This Is This

Now I’m not one to complain, as you know, but have you noticed that pubs smell?

Back when people were able to smoke on planes, when you had eighteen rows of tokers sucking them back, I don’t think you really noticed the distinctive cabin smell. They all smell the same. It’s kind of a heady mix of manmade fabrics, plastic, cheap perfume and custard.

Now to some of you, those may be the permeations of a good night out, but I find it bizarre how all planes smell the same.

Maybe it’s a CAA regulation that I don’t understand. They could bottle it and call it Fish Or Chicken, Mile High or Doors To Manual.

Anyway, that’s not why we’re here. Pub smells, right?

Cigarettes make everything smell. My mum smelled of Opium (the perfume, not the drug) and Kent (the brand of smokes, not the county). Had she chucked the weed, I’m sure I’d able to draw on nicer childhood things like apple crumble, heavy knits, the lavender from her garden and Boots hand cream.

Pubs, anyway.

They smell of wet wood, old carpet, beer and chips. This is what I would imagine South Yorkshire would smell like after the recent floods. Oh come on, you have to laugh.

It’s a good idea though. It will discourage those people who aren’t really smokers from having the occasional cigarette with their drinking buddies. I wonder if there’s such as thing as social cancer?

I think I’ve just revealed that I am very cheap. I’m sure the bar in the Novotel smells of French hostesses and chilled Muscadet (which are also permeations of a good night out), but I wouldn’t know, because I sometimes duck into Wetherspoons for a cheeky pint at lunchtime.

Having kids means most of my pub time is taken up in the evening, and where I work there’s a big divide between the nasty old boy pubs and the gastro-pubs, and sometimes I don’t feel like paying £12 for a plate of butternut squash risotto with a cranberry jus. Or coulis. Or whatever the fuck that it is.

Sometimes I just want a pint of Stella and a bowl of good chips.

Tomorrow you’ve got the Midweek Book, an audio post and arguably (meaning “I can’t remember”) a This Is This first. I’ll try it for a month and see how it goes. If you like the idea, send it round - I can’t reckon the currency in doing it if too many people aren’t getting kicks, because all this stuff takes time and effort and I’ve only got so much of either.

But I know you’re going to love tomorrow’s post. You have one day to find some headphones and the rest of your life to listen.

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I don’t often hand it to the French, language-wise, but they have one or two bon mots every now and then.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 7:42 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.