Easily the most convincing evidence against creationism and the existence of a benevolent deity is the fact that human beings smell FUCKING DISGUSTING sometimes. Admittedly, animals DO smell worse. But they have the temerity not to live in houses, but instead stay outdoors where their own distinctive whiffs can disperse into the atmosphere. Except dogs. I think some humans only keep dogs so that there is something in the house even ponkier than they are. Why else spend money on a creature that licks its own bollocks and then comes and tries to lick YOU?
This is my top ten list of the foulest odours produced by that most flawed of living organisms, the human being:
10. Harry Monk
What keeps Kleenex in business these days is the internet and men’s cock champagne. This is the magical substance that the Catholic Church decrees to be so sacred that it must not be wasted outside of heterosexual-marriage baby-making duties and altar boys. It lurks innocuously at the bottom of my list, because it really isn’t particularly offensive and has the almost chameleon-like characteristic of looking like snot and smelling like bleach. So you can deposit it in the toilet and no one will be any the wiser. Unless of course you leave a copy of the Grattan catalogue open to the page where Mylene Klass is in her undies.
9. Feet
I’ve always wondered why black socks smell worse than white socks at the end of a day and give you a sensation beyond smell in which you start to believe that the moist sock itself has been rubbed furiously over your tongue. This often leads to a desperate appeal for the offending foot-cover to be removed, a short-sighted request when one is then confronted with the even more overpowering stench of French cheese and Somme-style trenchfoot. Should the perpetrator then employ the damp sock as a Kleenex-substitute for nefarious purposes with aforementioned Grattan catalogue in solitary isolation, then you might find some chart-climbing up to at least number 5.
8. Fingernails
But fingernails don’t smell, you say! It depends where you put your fingers. For that reason, fingernails don’t remain entrenched at number 8 but fluctuate according to the most recent browsing history. What does make them unique is that element of surprise. Few people would be foolish enough to “smell my finger” when offered. There is enough cynicism in the world today to assume some kind of rotten motive. But with training, we can all master the headlock, which disables the victim and leaves you free to hold the offending finger right under his or her nose. Personally, I find a few seconds’ rectum scratching to be the perfect aperitif to this.
7. Women’s bits on a bad day
Far too much of a taboo to elaborate on this one. Moving on…
6. Armpits
The London Underground was designed at a time when everyone had BO and as a result absolutely no one gave a shit about how they smelt. But then, with the development of antiperspirants and deodorants, people got a bit uppity about each other’s smells and at this point London Underground should have brought all of their handles down to waist level. Having your nose an inch from a darkened patch of shirt material belonging to another commuter is mildly nauseating at the start of a long, hot tube ride back from work on a summer’s evening. If it’s still there when you reach Cockfosters then the likelihood is you’ve already been sick down your own suit and was too doped on the armpit fumes to notice.
5. Which brings us to… Sick
The wonderful thing about sick is that it’s like yawning. Someone else does it and you can’t help but want to do the same as well. You feel it in the air, don’t you? Some tangible acidic fog that wafts swiftly in your direction, emanating from the floor-minestrone that you’ve just watched splattered onto the pavement with the ferocity of tsunami. Strangely, the smell doesn’t last. It has a kick, leaves an after-taste but within seconds you’re over it. Like having a vodka and Pernod shot.
4. Anuses
In the same way that you shouldn’t really treat Bruce Wayne and Batman as separate people, I have decided to synthesise poo and fart into one bodily odour and simply label it ANUSES. I never understand the look of shock on people’s faces when they smell your fart. “That’s disgusting!” they cry in horror. As if they expect intestinal gas coming out of your arse to smell like something other than shit.
3. Breath
This is a bit of a variable. Some people have breath that does in fact smell like shit. However, breath remains above shit in this chart simply because you can easily avoid smelling someone’s bum. You can’t avoid smelling their breath if you have to talk to them. That’s the worst thing about breath. You can’t say anything about it and you can’t get away from it. People don’t expect you to hang around if they shit or piss themselves, or get sick or if they’ve made a big sex mess in their pants; but they expect you to put up with inhaling their putrid carbon dioxide flavoured with turd/Italian sausage/last night’s garlic/a partner’s genitals.
2. Stale Piss
When I was growing up we had a toilet on each floor of our house. Yes, it were luxury. But the upstairs toilet had no window and relied on a very noisy extractor fan. Therefore, given that the bedrooms were upstairs and we only used this toilet at night and didn’t want to wake anyone, we all pissed in the dark. Over several years the carpet in that blackened recess of the house became so doused in nocturnal urine (which as we know is the worst, in fact fuck me it’s almost orange!) that the CIA wanted to hire out the room for purposes of interrogating suspected terrorists.
