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How to cure a virus

11th September 2007 by Helena 2 Comments  

I am ill. I have a temperature, a very sore throat and I ache everywhere, mainly in what feels like my kidneys but I can’t be sure. I hate being ill and am not a good patient. I am short-tempered, grumpy and feel terribly sorry for myself. To make matters worse the cat jumped on me at 5am so instead of sleeping through until maybe 8, I have to suffer another three hours of this ghastly virus.

I had an email from a retired Brigadier about the column in Sunday’s Sunday Times. It cheered me up enormously. I told the Brigadier (retired) that he had made me laugh on an otherwise pretty miserable day. I told him I was going to toast him with a glass of rose and hope that banished the illness. This was his response:

Vin Rosé. Non. My second in command Col Aylmer Bulstrode caught the virus whilst we were attending to the drains in Aden. The cure is to take to your bed, preferably a four poster. Place a top hat or something similar on the footpost, lie down clutching an opened bottle of whisky and imbibe regularly until you appear to see two hats. Then slumber, when you awake the virus will be gone and you merely have to cope with a monstrous hang over.

Fortuitously I have a four-poster bed. Now I just need to find a hat and some whisky. I may be some time…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Pet hates, blog --> Tagged With: virus

2 thoughts on How to cure a virus

  • Claire says:
    11th September 2007 at 2:34 pm

    Don’t forget a little hot water, not boiling, a spoon of brown sugar and a slice of cloved studded lemon to add to the whiskey. Of utmost importance is that it is prepared and served by someone else usually accompanied by a previously unread magazine and the newspaper already opened to the crossword page.

  • Irene says:
    30th September 2007 at 10:29 pm

    Agree with Claire. But I need to say, nothing beats the British sense of humor!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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