Perfume

Why do women wear perfume? And, to a lesser extent, why do men wear aftershave?

Three times yesterday I was assaulted by the most overpowering, overwhelming smell surrounding a woman. Joining me in a lift, standing next to me on a tube train, the smell preceded the woman. It's not even that it smells good or bad per se (it usually smells bad), it's that it smells so strong!

Do these women have a major odour problem? Most people don't smell by default, and even during exercise don't smell too bad. The only time a mask is necessary is if you've cooled down after exercise and not showered. That's a bad smell! However, we have anti-perspirants, and odour neutralising deodorants for that. There is no excuse for smelling like, well a perfume department in Boots.

I'm very late this morning. Little one, whilst going down nicely, had us up for 20 minutes at 01:47, 20 minutes at 02:55, and over an hour from 03:56. To say I'm tired would be an understatement. The alarm went at 06:23, snooze got hit 5 times, then I figured I was kidding no one and went back to sleep until 08:15. I feel vaguely human, but it's definitely an early night tonight.

Slow running on the tube isn't helping. There is a train broken somewhere in front of us. At least I get a seat at this time. The 9 people I'm sharing my carriage with are all studiously ignoring everyone as always. We have 2 paper, 2 books, 1 blackberry, 1 technical paper, 1 bored and vacant, 1 with eyes shut, and 1 paying an intensive amount of attention to the adverts above the seats. And me, writing this.

I've brought my ipod along for the first time in ages. I loaded up a couple of new albums; The outsider by Walter Trout, and the new one by Travis, Ode to J. Smith. I've just finished the Walter Trout album, and it's good. A proper guitar driven blues album. No standout tracks on first listen, but no obvious filler either.

Just started on the Travis album. Nothing amazing yet, but I'm only half way through the first song! I think they'd need to be going some to recapture The Man Who, or even The Invisible Band. However, we'll see.

Judging by the amount I've written, this journey must be taking forever. And indeed it is, it's 10:45 now, and I expected to be in work 5 minutes ago. I still have 10 minutes on this train to go, and that's under normal conditions. We're very slow, fast this morning, not quite stop go, but certainly not normal speed.

Anyway, I'm starting (!) to ramble now, so I'll close this post and get on with the day.


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