Jonny McCambridge: The nose job – from sneezing in Mozart’s house to an embarrassing encounter with my speech therapist

As a birthday treat, my wife had bought us tickets to a special performance of Mozart’s music in a house where he had once lived. The room in which the performance was to take place was celebrated for a reason I can’t quite remember – perhaps Mozart had composed there, or performed there, or eaten Weiner schnitzel in there.

What I do remember is that the circular shape of the room supposedly enhanced the acoustics.

About two days before the concert, I came down with a nasty cold. This was a particular strain which targeted my nose. When I sneeze, it is an explosive affair, leading to the probable death of several million brain cells. This infection resulted in me sneezing constantly.

Even more annoying was the runny nose which tormented me.

The concert in the little room was an intimate affair, with a string quartet performing and not many more than a couple of dozen people watching. We were told at the beginning of the importance of trying to remain completely quiet and still so as not to ruin the experience for all.

Perhaps if attention had not been drawn to the need for hush it would not have been so bad. As it was, once the idea was sown in my brain that I couldn’t make a sound, I was doomed.

For two excruciating hours the fabled acoustics of the Mozart room amplified every unfortunate sneeze and sniffle which I emitted. While the famed composer may have once prolifically produced some of the world’s most beautiful music in this space, I was prolifically producing something much less attractive from my nose.

At one point, as I suffered under the harsh glares, tuts, and head shakes from the other members of the audience, I stuffed two rolled-up sheets of toilet paper up my nostrils in a desperate attempt to plug the never ending river of snot.

I have been thinking about my Viennese nightmare a lot recently as I’ve been afflicted with a severe case of late-season hay fever. While the itching eyes are an annoyance, it is the effect on my nose which is contributing to the most misery.

I seem to be sneezing hundreds of times each day, with each eruption so violent that it seems to make the world shudder and threatens the delicate balance of nature of the universe. My nostrils run constantly.

I was at a work meeting last week where I had put on a new shirt in an attempt to make a good impression. Such efforts were surely undermined as I had to keep apologising to my confused hosts as I constantly produced tissues from my pocket to blow my nose. I had a dental appointment where tricky root canal work was interrupted at a delicate moment by a severe bout of sneezing.

There is, of course, an obvious physical side to this problem with the symptoms I have described. Perhaps more profound though is the mental vulnerability that it exposes.

The misery of my nasal experience in Vienna or at my work meeting or in the dental chair is dwarfed by the embarrassment they have caused me. That sense of social awkwardness is the true ailment.

I’ve been aware for most of my life that I have an unhealthy reliance on paper tissues. I always keep a box close to my pillow in the bedroom. There is another in my office and one on the windowsill in the kitchen. There is a box in the TV room and even one in the conservatory in which I almost never sit.

I have several small convenience-sized packs of tissues in my car, and at least one in the pockets of every jacket and coat that I own. All of the pockets in my trousers are crammed with paper tissues and many a laundry load has been spoiled when I’ve forgotten to remove the tissues before loading the machine.

Every couple of weeks I will top up the stash of tissues. On the rare occasion in which I find myself in a situation where I don’t have immediate access to a paper hanky, it produces a sense of low worry and annoyance perhaps more familiar when someone misplaces their mobile phone or car keys.

While the tissues are an essential accompaniment when I have the cold or hay fever, the truth is that I seem to need them even when I don’t really need them. On the driest nose day, I still find myself using the tissue many times, as if there is some comfort to be found in the familiar process.

I don’t know for sure why this is. I’m no psychologist but I’ve tried to search my memory for a clue. There is one incident which I keep coming back to.

When I was a primary school pupil, I suffered from some mild vocal impediments which required sessions with a speech therapist. I attended a couple of times a week as she taught me how to properly pronounce the R and TH sounds.

On one such session in her office I had a runny nose. As I was trying to persuade my tongue to form the tricky rhotic sound I let out an almighty sneeze. A large string of snot shot from my nose like one of Spiderman’s webs. The unfortunate expulsion attached itself to the end of the therapist’s desk and stayed there, fixed between my nose and the table, swaying slightly like a rope bridge across a canyon, for what seemed like an eternity.

Wordlessly, the therapist reached into a box under her desk and handed me a tissue. I don’t think I’ve been without one since.