mostly david ephgrave

It's fair to say today peaked before 10am for me.   For the past few months I’ve put up with fluctuating hearing in my right ear; it started towards the end of my run in Edinburgh in August and reached its worst during the week of September’s Mostly Comedy, when Old Rightie decided to completely shut up shop. The night of the gig was horrible, as I was performing in a vacuum with my voice placed front-centre and the audience barely audible at all (for once this wasn’t due to my material). My set went well, but it was an awful experience for me, as it threw my timing completely off-kilter; it’s very hard to deliver jokes when you’ve no idea whether you’re pitching things normally or if anyone’s even laughing. A few days prior to the gig, I visited my GP, who prescribed me a course of olive oil (like I salad being dressed with vinaigrette.) I was told to use a pipette to squeeze four drops of the oil in my ear four times a day, to s...

I’ve been deaf in my right ear all day today, thanks to some kind of Eustachian tube shenanigans, either caused by a low-level infection or just a build-up of earwax (lovely image) and it’s really been getting me down. I had similar problems off and on towards the end of my time in Edinburgh, which I took just to be illustrative of me being run down. I’d fully intended to see the doctor when I got home, only to find it had seemed to clear up - until today that is, when I’ve spent the whole day feeling like I’m underwater; it’s disorientating and irritating in equal measure, and may result in me buying an ear trumpet (which is the best kind of brass instrument). I’ve had a long history or ear problems, from suffering terribly painful infections as a child resulting in me having grommets fitted, to being hit with labyrinthitis in 2010: a condition that has never really gone. I’m not thinking for a moment this instance will be anything as bad as the t...