I’ve had a stinking cold this week – and I’m longing for good advice

Heavy and light colds tend to pass more quickly than middle-of-the-road ones. But should I stay in bed or continue mixing with others?

How to define the cold that’s ruining your day? There’s a hierarchy. We start with the sniffle, the mere runny nose, scratchy throat or just feeling a little off. This is the slight cold. The nose becoming more blocked than runny, and a cough coming into play, entitles you to call it a heavy cold. Any of the aforementioned symptoms worsening, accompanied by hotness, shiveriness, aching and general misery, gives you the right to call it a stinking cold. There’s also a malady known as man-flu, but I have no truck with such a lazy, gender-specific categorisation.

The only good thing about the stinking cold is that you have the green light to do sod all and repair to bed. This was me for three days this week, and it has firmed up a theory I have long held that you’re better off getting a stinker because it tends to come and go and be done with more quickly than the other varieties. This theory, I should point out, is based on my lived experience rather than any clinical expertise or any kind of research. Sorry – I felt too ill to bother with anything of the kind.

The kind of cold I really can’t bear is the middle-of-the-road, magnolia, vanilla, neither-here-nor-there type. When you don’t feel up to doing much, but neither, if you’re honest, are you feeling ropey enough to justify doing nothing. And these kinds of colds, for me anyway, seem to drag on for ever.

But seriously, what do you do? What’s the right call for your own health and for others in your workplace or friendship group? Do you stay at home for the greater good, or do you soldier on bravely and be quietly commended for toughing it out, while running the risk of infecting friends, enemies and workmates with a dose of whatever you’ve got?

The NHS advice is as useful and detailed as it can be in what is inevitably a grey area. It’s well worth reading, but boils down to staying at home if you have a temperature and maybe going to work if you haven’t, while acknowledging you might still be infectious, so be careful with your coughs, sneezes and general hygiene.

Message received and understood. Be careful out there. May any colds you get this winter be as light as a mere dusting of snow.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist