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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Essence of a city
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Recently, as a long time but now ex-resident of Liverpool, I posted on the Brits thread in All Saints:
quote:
I went to buy a new internet dongle for Pete this morning and noticed that on their smellies shelf they had a bottle of a new [to me] fragrance from Imperial Leather™ called Liverpool - the mind veritably boggles!
I imagine just a hint of The Albert Dock at low tide and a soupcon of the smell of the paddock after the Grand National.
So, choose a city and tell us what you think the city's Very Own Eau-de-Wherever would smell like.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Eau de Wellington: base notes of screwed up fish and chip paper with a hint of salty-oily harbour water and seagull dropppings
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Newport (Gwent)
Hot chips with salt and vinegar, oily salt water and mud.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
London should smell of other people's money.
(Actually it smells of car exhaust most of the time)
Brighton smells of salt and seaweed.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
A little bit nostalgic now, but the traditional Edinburgh Eau de Parfum is a blend of brewer's malt, salt-and-sauce, and smoke frae yer lum.*
It is, of course, called Auld Reekie.
*from your chimney
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Or, alternatively - Waater o' Embra
Base Notes: old stone, blood, piss
Heart Notes: tweed, whisky, chip fat, antiseptic
Top Notes: money, greasepaint, curry.
[ 03. February 2014, 14:17: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Newport (Gwent)
Hot chips with salt and vinegar, oily salt water and mud.
You forgot the cheese! Zooport is the home of cheesy chips.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Hugal
Shipmate
# 2734
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Posted
Preston Lancashire
It can only spell of one thing butter pie
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I have never done this trick in these trousers before.
Posts: 1887 | From: london | Registered: Apr 2002
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Or, alternatively - Waater o' Embra
Base Notes: old stone, blood, piss
Heart Notes: tweed, whisky, chip fat, antiseptic
Top Notes: money, greasepaint, curry.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Alternatively, you could call it 'Gardyloo'. Or 'Garde à l'eau', if you wanted to be posh.
Edinburgh: a city so smelly its nickname is 'Old Stinky'.
[ 03. February 2014, 14:27: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
When I lived in Salford, the back alley smelt of cat piss and burnt plastic wheely bins. The Irwell smelt of bleach, but now smells of mud. Now I live in Manchester, which generally smells of not much except for the occasional stench of a passing Camberwell carrot.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Northampton - shoe leather, beer (Carlsberg brewery), the smell of urine from the bus station, old wood and damp stone from medieval churches. The shopping centre often smells of pickled onion monster munch and I don't know why.
Brighton smells of sea air, candyfloss, seagull poo and money.
Eastbourne smells of chips, the sea, faded hotel furniture, soil from the billion floral displays, and kebab shops.
Coventry - cars and exhaust fumes, student nights out, medieval bricks, beer at the Godiva Festival, and the empty paddling pool in the War Memorial park.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
And what does an empty paddling pool smell like?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
Cambridge - good port and musty books with a hint of having just fallen into the river.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
And what does an empty paddling pool smell like?
Chlorine and damp plaster.
That would be a minor note in Dŵr Aberystwyth. The others would be salt, cheap suntan oil, beer, carry-out, chapel and old books.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
... the traditional Edinburgh Eau de Parfum is a blend of brewer's malt ...
I can smell that right now in my mind's nose.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
Manteca, California.
With just a faint whiff you check your shoes to see what you stepped in, but as it develops further (about 5 miles out from town) it acquires more of a sense of urgency and intensity, the dynamic interplay between the desire to hurl and the need to escape to a safe distance before stopping to do so. Running through this are the subtle undercurrents of death, rot, and, of course the city's namesake ingredient: lard.
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Oxonia Summer Nights, that evocative, exquisite blend of a wide variety of traffic fumes, mingled with tantalizing hints of musty books and airless rooms, the ripe odours of stale wine and spilt cocktails, well-used pavements, and the rich, ripe redolence of dustbins heated to a simmering perfection by the afternoon sun and allowed to ferment overnight.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
London .........
(Actually it smells of car exhaust most of the time)
Surely that's Delhi?
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
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Posted
As a frequent visitor to Liverpool, I think it smells mostly like the sea, but with occasional sweaty, boozy overtones of the Cavern Club.
