Smell-o-vision

I have always been somewhat led by my nose, and am even more so as a non-smoker (I can smell a cigarette on a warm day at 100 paces).

Often this is great. I was just walking through Cornmarket in Oxford, a fairly dismal experience most of the time as they have been resurfacing it for years now, so there are hoards of people squeezing across tiny little walkways in bad moods and the smell drifts from KFC (very bad) to Lush (not much better).

But today the resurfacing had reached that crucial point where they have to lay asphalt. Oh, the smell of fresh asphalt. I could live on that smell. It reminds me, though I am not sure why, of long hot childhood summers. It makes me want to lie down and smell the road.

Other top smells of the week have included Sunday lunch coming out of the kitchen at the Marsh Harrier, mingling with the smell of fresh beer and the smell of the Observer to create something quintissentially British and great... and the smell I got when I opened my long lost dishwasher after I first used it yesterday: clean, shiny and nostalgic all at the same time.

But sometimes it is not great. I sat behind someone on the bus whose clothes had that smell you get when you leave them in the washing machine too long and then dry them badly. I cannot bear that smell. It is the smell of neglect and depression and no central heating. I would like to live in a world where nobody's clothes smelt like that.

joella