2 for 1 week - THE ULTIMATE COLD REMEDY plus CLEAN EATING SMOOTHIE

Unless you're one of those guys who has to live in some sort of tank or bubble, you've probably had a cold - and by one of those guys who has to live in a bubble I mean someone with an impaired immune system who can't come into contact with pathogens, as opposed to arsewit 'magician' David Blaine doing another dreary stunt. He doesn't have to live in a bubble of course and just periodically chooses to, although ironically it would be a whole lot better if he did have to live in one full time and then also the bubble floated out to sea and was eaten by a kraken.

But anyway, when you have a cold, people will almost certainly suggest you have either hot honey and lemon and/or chicken soup to help you feel better. The theory being that these are tried and tested cures - chicken soup is even known as 'Jewish penicillin', which probably says a lot more about a frightening lack of oversight at Israeli branches of Boots than anything else.

However, I'm a scientist - I own a lab coat and everything - so obviously I know these 'cures' are complete bullshit. Sure, the ingested warmth can make you feel better and it's always good to keep up your calorie and liquid intake when poorly, but that's it - they'll no more cure you than sacrificing a piglet to Skeletor on a full moon will. Even the vitamin C from the lemon doesn't actually do much of anything: you may as well have a pint of weak lager with some of the Ribena left over from last week in it instead.

So, as these well-known remedies are a complete crock, it seems like the ideal time to drag them into the 21st century world of convenience food AND give them some genuine effectiveness to boot. Not only that, my method gets them both out of the way at the same time so you can get back to your busy modern lifestyle all the sooner (or at the very least you can move onto that weak lager all the sooner). Therefore, I give you...

THE ULTIMATE COLD REMEDY

Well if nothing else, the packaging is remarkably coordinated.

Now you might be thinking 'man, that's going to taste awful'. But I've got a surprise in store for you, because it didn't - it just tasted almost entirely awful, with a very small caveat. Before we get onto that though, I should also point out this wasn't me just grabbing 2 things from a shop that both happened to be made of powder: there was some logic to my thinking. For one thing we have the whole package: drugs for actual effectiveness against cold symptoms, a hot lemon drink, chicken soup, and even noodles for slow release carbohydrate energy. And for another, it's a tried and tested flavour combo: people up and down the country, and probably left and right the country too, enjoy the popular Chinese dish of lemon chicken every day. Admittedly it's not made in quite the same way, but it's not like I pulled the pairing totally out of my arse. Which is just as well, as not even I'd be down to eat arse-paired foods.

If you'd like your own relatives to look at you in a funny way, you will need the following to play along at home:

Equipment:

A kettle

A fork

A mouth

Hopefully you can manage at least 2 of these - you can probably substitute a biro for a fork if you're desperate, but a better use of it would be to go down Argos and use the biro to fill in the little form and buy yourself some bloody forks. What are you, a hermit?

And just for the terminally idiotic: Lemsip is real drugs, guy. Don't take it if it'll make you sick, don't take it if you're not old enough to, follow the instructions on the packet and don't take too much of it etc. etc. And if you do and you make yourself well rancid, it's not my fault OK? But hey - thanks for hopping out of the gene pool, dingus. Right, arse-covering disclaimer over.

Cooking instructions:

Really? OK. Boil the kettle up, and while that's doing pour a sachet of Lemsip into the pot noodle thus:

Mmm, dry.

Then, add the boiling water, stir, and leave it for 2 minutes. Then top it up again, stir and you're ready to go. You'd probably rather it didn't, but I'm afraid it'll look like this:

This looks pretty awful, but it's worth bearing in mind this is what all Pot Noodles look like.
Mainly because they're pretty awful.

The results

No messing about with this one - it tasted fucking terrible. Pot Noodles are fairly rank to begin with, but are just about edible. This though had a bizarre sickly sweet tang to it that was at once repellant yet weirdly familiar - at first I couldn't put my finger on it, but then it clicked (and here is that caveat I mentioned earlier): it tastes remarkably like prawn cocktail crisps. Admittedly the worst bag of prawn cocktail crisps you can imagine that are damp, stink like something real bad has died and also make your teeth squeak, but prawn cocktail crisps nonetheless. So if you're a disturbingly massive fan of KP Skips, go for your life. Otherwise, wait until you have a heavy cold and then you probably won't be able to taste it anyway so can get it down you with ease (and in that respect, I suppose this is yet another success - hooray for me!).

But we're not done this week, oh by criminy no. Because once you've shifted your cold, you'll want to keep the next one at bay. Over the past few years you've no doubt noticed a ton of healthy and clean eating books, blogs and lifestyle gurus have sprung up, all ejaculating endless advice on how to live a dismal yet pure existence that'll reward you with relentless wellness and healthinessness. And unless you're a real big idiot you've probably realised they're almost uniformly absolute cobblers made up by people about as qualified to tell you about nutrition as I am to service your car (if the washer jets are empty I'm your man, otherwise you're fucked). But if nothing else I'm all for exploiting morons. Hence, for round 2 we have:

THE CLEAN EATING SMOOTHIE

For this one, I've decided to cover all the essentials:

5 of your 5 a day

Dental hygiene to keep those freshly capped shiny white teeth dazzling

A superfood

Detox

Antioxidants

Wellbeing

Soothing your voice, because clean eating food bloggers rarely shut up about how fabulous they are, so I assume probably have sore throats

Which I covered by adding:

Orange juice

Apple & mango juice

A bit of celery

A bit of carrot

Toothpaste

The contents of a green tea teabag (not the bag as well though - I'm not that mental)

Chia seeds (whatever the hell they are)

Some cough syrup

Coming to a hipster coffee shop near you soon, probably.

Lob all that in a blender, and you get this:

Looks remarkably like those shots of Petri dishes you get on the news whenever there's an ebola outbreak.

Blend it up for a minute or so - and in that time I suggest making yourself a cup of tea because by christ you're going to need something to take the taste away ASAP - and you'll be left with this:

It appears I've made a horrendous misjudgement.

The results

Do you like the taste of pineapple juice? Well if so that's a shame because this tastes nothing like that and is a complete abomination. Apart from being grittier than necking a handful of beach, the initial and almost entirely unpleasant sensation of citrus followed by your oesophagus burning from the cough mixture is then replaced by a lingering minty toothpaste tang. It's like someone ramming a flaming satsuma down your gullet then attempting to extinguish the fire by throwing handfuls of crushed polos at you while furiously smoking menthol fags. A level of self-punishment that's obviously awful, so will doubtless appeal to the sort of witless charlatan who thinks eating green stuff will somehow oxygenate your blood - hence I expect to hear from G. Paltrow about some sort of licence deal any time now, but in the meantime here's your teaser for next week. Yes, it's the one you've all* been waiting for:

*Well, one of you. Potentially two.

'EGGS IN A DITCH'

And now? Now I'm off to pick more of these pissing seeds out of my teeth.