2 hours ago
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I must admit to cracking a smile when I read the story about the revolting result of a tofu spill last month in Missouri. About 18,000kg (40,000lb) of extra-firm tofu was left to rot for three weeks after a road accident – no one was hurt – turned into an insurance dispute. Local officials described the smell as “unforgettable” and “like a dead animal, but worse”. So, what are history’s greatest bad smells? Liz Prior, Southampton
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Readers reply
Have you been in my 16-year-old son’s bedroom? Thirdhandluke
Durian, of course, but I love them. Dominic Pearson, by email
Tanneries seem to have been reliably ghastly sites for foul smells. When dog poo was one of the less unpleasant things used to process leather, you’re probably on to something. unclestinky
The lane in my village that runs past the site of an old tannery is called Pinchnose Lane. PerfumePonce
I once stuck my hand into an old sack of potatoes and – squelch! – went straight into a rotting spud. A surprisingly pukey experience. sparklesthewonderhen
On a personal level, included in a bricklayer’s sphere of competence is drainage. I’ve not often had to deal with “live” stuff, but it’s not that bad. In second place was being on a ship in the north Mediterranean that was hove to for a while because of a rather violent storm; a lot of the crew were taken bad as well. Not pleasant.
The worst one was arranging to pick up an acquaintance at his company on the outskirts of Nairobi. His office was inside a rather large warehouse. It was a warm day for Nairobi, about 31C, the place was full to the rafters of stacked up untreated cattle hides. That was unforgettable. On a general level, I come from a family of seafaring folk and have heard tell from the older ones that there is no worse smell on Earth as a whaling station, or a whale factory ship. bricklayersoption
The stench of titan arum, the corpse flower, is legendary. eibhear
“Je reviens dans trois jours, ne te lave pas,” as Napoleon almost certainly didn’t write to Josephine. Randomusername222
Ethanethiol. Once smelled, never forgotten. BristolBoy
Ethanethiol is known as methyl mercaptan to its oldest friends. It’s the compound added to mains gas in the UK so people can smell gas leaks. Randomusername222
I offer an anecdote from the research chemist Derek Lowe’s series Things I Won’t Work With. Within his writing on thioacetone, he describes a historical incident in the German city of Freiburg in 1889. An offensive smell “spread rapidly over a great area of the town, causing fainting, vomiting and a panic evacuation”. Lowe also mentions an 1890 report from the Whitehall soap works in Leeds, which refers to the odour as “fearful”. Stuart Jenkins, by email
A different instalment in Lowe’s series reports the 1937 observations of a group of scientists working with the “noble reagent” butyl isocyanide: “[It] proved to be so disagreeable to manipulate that none of its physical constants except boiling point were determined. Even when a hood with an extra forced draught was used, the odour pervaded the laboratory and adjoining rooms, deadening the sense of smell and producing in the operator, and in others, severe headaches and nausea which usually persisted for several days.” See also selenophenol (“imagine six skunks wrapped in rubber inner tubes and the whole thing set ablaze”). unclestinky
The Great Stink of 1858 must be a contender. The River Thames was basically a giant open sewer which gave rise to a stench so bad that parliament finally took action. They voted to fund a new sewage system and Joseph Bazalgette built the network of sewers still in use today. LadyBeacounter
If you ever get the train from work in central London towards Weybridge and other stockbroker belt suburbs on a hot evening, you’re bound to notice the huge smell from the sewage works at Berrylands, just before Surbiton. I used to think that it would be impossible to live day after day with that odour, but I heard that your sense of smell gets accustomed to bad stenches and it doesn’t bother you after that. PeteTheBeat
According to rumour, gossip and persistent articles in Der Standard, the smelliest people in Vienna are to be found on the U-Bahn U6 line. As far as I know, there is no sewage treatment plant adjacent to the U6 route. bricklayersoption
The Missouri tofu spill was “unforgettable” but nothing beats the great smell of Brut. EddieChorepost
A fishmongers in a town I used to live in went bust and the owners did a runner, leaving behind quite a lot of stock. The electricity was eventually cut off. You can imagine the rest. SavoryCharacter