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“Oh the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” ― The Day of the Doctor
Posts: 1189 | From: West of the New Forest | Registered: Sep 2010
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Plymouth used to smell of Farley's Rusks (remember them?) but now it smells of divers things (including Tom Daley's success).
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Belfast used to be literally perfumed. Gallagher's was a major employer, and the factory girls would sometimes appropriate some of the concentrated oils used for scented cigarettes - giving rise to the traditional dialogue, as they left the gates of -
'Ach, Aggie, yer stinkin' with perfume'
'Ach sure yer stinkin' without it'.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Aberdeen - a base note of sea-salt and fish, a whiff of radon from the granite buildings, and a top note of roses from attempts to secure another Britain in Bloom prize.
The scouring wind that whistles through the streets stops unpleasant smells from building up, and the bitter cold means that bins never warm up enough to get that "over-ripe" smell.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
Minneapolis' "Eau de Hipster":
A base of chain lube (from the fixie, natch) and flannel shirt, blended with moustache wax and craft beers. The bottle also plays music by a band you've never heard of...
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ferijen
Shipmate
# 4719
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Posted
I group up in a town with an Oxo factory (now long since gone). That's a particular pong...
Posts: 3259 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2003
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
My home town in Indiana smells of burned sugar from a massive corn syrup plant. Not the pleasantest of smells.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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The Rogue
Shipmate
# 2275
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Posted
Burton-on-Trent. Home of Marmite. Mmmmmm.
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If everyone starts thinking outside the box does outside the box come back inside?
Posts: 2507 | From: Toton | Registered: Feb 2002
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Diomedes
Shipmate
# 13482
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Posted
Chichester (in the 70s) had the overwhelming 'scent' from the Shippam's (meat and fish paste) Factory, combined with chlorine from the adjacent swimming baths. I guess things are different now the aforesaid factory is upmarket apartments and the pool is no more.
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Distrust simple answers to complicated questions
Posts: 129 | From: Essex England | Registered: Mar 2008
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
My home town in Indiana smells of burned sugar ...
Now you mention it, the town of Stromness in Orkney used to smell of sugar from the Orkney Fudge factory.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
Kidderminster, where I used to live, ponged of burned sugar beet. It smelled like burned roast beef. Not nice.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Christchurch used to smell of coal fires, the dank smell of the Avon, and Canterbury Breweries.
Since 22/2/11 it isn't so much a mixture of smells as the overwhelming presence of dust as buildings are demolished, earth is laid bare and rebuilding begins, along with a few grace notes of flowers planted where once there were buildings and the scent of pine as the wooden framing for new buildings is cut.
In my suburb it's the occasional whiff of sewerage as the infrastructure is fixed.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
Essence of Deishu* comes in summer and winter varieties.
Summer - sea spray, rotting fish, sawdust, mildew, backcountry bodies, evergreens, bear shit, and espresso.
Winter - freezing sea spray, wood smoke, smoked fish, snowplow exhaust, backcountry bodies, evergreens, 2-cycle oil, and espresso.
I suspect Carex and Irish Lord recognize the notes. are probably even nostalgic about them.
*Deishu is the traditional name for Haines, where I currently live. our cologne would apply to probably any community in the Pacific Boreal Rainforest.
Interior Alaska would be similar, only no mildew, dust instead, and instead of sea spray it would be ski wax.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Signaller
Shipmate
# 17495
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Posted
Fleetwood - fish meal from Isaac Spencer's, and something unidentifiable but nasty from the ICI.
Both gone now, replaced by damp walkers and lozenges.
Posts: 113 | From: Metroland | Registered: Jan 2013
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Any town in the Welsh Valleys: 'You can smell the coooooooal' (as my grandmother used to say). Of course, you can't smell much physical coal these days, but it's psychological coal ('Hiraeth') providing a welcome in the hillsides and calling back all those who have left the fold to seek their fortune in other places.
Meanwhile, thank God that Peterborough and Bridgwater have got rid of their respective most foul pongs.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
I suspect Carex and Irish Lord recognize the notes. are probably even nostalgic about them.
I might add red rubber boots finally taken off after a long day in the woods.
There is also a particular smell, taste and color of drinking water filtered through the muskeg, even before reaching your tap via a few thousand rotting salmon.
