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Equality of smell

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I’m not sure what to make of all these smelly men I’ve been looking at recently. I look at them because I smell them first, then turn my head in the direction of the most subtle scents and stare into the face of one of those ubiquitous metrosexual types who insist on wearing perfume during daylight hours.
There used to be a time when one could take genuine macho pleasure in the smell of a woman, fairly safe in the knowledge that the wearer of any scent other than Old Spice was female. And the more subtle the smell the more stylish the female, one could be sure. But these days one just doesn’t know. I blame television advertising, showing beautiful young women manhandling beautiful young men just because they smell like beautiful young women. What young man could resist that?
Real men used Old Spice. Everybody knew what it smelled like and nobody mistook it for perfume. It came out of a sturdy little bottle with a drawing of a ship on it, conjuring up images of adventure and romance in faraway places. Whenever I see a bottle of Axel or Diesel, two of the many male perfumes now crowding the market. I think of hours spent freezing to death in a garage while a mechanic squirts grease at my car, or the short time I spent as a fishermen getting sick over the side because of the stink of diesel fumes and gutted fish.
I’d be more inclined to wear perfume if the smells were more down-to-earth. For me, there is nothing more reminiscent of time and place than a smell. The pungent whiff of curry passing an Indian restaurant, the aroma of fresh coffee first thing in the morning, the smell of freshly cut grass before the field comes into view or of salt water and seaweed before reaching the coast. And sometimes, perhaps only once or twice in a lifetime, the smell of something unidentifiable that brings one back to one’s early childhood.
One of my favourite smells is that of a new car, and I know this is a smell many other men enjoy. So why not bottle it and sell it? Why not market the bouquet of a newly-opened bottle of vintage wine, or the delightful smell of a good cigar being smoked? Those with an artistic bent could smell of linseed oil and turpentine, while academic types could walk around smelling of mouldy old books or brand-new ones, as they choose. Businessmen on the make could smell of parquet flooring and sporting types could smell of healthy sweat by simply not washing.
But there is a bright side to all this nonsense, as anybody who has ever sat on a crowded bus in the rain will know. No longer does it smell like the locker room of a rugby club after a game, but more like a cocktail of deodorants, after-shaves, colognes and perfumes, with not a hint of the sweat and dirty socks of days gone by. And perhaps best of all in a country which has still not achieved full equality of the sexes, one step in the right direction is that we all smell the same.


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