I have a pretty good sense of smell and most of the time I'm perfectly happy that way.As senses go, it seems to be comparatively under-rated. If you asked most people which of the five senses they'd least like to lose, I doubt whether many would choose smell.
Even so, the sense of smell is a strange and fabulous thing that seems to operate at a more basic level than sight and hearing for example. It is so much closer to 'animal' and can trigger memories and emotional responses with an extraordinary precision.
The less primitive senses just haven't got that sort of gut instinctive immediacy.
I'm fond of many of those popular 'good' aromas; freshly ground coffee, just-baked bread, freshly cut grass etc. but there are other, less universally acknowledged, yet equally delightful smells that will stop me in my tracks every time.
So, allow me to introduce:
- Car or motorcycle exhaust fumes bearing the unmistakeable hint of "Castrol R".
- "Rozalex" industrial barrier cream.
- The combination of cigar smoke and orange peel that will always say "Christmas Day" to me.
- Misty November evenings.
- Fairgrounds, particularly that weird firework/electrical Dodgem car smell.
- The piano showroom at "Sounds Great" in Heald Green.
At the moment, there's a rather unpleasant smell in the Land Rover. It's sort of musty with a vaguely vegetable undertone and yet I can't find any trace of escaped vegetables in the vehicle.
It's like driving around in a compost heap. If the weather wasn't so unremittingly grey and chilly at present I'd drive with the windows permanently open to try and clear the air.
I'll keep you posted.
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My Dad always swore he could detect Porsche cars from the exhaust fumes distinctive smell. I also recall a university field trip with Prof McGregor and Prof Young. McGregor was a bird expert, and every other tweet he would look up and proclaim it must be this Tit or that Warbler. After half an hour of being thoroughly one-upped, Prof Young stuck his nose in the air and said "I'm positive I smelled a fox!"
ReplyDeleteI wonder, could your composty smell be hay that has warmed up and started rotting?
The smell of aircraft fuel always reminds my husband of Hong Kong - he used to live there, right under the airport flight path. For me it's the smell of carbolic soap... reminds me of school! The smell in your car sounds like 'damp' to me... is something leaking? (how strange.. a smell that sounds like damp...)
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to detect a Porsche from the exhaust smell, so I need to do more research on that.
ReplyDeleteAs for Prof Young, he's entirely believable. Once you've smelt a fox, you'll always recognise it if you catch a trace of it in the air.
Considering your 'school' smell, Billie Jane, I'd say you're lucky that it was carbolic soap, when I recall some of the less appetizing aromas from my school days. I would gladly swap 'cricket pavilion changing room' for 'aviation fuel'.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my car having a leak is concerned, it's pretty much in the design specification for a Land Rover Defender. When I bought it, brand new, the manufacturer's salesman even said,
"You do realize that it will let in water... they all do, even straight from the factory."
Mine's been pretty good though.
When there's a break in the present dreariness, I'll drag out all the carpetting and give the interior a thorough drying with an electric heater.
Modern schools smells of rancid farts from their junk food diet and lynx body spray that they spray a can of over their clothes at the end of every lesson and sweaty thumbs from texting! don't I just love the aroma of the kids I teach!
ReplyDeleteBlight-of-my-life spent a lot of years teaching. She assures me that your description of modern school smell, Frugal Life UK, is dead right.
ReplyDeleteI gather that "industrial quantities", is the phrase that best sums up the amount of body spray that is deployed by the average adolescent.