I survived a month in India with only one run-in with mosquitos - even then, it wasn't that bad. Mild bouts of itching for a few days, nothing that I couldn't ignore with the help of a couple of beers.

I lived in Italy for a whole year, which left me with a belief that mosquitoes simply don't like my blood. Everyone else I know got destroyed by them, but not me. Yes, I was smug about it, and yes, I probably deserve all of the mosquito ill-fortune that has come my way since then.

But who would have thought the latest and most severe round of mozzie warfare would come in Berlin, a city that regularly endures temperatures of -20°, and, this summer at least, has only shown the briefest glimpses of warm weather? Not me, that's for sure.

So, after my week on English Camp near the Olympiastadion, I have twelve massive red welts all over my legs. They are itchy, they are painful, they look like mini-volcanoes. What I fear is what lies inside those volcanoes - it could be something as innocent as a festering globule of gloopy pus, or (and I am beginning to fear that this is the more likely option), there are baby mutant mosquitos in there, capable of surviving sub-Arctic temperatures, reproducing using the human body as an unwilling host, bursting forth when ready, splitting the host open (or, even worse, just splitting the legs, thereby rendering the host unable to play football).

I think I can feel one about to burst forth already.

You've been warned.