1. Belly Buttons
Now this might just be me. Or it might be anyone who doesn’t have one of those freakish sticky out belly buttons like John Hurt on a spaceship. Or maybe it’s a disease as yet undiagnosed. But belly buttons are my number one worst bodily smell for a simple reason. I can tolerate my own sick, my own piss, my own pits, feet and breath. And I positively ENJOY the fruits of my own anus. But I cannot, have never and will never be able to stick my finger in my own belly button for a brief moment and hold it up to within an inch of my nose without feeling like my very soul has burnt for eternity. You know that bit in Harry Potter when the Dementors come and he has the life sucked out of him? Have you ever noticed what they are doing? Holding out their elongated fingers, fingers that have been soaking in the slimy filth of their own belly buttons. Yes, that’s the killer whiff! Chew on some belly button fluff and see what I mean.
Thursday 12 April 2012
Wednesday 4 April 2012
Public Transport Bastards
I’m on a train. Quite possibly the most ubiquitous phrase on Twitter. Do you ever wonder what people did on trains before they had internet-enabled phones and personal music players? No, of course they didn’t fucking talk to each other, this is England, don’t be silly. It occurred to me yesterday, stood on the platform at West Hampstead overhead station, counting how many people that were distracted by their phones, how easy it must be these days for pickpockets. I judged this truism to be so profound that I took out my phone and tweeted it. And then tweeted, “Some bastard just stole my wallet.” Followed two minutes later by, “I’m on a train.”
There’s nothing like tube travel in London to bring out the belligerence in people. That and black bogeys. You know, those bogeys you find when you get home from a tube journey, bogeys that look like they’ve been scraped from the walls of a tunnel and grouted into your nostrils. I’m a self-righteous bastard (you may have noticed) and seconds before the train grinds to a halt, I can’t help trying to identify who is jostling for position with the intention of barging on ahead of the rest of us, from a rear-side or flank position, even before the passengers on the train have seen the doors open fully for them. Once I’ve identified this odious type of bastard, I’m in their way, feeling their tut on the back of my neck, foiled in their plans to grab that last seat before someone elderly or pregnant reaches it ahead of them. Should they employ Formula One over-taking tactics and slip past me, then I have to confess that the foot goes out and I wish them well with their trip.
Sadly, I drive a car with the same sort of paradoxically belligerent counter-belligerence; so in public I tend to be at constant risk of being punched in the face. So far though, the victims of my sanctimonious guerrilla warfare tend to be too cowardly to rise to the bait, which pretty much fits with their initial behaviour at which I am aggressively protesting.
As a consequence of having the polite bastard’s chip on his shoulder, my first act as London Mayor would be to employ train referees, armed with yellow and red cards. Yellow card for rudeness and a red if you make contact in the process. A straight red if you’re eating hot food on the train as well. Particularly McDonald’s. I’d rather put up with someone taking a dump on the seat opposite me, than watch, listen to and smell someone scoffing a burger over the course of half a dozen stops. If you’re on the Northern Line, people tend to do both at once.
Yellow for people who talk too loud as well. Straight red if they sit away from each other and do it. Buses are much quieter places. At least in the provinces, where there is more opportunity for the driver to put his foot down and treat us all to a Thorpe Park experience. That soon shuts you up. Watch out for buses with dislodged fingernails stuck into the metal bars and teeth embedded into the backs of seats. At least it stops people tweeting, “I’m on a bus.”
There’s nothing like tube travel in London to bring out the belligerence in people. That and black bogeys. You know, those bogeys you find when you get home from a tube journey, bogeys that look like they’ve been scraped from the walls of a tunnel and grouted into your nostrils. I’m a self-righteous bastard (you may have noticed) and seconds before the train grinds to a halt, I can’t help trying to identify who is jostling for position with the intention of barging on ahead of the rest of us, from a rear-side or flank position, even before the passengers on the train have seen the doors open fully for them. Once I’ve identified this odious type of bastard, I’m in their way, feeling their tut on the back of my neck, foiled in their plans to grab that last seat before someone elderly or pregnant reaches it ahead of them. Should they employ Formula One over-taking tactics and slip past me, then I have to confess that the foot goes out and I wish them well with their trip.
Sadly, I drive a car with the same sort of paradoxically belligerent counter-belligerence; so in public I tend to be at constant risk of being punched in the face. So far though, the victims of my sanctimonious guerrilla warfare tend to be too cowardly to rise to the bait, which pretty much fits with their initial behaviour at which I am aggressively protesting.
As a consequence of having the polite bastard’s chip on his shoulder, my first act as London Mayor would be to employ train referees, armed with yellow and red cards. Yellow card for rudeness and a red if you make contact in the process. A straight red if you’re eating hot food on the train as well. Particularly McDonald’s. I’d rather put up with someone taking a dump on the seat opposite me, than watch, listen to and smell someone scoffing a burger over the course of half a dozen stops. If you’re on the Northern Line, people tend to do both at once.
Yellow for people who talk too loud as well. Straight red if they sit away from each other and do it. Buses are much quieter places. At least in the provinces, where there is more opportunity for the driver to put his foot down and treat us all to a Thorpe Park experience. That soon shuts you up. Watch out for buses with dislodged fingernails stuck into the metal bars and teeth embedded into the backs of seats. At least it stops people tweeting, “I’m on a bus.”
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