Would you like me to service your mattress, Sir?

You probably won't believe me, but I spent last weekend selling mattress cleaning services at a trade fair in Bangalore. Arun asked me if I, as an "English Doctor", could enhance his friend's launch of a dust mite busting hoover in India. Now, I don't mean that this vacuum is now orbiting the earth, killing dust mites in its wake, sporting a figurehead of majestic proportions, but that this is the first time such a product has set toe in India.

Being game on for most things I have never tried, with the exception of unexpected nudity, I thought, well why not. I agree there may be a slight conflict of interest and I did feel a little bit like a hooker selling myself, but it was a real laugh. Apparently someone expressed "An Interest"but was politely put off- if I'd only known that all I have to do to get noticed is to wield a vacuum cleaner - 50y of feminism has clearly made no impact - I still wouldn't do any housework.

It will be of little surprise to many of you to learn that a country, which has not even a passing acquaintance with the principles of health and safety, whose people regularly pile all their nearest and dearest on a single moped, none of them with helmets, nor any road sense, is unlikely to be concerned about the effects of living with dust mites in their mattresses. And so it proved to be. Our descriptions of what would happen if you left your mattress un-dustmite eradicated, became more and more outrageous until, at one point Arun was trying to claim the dust mite pooed out twice as much as it ate, which is clearly an impossibility, but definitely sounds scary. People's reactions varied from wanting to see a dust mite; wanting to try out the hoover; wanting to buy the hoover and thinking, having seen the magnified picture of a dustmite, that we were selling prawns or squid.

This week, luckily, I have re-engaged with my normal profession by teaching 2nd year medical students the joys of managing diabetes in the community.