Roger Moroney: There's something in the air

There's something in the air that is making people sneeze. Photo / File

For the past three or so weeks I have lost weight.

Nothing notable, for the weight I have lost has been fluid.

Droplets from the eyes and small streams from the headland of nasal … runny nose, to put it plainly.

And for some reason, for there must be one, this has been the worst late spring and cusp of summer I have ever experienced in terms of liquid weight loss.

Oh yeah, and another thing, until the second week in November I think I sneezed 11 times - in my entire life.

For I have never been a sneezer.

But since that dawn of the second week of the last month of spring I have been sneezing about 11 times a day.

Before this sneezy surge arrived I should have taken shares in some tissue paper manufacturing empire for I'd have raised their profits and received a good divvy - enough to ensure every second box of the things would effectively have been gratis.

And so it came to pass (time, not more bloody liquid) that I was resting up with tissues in hand and the tranny issuing music and an appropriate tune emerged.

"Something In The Air."

A fine and memorable song from the years of my teenage wasteland by a trio of chaps who called themselves Thunderclap Newman.

"That's it," I gasped.

"There's something in the air."

Yes I agree, it doesn't take a genius to work that out, but the question I wanted Thunderclap to answer was "what is it?"

It is molecules of some … stuff.

Pollen stuff I guess, although as I noted earlier I have never experienced the effects of pollen stuff, if that's what it is, so severely in my life - until now.

Something is biting, and a couple of chaps I know have said the same thing.

They've never had it this bad before.

I have countered this condition by taking in liquid to replace that which I am losing (we'll leave it at that) and pondering music.

For hearing "Something In The Air" sparked me into sniffing out other songs which reflect my optic and nasal conundrum.

So over to Phil Collins.

"I can feel it coming through the air tonight," he sang, and I could only wipe by eyes and nossies in nodding agreement.

But what is it?

I thought of the late Rory Gallagher, my Irish guitar hero, for he once produced a great song called "What's Going On?"

Good question Rory lad … and maybe his Irish countrymen who perform under the U2 tag may have given this mystery in the air some thought.

Didn't they put out a song called "Whiff or Whiffout You?"

(Reader warning: It isn't going to get much better.)

Roger Moroney

Now I was but a boy edging into teenagehood when a band called the Troggs delivered a song which, if my dodgy memory serves me correctly, went along the lines of "I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my … nose?"

Oh, and the great Johnny Nash who emerged with "I can see clearly now …"

I wish I could say that.

Some may say it is the work of some clique of aliens in a faraway and pure air world who like a good laugh.

They may be sending something here in the darkness of the night, and then giggle through the lightness of day as they watch us more vulnerable creatures weep and leak.

However, I pin the blame on the pollen, although I always figured it was blown by a certain directional wind from the distant pine forests, and we haven't had many breezes from that immediate direction really.

And we've had plenty of rain which I though would dampen it, and the grassy pollens, down.

As I scribed that line, sneeze number seven arrived and I suspect number eight won't be far behind.

It's no longer just nose control … it's also a case of noise control.

• Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off-centre.