Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Sink-type drains - primarily musty. Sewer-type drains have an unpleasant sweetness.

Hmm. I think I'd better attack the P Trap once I've recovered from yesterday's ordeal.

Out of interest, can you smell the aftermath of asparagus? Apparently the OR2M7 gene is linked to our sensitivity to sulphur compounds, including asparagusic acid.

Asparagus metabolites I can definitely smell (whether it smells the same to me as to other people, I have no idea - it's jolly pungent, though).

I've only every smelled fox on a dog that's rolled in fox poop. It's not pleasant.

I have a friend who has virtually no sense of smell or probably no sense of smell. Alas, it also means she has a very limited sense of taste which makes me sad for her. She does love Brussel sprouts though and that makes me happy for her because they are a fine brassica.

To me the smell of shit is really complex and hard to describe. I don't mind cow and horse shit, nor muck spreading, but the smell of shit that comes from meat eaters is awful. A friend's elderly and unwell dog once had the shits in my back garden and it was all I could do to not throw up.

A woman I work for lost her sense of smell after a head injury, though she still has her sense of taste. I keep forgetting and sometimes exclaim about the lovely scent of various flowers in her garden, like the roses and lavender hedge. She always says she doesn't mind and asks me to describe it so she can enjoy it vicariously but I still feel awkward. I suppose that's for me to deal with.

Well, this thread has taken a very unexpected direction today!

Your first paragraph really made me laugh @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast. If I was still at the Other Place I’d have put it in the ‘out of context sentences that would make good opening lines for books’ thread.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast I totally agree with all of that re shit. I'm fine with cow and horse shit, in fact I even quite like it because it's countryside, it's life it's not exactly pleasant but it's not repugnent. It is the meat eating that makes shit smell ungodly but as people say cat shit smells of cat food which by and large makes it more bearable. Not in the moment of poopage. I've been in a car with five cats who all got stressed and shat at roughly the same time. It was bad but it got better. That was a day to remember.

Anyway, poopy, poop, poo, shitty shitting shit.

@MouseMinge but if a person ate nothing but lettuce for a week, would there be an improvement in the smell? I’m thinking there must be other things at play - like gut flora or something.

I’m trying to imagine what being in a car with five shitting cats would smell like. Kasper is pretty bad with timing. He particularly likes to go 5 minutes before a guest is due to arrive. He went yesterday just as I was getting my supplies together to deal with the dog poo incident. And the other day he decided he urgently needed to go while I was cleaning his litter box, despite trying to time it very carefully. He kept miaowing and trying to jump in while I was frantically drying it, poor thing.

@MouseMinge -

That was a day to remember.

I bet it was! Hope you weren't stuck with the situation for too long!

The most disgusting cat shit scenario I've been faced with was when a woman I worked for got two cats who hated each other and they shat everywhere. All over the garden beds, all over the lawn, in her house. God, it was awful. As she said, 'They're trying to shit each other out of existence'. I had to stop working there until she got rid of one of them.

I've always meant to write a book... ;-)

but if a person ate nothing but lettuce for a week, would there be an improvement in the smell? I’m thinking there must be other things at play - like gut flora or something.

It's a jolly good thing we all know each other, so there isn't a poo-troll hunt required.

Having said, that, I still feel I ought to say I have not made an extended study of the matter. But. From observations within the domestic bathroom context, having lived with someone who slowly transitioned from partly to fully vegetarian, I'd say there's both an immediate and a longer term component - the latter probably flora-related. And no meat definitely means a reduction in smell. In my case no dairy also makes a massive difference, but that I think is more down to personal intolerance than universal factors.

Anyway....

To get the conversation back on a much nicer track, I've just checked into a lovely hotel in an Elizabethan manor house. Big entrance hall with a log fire in an inglenook, that feels as if it ought to have a pile of assorted dogs (spaniels, labradors and wolfhounds) lolling in front of it. It smells of woodsmoke and wood polish.

Sounds delightful! Are you there over Christmas, Bint? Or is this a pre-Christmas treat?

On the way to StepPaBint's funeral. I'll be down with MaBint for 10 days then home for xmas (and meeting Duc on the way back - is anyone else within shouting distance of Liverpool?).

This is my usual hotel for the.journey if I do the Belfast-Liverpool rather than the Dublin-Anglesea ferry. It's a friendly place that does a decent breakfast, and lovely grounds for a wander, when it's not dark. Last time I was here a sparrowhawk shot across the driveway in the morning, and there's often something circling in hope of an unwary rabbit.

That sounds absolutely lush. Having just watched Wolf Hall tonight I can picture it. Sort of because I have no doubt that what I'm picturing is a nonsense of my own making but it's a nice one. I wish you had the dogs, especially the Irish wolfhounds.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast I'm afraid it was a long journey from Worcester to Brighton on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year. It was also a Toyota Celica (spelling almost certainly wrong) and because of the back seat being more than full I had to travel in a crash position. Thankfully are fears that the cats were dead when all went silent were proved to be wrong when we took a break at a service station. When we got to the new house they all settled in immediately so swings and roundabouts.

That hotel sounds lovely!

@MouseMinge they were in cat crates, weren't they? Please tell me they didn't shit all over the seats.

BT are currently here switching us over to fibre ... yes, I know, things move slowly in this part of Kent! As the work is being done by a single 12-year-old, either it will be done it about 10 minutes flat or I shall never be online again, in which case "Farewell!"

That hotel sounds wonderful, especially for this time of year!

I'm on the wrong side of the Pennines for a Liverpool meet-up, sadly.

That hotel sounds wonderful

Yes, it does. I love a fireplace with burning logs and the smell of wood smoke wafting about.

I don't cross the pennines in winter. Tried it once - never again. But I'll try to swing over your way at some point when weather is more reliable.

I think the scientists and artists on the thread will enjoy this advent series on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19g58oyTYq/ polarising microscopy pictures of crystals formed by different drinks.

Re: smells, a lot of the really bad odours (e.g. dead animals, carnivore poo) smell sort of sweet-but-in-a-sickly-nauseating-way to me. Also I am very sensitive at detecting musty, sweaty and sulphurous smells. (Hmm. Maybe I'm generally very sensitive to smells??)

Having said that, I seem to tolerate strong unpleasant smells quite well. A bit niche, but β-mercaptoethanol is a frequent ingredient in our lab experiments - it has a distinct sulphurous stench, everybody moans about having to use it, I'm the only one who doesn't really mind!

β-mercaptoethanol is a frequent ingredient in our lab experiments

<updates dossier>

As I went to cook dinner last night I noticed what appeared to be some small flies on the kitchen cupboards. I recently gave all the plants a soaking so assumed they were fungus gnats and cursed the thought of having to go through the process of getting rid of them. But on closer inspection they were house spider spiderlings, and as I scanned the rest of the cupboards, walls and ceilings I realised there was an infestation of them.

I went round attacking them with the hoover and pointing it into every crevice. I was really worried that the mother would jump out at me to defend the babies. More spiderlings have appeared this morning. It’s bothering me that I can’t find the sac, even if it’s empty now.

I know that not many survive because of limited food sources and cannibalism but I’m panicking because one large spider is too many.