Shrug it off, they always tell you, as though one nonchalant shoulder-yoopla could launch a negative comment into the atmosphere, scattering it like a sneeze so it never ventures anywhere near your cerebral cortex again.

With a niggle burning like a hot ember in the centre of my chest, I watch the ducks by the pond beyond my garden. 

Swim, waddle, flap, fly.

Wouldn't it be nice to drench the niggle, waddle on out, have a quick, satisfying flap, then fly off into the sky like the proudest arrow, never to give a quack again?

Quack quack
QUACK.