey is fine.)

Finally, if there was something you had when you were a kid that made you feel better take that.  Chances are it does absolutely nothing at all, but the placebo effect of "thing that made you better when Mum gave it to you" is not to be underestimated.  (I'm looking at you Buttercup Syrup.)

n0face wrote:

buttercup syrup is rank, I've never forgiven my mom for making me take it.

True, but having had it shoved down my throat every time I had the slightest sniffle, my brain now regards it as synonymous with being looked after.

Also I'm told it's rather good in cocktails.  (That last bit of advice comes from a pretty much constantly inebriated friend and should almost certainly not be followed.)

Cheers guys. Had a spicy dinner, some honey and lemon because I like it, and some proper tablets. Feeling ok ATM. Anyone else get that feeling shitty in the morning and evening then feeling fine in the afternoon thing?

Awesome.

Macaroni cheese

I may just have that myself.

When a macaroni cheese is made properly it's something else. Best thing Gordon Ramsey ever did was a recipe for a posh mac and cheese with leek and pancetta and white wine. I make it every now and again - an exercise in indulgence.

And, instead of 'fulsome', 'fulful'.

krs wrote:

And, instead of 'fulsome', 'fulful'.

Gesundheit.

krs wrote:

And, instead of 'fulsome', 'fulful'.

Not sure it works so well with 'wholesome' though.

Although that's possibly because 'wholesome' is a stupid word in the first place.

Jerry Seinfeld - not funny, now with less hair.

How can I tell if my plants need more water, or have had too much water?  They're not looking too healthy.