What is the smell of London?

I voluntarily surrendered my sense of smell several years ago, the smoking ban’s going to be murder. It’s only my continued nicotinal assault on my olfactory canals that makes my fellow Londoner’s stench tolerable, if I even go an afternoon without ciggies I become intolerably aware of how many of you think deodorant’s passé but allowing small dogs to crap in your mouth before breathing next to me is somehow ok. Yes, I’m aware there’s now a foul smell of rank hypocrisy on this thread, but it’s my smell, and you can’t smell your own.

Posted over 2 years ago by Mockernee

I live in Tooting. It invariably smells of curry, carbon monoxide, beer and quite often skunk. The order in which they hit you sometimes varies but that about sums it up. I work in Brent Cross, here we are treated to an overwelming aroma of, yes, you guessed it, carbon monoxide, this time combined with the unique stench of the River Brent as it rushes towards the Holiday Inn along it’s shopping trolley strewn manmade channel and the mushroomy odour of soggy, slowly discomposing litter and discarded charity shop clothing lying undisturbed on the crumbling concrete that covers just about everything in the immediate vicinity of my office. All things considered I prefer my monoxide tempered with a dash of curried skunk. That’s how I know I’m home.

Posted over 2 years ago by auawsha

Is there anything more disconcerting than getting on a heated bus, smelling weed, and realising it’s emanating from your own clothing? Especially fraught if I’m travelling into work, I’m faced with little option other than to strip naked and announce loudly “I do not use drugs”.

Posted over 2 years ago by Mockernee

The collective smell of overcrowded people on the eastern end of the district line in the morning is something I’ve not encountered elsewhere, it has a certain tang to it that even other overcrowded lines don’t have.

Not a smell exactly, but the black soot that gets up my nose only happens in london as far as I know…

Posted over 2 years ago by AppleDave

Mockernee – Carry a small Febreze spray with you and liberally drench yourself in it before entering the office. Comment loudly on that bloody downpour that only lasted a couple of minutes (global warming obviously) as you take your seat.

Posted over 2 years ago by auawsha

that smell of pubs in the summer. you know the one. like smoke and beer and salt and vinegar crisps wafting out the open doors in the summer. yummy. and I love the small of walking past a chippy in the summer cos they leave the doors open and the smell comes out making me hungry. I want some chips now.

Posted over 2 years ago by lalalucy

In the streets around Soho on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday morning (before about 10am, and if it hasn’t rained) it’s the blended aroma of vomit and urine.

Posted over 2 years ago by Spammed

I’d say it’s that smell you get when there’s light rain after it’s been hot and dry for a bit. I’m not sure what it is (I think it might be mould or the dirt on the pavement coming up in the evaporating water) but I quite like it in a perverse way.

That’s the smell of London for me.

Posted over 2 years ago by bashford

Has anyone else noticed that funny almost metallic sulphery smell there is on the tube sometimes? That might be the same smell you’re talking about MA. It smells, well, kind of like amonia. Maybe I was just next to someone smelly.

I can’t think of any others but I love London when the nights start to get longer and you can smell it getting warmer. Spring is in the air! Haroo! :)

Posted over 2 years ago by Chez

I’ve spent my whole life thinking that the nights got shorter in the Spring! You learn something new every day on this site…

Posted over 2 years ago by Spammed

(In the environs of Acre Lane)- Piss, jerk chicken, damp dogs, laundrettes, lumber and weed. I could market it as a cologne, but need a catchy name.

Posted over 2 years ago by Mamfer

I have a fairly shocking sense of smell, so unless the smell is acrid or warm I am completely clueless most of the time what things around me smell like. However, of the smells I do have access to, freshly creosoted fences & sunburnt tarmac remind me most of our fair city.

Posted over 2 years ago by Acronym

Weirdly, I think they’re food smells… warm, slightly metallic bakery air vent overspill, onion-laden pizza, those hot caramel nut stands that used to line Oxford Street.

Posted over 2 years ago by mokuska

Ozone & free radicals. You’re never more than a yard from 50000 volts in this city.

Posted over 2 years ago by flippy

Hammers

Posted over 2 years ago by Natasha

The smell of London is malty when you’re near the river anywhere west of Fulham and the Fuller’s brewery is cranking out the brew in the morning. It’s fantastic. Worth about 100 foul tube smells, that is.

Posted over 2 years ago by comradem

concrete

Posted over 2 years ago by jamespo

London smells of railings.

Posted over 2 years ago by themanwhofellasleep

Mamfer: how about “Vagrance”?

Posted over 2 years ago by johnpaulghetto

Nights longer as in more daylight to play out in after 6. Tut. Although it was badly put I agree. :-P

Posted over 2 years ago by Chez