How vodka cured my fear of flying

I’ve discovered a brilliant way to cure my phobias. It’s so easy, so ingenious and so cheap (it cost me nothing), that I want to share it with as many people as possible. My technique will work its magic on any trivial or unreasonable fear you suffer from. Mine happens to be flying. Or it used to be. Until 28 July this year I hadn’t travelled in a plane, or even visited an airport, for 16 years. I was perfectly content as a flightless species, but my wife likes to flit off to the Med whenever possible and enjoy a week of sunstroke and food poisoning, so she booked us a holiday in the island paradise of Gozo, a tuffet of volcanic rock near Malta. I wasn’t keen to go but I felt I owed my wife a thank-you present for rearing our lusty little lad to the age of three without offering a single murmur of complaint — at least not while she’s asleep.