See the man with the amazing burning lug-'oles

’Fraid its nothing to do with that famous misheard lyric from the Desmond Dekker song. Last weekend me ears really were alight - ish.

My daughter is newly qualified in ear torching, or Hopi ear candle therapy, which is the proper name and sounds much less like something the Godfather's boys might have enjoyed doing. So having been irritated by tinnitus for some time I was eager to present myself as a sacrificial victim on whom she could hone her skills.

The process is simple and relaxing and the theory that the burning of the flame sets up a low level vacuum in the passages of the inner ear which lifts out obstructions is fully borne out. When we examined my ear candles to see what we had caught we found all kinds of shite, wax, grit, cake crumbs, small denomination coins, paper clips, pens, CDs, half eaten sandwiches, a mountain bike, mattresses and televisions and that lawn mower we thought the pikeys had stolen out of the garden.

And afterwards no tinnitus. The rushing, hissing sound - more like someone pissing in my ear that Cathedral Bells - had gone.

Now I have been rather unkind about some "new age" therapies in the past (or more correctly I have been unkind about the oddballs who promote them) but Hopi ear candles are great. If you suffer from reduced hearing, buzzing or ringing in the ears, earache (other than the kind caused by other people) or excessive earwax GET YOUR EARS SET ALIGHT.