Do you have a cold? Yesterday I started one of those blasted demonic possession infections, you know, when all the liquid in the body attempts to exit through the nose, and the throat feels as if sandpapered inside, and the eyes blaze in red haze and the whole world becomes  ugly and threatening, freezing and wet.

It came on quite quickly. The day before someone said, “Sniffing are we?” and I replied, as I always do, “No no, just clearing!” Other people usually notice I have a cold long before I do. It most often happens on the phone when I get the question, “Do you have a cold?” and blow me down (pun execrable) the next day there I am wrapped up in misery.

Imagine if there was a cheap, easy, convenient way to cure a cold.

Are you imagining that?

Imagine how quickly the whole of Big Pharm would immediately put billions into discrediting it, claiming it causes cancer, buying up the fields where its cultivated, lobbying the government to declare it a Class A illegal substance. Let’s face it, they’ll be miffed.

Which is why I need you to keep this very secret, hear?

So here’s the story: Years ago I went to Algeria with a dear friend and colleague, to attend his brother’s wedding. And on my second day, there it was, my old friend the Streamer. I was streaming from every orifice. Well, not every. Coughing, leaking, leaving trails of dank tissues behind me wherever I went.

And his mum, seeing this, said in Algerian “Don’t panic you leaking man. I will fix” and brought me a steaming infusion in a pot and a towel to wrap around, so that I could inhale the fumes. So I did, for around ten minutes, then another ten minutes, and then another later.

The next day there were no symptoms of the virus.

I remembered this on Monday, when the symptoms came on and in my misery I wracked my brains for who, where and above all, what was in that infusion. As I had done before, I asked my friend yet again what this miraculous water had contained and all he could give me was the Arabic word, which was no help. It was something like “Tawbeel” or Tawabil – then I thought of Google Translate.

After a few tweaks I had the answer and within minutes had driven to Sainsbury’s trailing wet toilet paper after me like a streamer.

It cost a pound!

Oregano. A small bottle of the dried stuff from the herbs and spices section.

I rushed it home. Poured a few tablespoons of the green stuff into a pot of a few inches of water, boiled, placed a towel around my head and sniffed deeply several times.

Am I cured? Well, that was yesterday. Today I am hardly sniffing at all. There is no sore throat. My eyes are normal. Look, I doubt very much that the cold s gone – but it sure as hell feels like it. Watch this space! Or better still, please try this yourself and let me know how you get on?

Do a little googling into “Oregano for colds”  – for example

http://www.livestrong.com/article/495376-oil-of-oregano-vs-colds-flu/