On the 06:53 train to Hornsby via Parramatta, Strathfield, the city and the North Shore, some dropped an absolute clanger. In this age of Covid, we are all wearing masks on the train to prevent and limit the spread of an aerosol borne virus but our physical protection against very large and not quite alive particles, does absolutely nothing to prevent the terrible horror caused by the release of noxious fumes from the interior.
Admittedly it wasn't the five bell alarm situation which would result in walls being stripped of paint and/or mass asphixiation but the spectre of unpleasantness has haunted us all. I have beheld the inglory of foul miasma and I have seen time go backwards.
Nevertheless, the fumes of internal infernal rumblings are temporary and will disspiate. The foul stench wrought from someone's nether regions disappear into the aether rather quickly. Even I can not compare this fleeting inconvenience to the terrible horror that lies underground and just a few hundred metres to the north of Town Hall Station.
If you leave via the north exit of Town Hall Station and continue underground towards the Queen Victoria Building, you will pass by Lüneburger, OZ Hair, Lush, The Body Shop, Starbucks, and L' Occitane. Each one of these establishments by themselves is their own unique demonstration of nasal nastiness but together, the walk from Town Hall Station through the QVB is an olfactory assault course.
Lüneburger which is a German Bakery and sells pretzels, boiled breads and coffee, perpetually smells like someone has spewed into a bucket which has already overflowed with spew. Often bakeries are lovely places of wonderment but Lüneburger seems to be the glutinous revenge of a nation which twice lost world wars.
OZ Hair has a vague smell of fruits, of which I am unsure of of any of them are. Not only am I unsure of what any of these fruit smells are, I am also unsure why anyone would want to walk around with these smells in their hair all day long. In a world in which chemists can conjure up esters and other smells through chemical processes, they have deliberately chosen to invent the smells of fruits which simultaneously do not exist and should not ever exist.
Lush, The Body Shop and L' Occitane all have their own unique acrid smells of flowers turned up to 14. Forget turning them up to 11, 12, or even unlucky 13. These shops have chosen to take the nice smell of flowers and supercharge them to the point of insanity. Lush is the worst of them. Lush is like walking past the perfume counter of a department store but because the product is not on sale for hundreds of dollarpounds per millilitre, you get practically unlimited nastiness by the kilo.
Starbucks have managed to convince other parts of the world that they are a coffee shop. I and many Australians are not as easily convinced. Starbucks coffee tastes like sadness and disappointment. They then cover this up by means of syrups, fake flavours, and creams, thereby hiding sadness and disappointment underneath deception and diabetes. I suppose that selling coffee to fuel the caffinated world that runs too fast but is always tired is a way to make a profit but other coffee shops have gone top the effort of crafting blends and roasts as complex as wines and stouts. I have no idea what kind of beans that Starbucks includes in their roasts but I am sure that it includes arabica beans, robusta beans, baked beans, black beans, and has beens.
Individually these six members of the horrible cabal of smells are fine on their own but together, they form a gauntlet of terror which you have to walk through if you don't want to become an icicle by walking across the streets above. It almost makes you wish that whoever released the kraken on the train, would put it to use down here.
Aside:
Since about the year 2000, we've collectively decided as a society to replace lung cancer with black lung, as the kids have switched from smoking to vaping. There was something cool and dangerous about the smell of burning tobacco as opposed to the bubblegum, peach, banana, grape, et cetera, smells of vaping. I remember the days of smoky cafes and music venues where the smoke would progressively fill the hall and hand like a fug. I do not know if the same exists for vaping, or whether it just condenses and leaves a sticky saccharine film on the floor and all of the surfaces.
Maybe just maybe, my walk from Town Hall Station through the Queen Victoria Building is an analogue? I do not know. If it is, then that's terrible.
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