'Tis the season - and I'm delighted I've got it early

KNEW it was coming. I always know that it's coming. It’s just a worry about when it will actually come. Will it come on the day, before the day or after the day? Thankfully this year I think its come at just the right time...the first cold of the winter!

- MAL POPE

Mal's been under the weather.

(MAL POPE)

I know we all go through it, but for most jobs it’s just an unpleasant inconvenience. Whilst feeling uncomfortable, you can probably paint a house or service a car with a touch of flu. When your voice is the only thing that people will pay you for, well, losing it can be a disaster.

Maybe you can get away with it by telling your audience, I’m sorry but tonight, due to a particularly heavy cold that has gone down to my chest, I will be performing in the style of Barry White, but you can’t do that consistently.

If you try it night after night before too long you will probably start to perform a lot more like Marcel Marceau - the mime artist!

When you plan a big concert there are so many different things to take into consideration. Will the band be available, what about the guests, let alone the venue and technical staff?

Sometimes things change last minute due to unforeseen circumstances, but on the whole, once it’s in the diary everyone is pretty much committed. The one thing you can’t control is ... will I get a cold?

It’s still one of the hazards of being ahuman being. Thanks to the advances in medical science there are vaccines for diseases like measles or small pox, and thank God for those, but it seems a vaccine for the common cold is still beyond us. Yes, its just a cold. Usually three days to come, three days to feel rough and three days to go, but come on scientists, pull your fingers out!.