Mutton Jeff

When I was a kid me and my mates would often pose to each other the question “if you had to lose one of your senses which one would it be?”

This is the kind of question that is fine coming from a friend but would be deeply worrying if it was spat into your face by a complete stranger on the street who happened to holding a kitchen knife at the time.

Of course, being regular little Oscar Wildes we’d reply “common” before giving the matter some proper, deeper thought and coming up with taste or smell. You couldn’t lose touch because that would just be stupid and, being largely ignorant, total paralysis didn’t occur to our youthful little minds. The two senses deemed most important to keep was sight and hearing. And of these, if it came down to a final choice, sight was deemed the most supreme.

It was agreed that, at a push, we could do without our hearing. Not hearing any new music would be a pain but better that than not being able to look at Big & Bouncy anymore.

I completed a Sign Language course a year ago as some of you know so I am now more astutely aware of what a huge disability it is to lose one’s hearing.

And to enrich the experience I am today completely deaf in one ear.

This is a recurrent problem. My ears either produce too much wax, wax that is too hard or wax that resists natural dispersal.

Years ago you’d get the old syringe treatment. Wince inducing but effective and your restored hearing was like a miracle.

Nowadays they (doctors) don’t syringe unless they have too. They prefer to prescribe ear drops. Olive oil and bicarbonate of soda. The miracle takes longer and is a real fag to bring about.

In the meantime I am walking around like I have been deafened on one side by a spent grenade. It is damn weird. My ear actually feels numb even though I know it isn’t. I’m having trouble filtering simultaneous sounds. And I’m having difficulty judging their distance and direction. I also feel very irritable but my wife tells me this state of play is “situation normal”.

My wife also told me (rather uncharitably) that she never has ear blocking problems because she always keeps her ears nice and clean. The implication being that I don’t.

This is not true. I pick my ears with an assiduousness usually only reserved for my nose.

Possibly even too much.

And with my fingernails too which I’m sure is not recommended (which is daft when Nature herself has supplied the tools for the job). Sometimes I scratch too hard and the skin bleeds and scabs over. This, alas, does not help the removal of waxy deposits.

So it’s a bit of a catch-22 situation really.

I know there are such things as cottonwool buds but I am wary of inserting foreign objects into my ears. I had an uncle when I was younger who, I’m guessing, had a similar problem with his ears and was more vigorous in his attempts to dislodge the offending blockage. It was well known that he had perforated both eardrums by shoving a match into his lugholes and wiggling it about so hard he skewered the membrane.

In truth he was damned lucky the match never ignited.

So, for the next week or so while I wait for the ear drops to work you all need to stand on my left-hand-side if you wish to speak to me and enunciate loudly and clearly.

I may still ignore you but you can now kid yourself that it is down to a medical complaint and not just because I think you’re not worth listening to...

Ears, Nose And Throat

So I’m still pouring Olive Oil and bicarbonate of soda down my lugholes.

My hearing hasn’t particularly improved despite the distressing amounts of brown goo and hardened matter that I have removed in perfectly fossilized replicas of my meatus acusticus externus – hmm? Wasn’t that a song by Ian Dury? In fact, despite my daily endeavours things seem to have slightly worsened in the old hearing department.

On the bright side though the skin of my inner ear is beautifully soft and fragrant. Anyone wishing to dip an olive into my ear – or even an entire salad – do feel free.

I have noticed though that as my hearing dysfunction continues there are sundry knock-on effects. These knock-on effects just highlight to me the sheer interconnectedness of all my internal tubes. The back of my nose and throat feel constantly irritated and thick with mucus. The sound of my own voice sounds deafening to my own ears and like I am speaking underwater. Unlike the popular myth that Deaf people speak louder I have found the opposite to be true; I am speaking so softly that my wife is saying, “what?” to me more than I’m saying it to her.

However, I am hopeful that all this auricular irrigation is having some kind of positive effect (even if it is occurring in slow increments) as I have noticed that, over the last few days, my sense of smell has noticeably improved. I am suddenly noticing ambient smells that have previously past me by. Some of these are even pleasant. The smell of cooking. The smell of household cleaning agents. The smell of Voldermort blackening and curling up around the edges like old newspaper in a bonfire.

Some of these will no doubt give you a clue as to some of the weekend’s activities.

Some smells, however, are less than pleasant.

In particular the smell of mothballs that emanated from the six and a half foot giant who plonked himself down next to me in the cinema over the weekend while I feasted my eyes on Hermione, Harry and Hogwarts.

I didn’t think people still used mothballs but plainly I was wrong. The smell was overpowering. The guy reeked of it. No sooner had I lost myself in Gringotts than my very own Hagrid would shift an armpit and release the moth-killing mustiness of what must have been decades and decades of mothballs lying dormant in a drawer somewhere.

“Why? Why have you come out like this?” Was the question that constantly ran through my mind as I angled my good ear to the speakers. “You’re youngish – no older than middle aged – and you are accompanied by a woman of relatively attractive persuasion. Why are you mothballing your jumpers?”

Hold on, a minute. Jumpers in July?

Sigh. I guess that’s the clue, isn’t it?

This guy obviously lives with an elderly mother or perhaps even his granny.

She still gives him homemade wool knits for Christmas and packs him off to work with a cheese and pickle sandwich and a scotch egg every day. Bet he takes a spoonful of cod liver oil every night too when he’s dressed in his jimjams.

He’s a good boy.

He’ll no doubt go far.

Just sadly not far enough.

What did you say, Harry? Smelly armus? You’re not far wrong, mate. You’re not far wrong.