Smells Like Mean Spirit

Smells.

There are all manner of smells here. Here is odour, fragrance, olfactory assault. A vanilla or perhaps strawberry of non-specific origin is the sweetest. The darker, the more evil smells are manufactured from gases. The raw sewage is sometimes to be smelt, but mercifully rarely, but from the sewers comes gas and from the wetlands a form of marsh gas. There is often a burnt smell, but not of something actually burned. These smells offer a curious reassurance, some are not unpleasant once the sense is accustomed to them; they are nasal entertainment, a nocuous nosegay, a sensory comfort.

This morning there was an evocative smell. It was not the normal burnt smell. It had sugar. It was intoxication. It was the smell of brewery, though there is no brewery. There was light mist and a stillness. It was the smell of early-morning light mist and stillness of years ago. It was the smell of Guinness at Park Royal that used to hang over west London. Where it came from, I do not know.


PROPERTY MARKET
A factor in keeping the currently uncertain property market buoyant, according to the Bank of Spain a while back, is demand from overseas. Well, this may not be as positive as they think. According to Ultima Hora, the level of foreign investment in Balearic real estate has taken a heck of a tumble - by some 34%. This is attributable, in part, to the lack of new dwellings (really!?) and to developments elsewhere in Spain where whole colonies are built next to golf courses. Now personally I wouldn’t want to live next to a golf course, but there again I don’t play golf. But for all this, there is a new development - next to the Pollensa Golf Course.

And mention of Pollensa. A most curious thing. There was a gathering outside the town hall, local folk complaining about alleged aggression and attacks on locals by two specific members of the local police, themselves not local. NOT LOCAL! (Sorry, I can’t help this League of Gentlemen thing that crops up now and then.)


QUIZ
Last time - Peter Frampton. Yea, I know, a bit obscure, but I don’t just throw this stuff together, you know. The hours that I put in. Some ingrate says, I don’t know what that title is...

Where was I? Ah yes, today’s title is adapted from something very easy.

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