[ 04. February 2014, 23:59: Message edited by: Carex ]
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Not sure if Galilit is talking about the same Wellington as I am, but:
Rain on the air, coming fast and horizontal (and I agree about the undertone of seagull).
Alternatively: coffee and laptops.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I attended college in Durham, NC in the 1950s. At that time it was the home of an extremely large cigarette factory. The smell of tobacco was always in the air.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Not sure if Galilit is talking about the same Wellington as I am, but:
Rain on the air, coming fast and horizontal (and I agree about the undertone of seagull).
Alternatively: coffee and laptops.
With top notes of snow on the Rimutaka's and butter melting on a wholemeal muffin
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
York smells of chocolate from the Nestle/Rowntrees factory. You'd think that's nice, but it's really not. It's a burnt smell that really puts you off the idea of chocolate...
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
... a burnt smell that really puts you off the idea of chocolate...
It would take more than a burnt smell to put me off chocolate ... ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
Los Angeles:
a blend of asphalt, oak, and orange blossoms with hints of pico de gallo, Korean barbeque, wine and salt air.
....and sushi.
[ 05. February 2014, 19:19: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
There is also a particular smell, taste and color of drinking water filtered through the muskeg, even before reaching your tap via a few thousand rotting salmon.
ambrosia.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
Manteca, California.
With just a faint whiff you check your shoes to see what you stepped in, but as it develops further (about 5 miles out from town) it acquires more of a sense of urgency and intensity, the dynamic interplay between the desire to hurl and the need to escape to a safe distance before stopping to do so. Running through this are the subtle undercurrents of death, rot, and, of course the city's namesake ingredient: lard.
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Until you set foot inside the waterslide complex-- after which is it all that with a thick frosting of far too much chlorine and Coppertone. And bad hot dogs.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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The Intrepid Mrs S
Shipmate
# 17002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Meanwhile, thank God that Peterborough and Bridgwater have got rid of their respective most foul pongs.
We used to live fairly near Bridgwater, when Mr. S and I actually worked on the British Cellophane site. That was the way to avoid the smell, which drifted off to pollute the town not that it needed much polluting...
Mrs. S, living somewhere more fragrant now ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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OddJob
Shipmate
# 17591
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Posted
Air of Emmerdale, as in the TV soap. (Is it still going?) No hint of Yorkshire Dales purity, interrupted by an occasional farmyard nasal cocktail, but a stench from nearby Bradford sewage works.
A pleasant contrast is the air surrounding the set used for the BBC's 'Doctors' soap. No explanation needed for the lovely Bournville aroma wafting that way if the wind's blowing in the right direction.
Posts: 97 | From: West Midlands | Registered: Mar 2013
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Detroit's is actually an essential oil. Motor oil plus oil from a deep fryer at the end of the day.
ETA: used motor oil, that is.
[ 06. February 2014, 01:28: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
And at risk of offending locals, San Francisco's low-end brand, Eau de Frisco, smells of piss and compost bins. Available all around Union Square, or anywhere tourists are found.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I subbed in the Tenderloin for a few months. The smell over there was a piquant mixture of piss, feces, alcohol, and puke (perhaps I should say, used alcohol.)It lay on the sidewalk like a layer of green ganache. It was carried through the air on a mixture of tobacco and marijuana smoke. You could feel the crud seeping into your pores as you walked up the street.
In my immediate vicinity the smell us usually-- lawn. Dry lawn, wet lawn, cut lawn. But every once in a while something magic happens-- the fog settles down over the town, zero visibility, humidity so thick your had gets wet it passes through the air, Then a wind comes from the west and infuses the mist with salt and slight fishiness, the smell of a million seashells being washed in and out of the tide. Lovely.
[ 06. February 2014, 02:02: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Not sure if Galilit is talking about the same Wellington as I am, but:
Rain on the air, coming fast and horizontal (and I agree about the undertone of seagull).
Alternatively: coffee and laptops.
With top notes of snow on the Rimutaka's and butter melting on a wholemeal muffin
Oh, the snow on the Rimutaka's - I'm homesick.
Wellington Railway Station used to have a particular smell when I was a child, but it doesn't now - it's just ordinary ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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