What do you do when even the experts have no clue?

Why is it so hard to get good advice these days? For example, I had a cough in October last year that seemed to go on forever. I tried to ignore it, then down copious quantities of honey and lemon, but when I became bored of coughing up my spleen, I headed to the pharmacy who suggested that I should try some cough medicine. When I asked which one, she merely said "this one is good; it tastes of strawberry". Really! That's your basis on what sort of medicine to pick from? I then proceeded to head to the Supermarket to see what they had. I did ask an assistant, but to be honest I might as well have channeled Barney the Purple Dinosaur. He seemed to have an affection for the words "um" and "uh", and kept saying "I dar' now, mate". He did attempt to work out which was cheaper overall, but seemed to shut down every other part of his body, including blinking, as he concentrated 100% on basic addition. I ran away before he overloaded and exploded, naturally.

The doctor was my next port of call, as you'd imagine. However this only served to confuse me even further: apparently, cough medicine doesn't even work at all! Huh?



This is because a cough is a necessary reaction to clear an obstruction, and overpriced fruit-flavoured syrup isn't going to convince your throat that this reaction is overrated. This makes sense to me, now it has been pointed out, and has saved me a sum of money that the Supermarket man is probably still trying to work out, but the fact that there is so much in the way of differing advice between so many "experts" is somewhat concerning. Diets are just as confusing as well. Dr Atkins told us we can eat what we want (which is what I want to hear from a diet) so long as it is only some kinds of food (which is NOT what I want to hear), other diets are so rigid that you'd think a single breath is half your calorie intake. One currently suggests that you should pierce a part of your ear to suppress appetite! I'll stick to the "Max-diet", which consists of eating whatever the hell I want and gymming off the excess. It doesn't help me tone my abs, but it is sure easier and tastier than any of the others.

If I can't trust a pharmacist to tell me which is the best medicine, or even if medicine is even needed, how can I trust the advice a Solicipede gives me won't land me in financial or legal doo-doo? I could ask Google, but as literally anyone can answer via the Interweb, even Supermarket man once he's finished with advanced maths and moves on to advanced typing can claim to know the answer to anything.

However, I think I've found the answer!

I'll simply refer all of my further questions to Stephen Fry. If there's one person in the world I'd trust to either know the answer or be honest and say "I don't know", it's him. Plus, He'd be a damn sight more interesting to speak to than the Doctor, trolley-boy or a dead Nutritionist combined!

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