h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This may not sound like a proper, or indeed sane question, but it's a genuine piece of research:

Does anyone have any idea what would happen if you attempted to snort lemsip, or something similar?

Discomfort.

Lemsip is a powder, and a few years ago, for a set of reasons probably not necessary to go into here, or, indeed advisable... I did an experiment, on myself; involving icing sugar.
Very very bad idea. Several days worth of nose blowing to remove a lot of residue left in the nasil cavities, and I can't imagine it would do any good; asides anything it'd probably damage the cillia, which work in teh nasil cavities to gradually move 'forign bodies' outwards to the vestabils of the nose (bits you stick your finger up to 'pick' ones nose), Additionally, I'd imagine anything like lemsip, (which like icing sugar, must have sugars and 'stuff' in it), would be a suitable media within which bacteria would have even more of a fun and nourishing time, tan just plain nasil secretionc...

Specifically in terms of lemsip (it contains paracetamol doesn't it?), there would potentially be some absorption of the chemicals in it, into the blood stream (such as happens when one snorts the mixture of baby milk forumlar talc, and cocaine, which constitutes most 'street cocaine' these days (so I'm lead to believe)) Though, with all the other, non-paracetamol/active drug ingredients in the lemsip, I'm guessing that would physically impinge or slow down any absorption of the paracetmol, decongestants etc in the lemsip... and any decongestant effect might be totally knocked out by having nostrails full of lemsip powder

snorting the icing sugar really was a bad idea, I'd not recomend it to anyone

Would the results be in any way funny?

I had an acquaintance a few years ago who, at a part at his flat in Birmingham decided to get all hard about doing tequila slammers.
His method was to drink the tequila straight, snort the salt and squeeze the lemon in his eye.
He encouraged a few people to do this.

On the morning after, waking up on the sofa with his mates around him in a boozy haze he got a visit from his landlord who walked into a scene of devastation with several unsnorted lines of salt still on the table. His face was a picture apparently.



Sorry, not really relevant, you just reminded me.


(Yes, he was a complete nutter)

(if you'd have said, that was a flat in London, rather than Birmingham, I'd have been convinced it sounded like a party I went to a few years back!)

Funny?;
For whom?;
yes, it might be constewn as funny, to an observer, fo the huge sneezing fit, that occurs immediatly after snorting icing sugar, the waterying eyes, coughing, spluttering, and then just general feeling of ickyness and desire to blow ones nose, that ensued afterwards.
In all honesty, my only defence for having snorted icing sugar like this, would be for me to say, either I was drunk, at the time, or did it for a bet, sadly, neither was the case; I was just bored one day. I get into more trubble and stupid sutations now, from being boared, than I ever did back in my hazient days of extreme drinking and wreckless...
Mind, its difficult to recall whether the snorting icing sugar whilst sober, due to boredom, was worse than eating a whoel tin of cat food, when drunk, for a bet. at least the latter had the being drunk bit, to slightly dampen the experience at the actual time.

The idea in fact came to me as a result of a story I heard from the bloke who lives above the shop where I worked. A party he was hosting had a small quantity of vodka left and someone announced that they had heard you could snort it off a spoon. Dave went first and was in far too much pain to be able to prevent the others all having a go in their turn. He too was several sticks short of a bundle.

If I made a fictional character snort lemsip would the results be amusing?

I'd think the vodka would do some serious damage, being snorted.
Another nearly hospitalisting myself moment of... more showing off than bordum, whilst sober (to start with), was opening a half bottle of vodka, and downing it neat. I'm sure a scan of my stomach would probably reveal scarring; that was what it felt like.... Although, to save face, and in a never to be repeated moment of butchness, I manly stomached the entire half a bottle, and didn't let my body go with its first instinct, of rejurgitating the lot
Felt rahter drunk quite quickly though.
ahh... those sweet innocent days of my youth, and the wreckless abandon of those, in their youth who do not know better. hmmm... actualy thinking about it, I wasn't that young, and really should* have known better Just plain stupidity then I guess

I've never snorted anything but I've accidentally inhaled powdered icing sugar from the tops of mince pies and cake in the past. That is unpleasant enough in itself - so I should imagine your fictional character would dissolve into very, very nasty gasping, spluttering, screaming and so on. Which might be black humour if you phrase it right. I can imagine you'd resort to snorting gallons of water to flush your nasal passages. Holding your head under water and breathing in through your nose sort of response - which might be funny too. As long as your character is supposed to be a clown

Lanza; that is exactly what happens; imagine your accidential slight* snorting of icing sugar, then magnify that a million-fold, if you, as I did, actually 'do a line of icing sugar'. That was such such a bad idea. Though I'm sure I've had and evoked, worse ideas since and before

Snort water? Yes.
Snort then Snork each nostril in turn -three times each, maybe four sometimes.

Done this in the shower each day since age of about twelve (shovelling & barrowing a ton or two of coal every now & then, into the coalole & coke into the cokeole while living with aunt anuncle).
It clears things out & I like to think it gives a chance for my system to fight back in that reservoir of infection. (I get very few colds etc though a few days' sniffles aren't unknown).

Thanks for all the insights guys. Anyone got anything else on this?

I knew a bloke who told me he'd snort lemon juice the moment he noticed that scratchy feeling you get at the back of your soft palate that means a cold is coming on, and he swore that it stopped it dead in its tracks every time.

I tried it once and decided the cold was far less unpleasant.

I had a really really really unerving dangerous thought, a couple days back, whilst making chilli. The sort of thought I have, which really scares me about my own sense of, well, sense.... I was making chilli... I was using chilli powder... and I started contemplating what would happen if I snorted some... luckily, at the time, I didn't act on this inexplicible thought... still a worrying thought to have, nonetheless

I thought you'd learned the hard way about chilli a year or so back 2legs.

Yes. YOu'd think so wouldn't you? I know* it'd be such a stupid, bad idea... but... yet... a bit of my brain is gently mummoring 'go on.... just try it....'

For those unfortunate episodes - or routinely as a clearer-outerer, there's a cheap treatment.
It comes from roses - shower roses.

Snort then Snork a little water, each nostril, L R L R L R then again if appropriate.

This seems to reset the nasal (whatsitcalled, one nostril naturally more open than the other, switching over every few minutes?), opening up both nostrils for a while.

It also (I suspect, without real evidence) clears out, daily, two reservoirs of potential infection, thus giving the body a better chance to fight back (I almost never catch a cold - but am still prone to those cold weather wet-nose sniffles).



So there. Thus Sprach ZaRoddledy.

I did it. I was desperate to eat my tea without suffocating. It was unpleasant but it had miraculous results. It was like a stringy squid was trying to escape from my nostrils and mouth for about 20 minuets.. Then I felt fine. The paracetamol relieved my chest pain. And the caffeine gave me a slight buzz. The next day I had a slight pain in my kidneys but it was much better than my cold was and it soon passed. I would do it again in the right circumstance.

You did what - icing sugar, lemsip, chili powder, salt ... ?