I have a cold. I am, in typical male fashion, a right moaning bastard when I have a cold. Aside from the feeling tired all the time, which drives me up the wall, and the blocked up nose, and the brain that just won’t work, what really bugs me is that I can’t taste anything.

I have just eaten a sausage and onion roll with hot salsa. Did I taste anything? No, not really. My mouth is tingling a little because of the chill, but I failed to taste the sausage or onion at all, nor the garlic, or lime, or even more than a hint of tomato in the salsa – just the chilli. Last night, I had a whisky. Glenfiddich fifteen, to be precise. I’ve got a reasonable palate for whiskey – normally, I can bore the unwary passer-by with waffle about honey and vanilla tones, the smoke in the aftertaste for up to fifteen minutes.

Last night, I might as well have been drinking Bells, a drink which I hold to be only one step above rat poison. I wouldn’t even mix it with coke.

I want my sense of taste back, dammit.