7:40am Tuesday 30th April 2013
By Barrie Hudson
TOMORROW at 6pm in the Great Western Hospital’s lecture theatre, an ear, nose and throat expert called Deepak Gupta will deliver a free public health talk about snoring, its causes and its possible treatments.
Obviously most of the audience will be men, as the only women present will be kind-hearted souls who’ve come along on behalf of men too embarrassed to acknowledge their affliction in a public place.
This is because women do not snore, and any man who suggests they do is deluded at best and a Neanderthal agent of the patriarchal orthodoxy at worst.
Women are right when they insist it’s men who do the snoring, and that if we think they do it too, we are either hallucinating or confusing our own snoring with their delicate, mouselike breathing.
No sleeping woman ever made a noise like a sawmill catering for a sudden upsurge in demand, and no sleeping woman ever did that disconcerting thing where a person sleeps completely silently for most of the night, but at random intervals makes a sudden noise like the gates of hell opening and Satan playing the Lost Chord on a giant Bontempi electronic organ, knocking slates off roofs and sending clouds of startled birds into the sky for miles around.
Above all, no sleeping woman ever did that even more disconcerting thing where their partner gets used to the sound of their breathing, only for that sound to stop without warning and give way to a terrifying silence – and then, just as you’re blearily starting to wonder whether you should start CPR, hitting you with one of those Satanic lost chords I just mentioned.
Nope, only men snore, and I’m delighted that Mr Gupta will be enlightening his audience with information about all the latest treatments.
As something of a snorer myself, I’m familiar with a selection of cures, having had them tried out on me at various times. One, for example, is to gently move the snorer slightly, so his altered position will leave his airway clear.
This can be accomplished quickly and efficiently by applying a fist to their solar plexus using about as much force as you’d need to win nice prize on one of those fairground punchbag machines.
Another technique is to slightly disrupt his snoring by applying gentle pressure to his nostrils.
This can be done with the fingers, but the best results are achieved with a pair of pliers or an adjustable spanner.
If these techniques fail to stop his snoring, his sleeping partner may have to muffle the noise slightly in order to enjoy a restful night’s sleep.
Tucking the duvet tightly around his nose and mouth is a good starting point, but if the snoring persists one might have to use a more effective muffler, such as a pillow over the face held in place by a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, or a sturdy supermarket ‘bag for life’ placed over the head and tied at the neck with a foot of clothesline.
I WAS interested to hear about the emergency services training exercise at the Cotswold Water Park the other day.
It involved an imaginary mid-air collision, real wreckage and a selection of volunteer ‘casualties’ mimicking the symptoms of assorted injuries.
For total authenticity in future, I suggest having the ambulances chased by people pretending to be no-win, no-fee lawyers.
He’s not Satan, he’s a very naughty boy
THE police are appealing for information after the latest spate of graffiti in Swindon.
I notice that the recent crop includes the words ‘Worship Satan’ and various symbols clearly intended to be all spooky.
The person responsible is clearly hoping we’ll see him as the town’s answer to the late Aleister ‘Great Beast’ Crowley. This is a pity, as I have a feeling he’ll turn out to be some tragic little twerp who still lives with mummy and daddy, and who’ll probably cry when he’s caught.
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