Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Madeleine Moments - Involuntary Autobiographical Memories

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #26
    The taste of Marlboro Lights takes me straight back to school, even to the clump of trees behind the football pitch where we used to smoke them. Embassy Number Ones remind me of college, while Berkeley Menthol reminds me of the gap in between, where a few of us thought that smoking menthol was cool, based purely on a line from the Clash's "Stay Free".

    That's it, I'm afraid. Nothing transcendental, nothing poignant. Just fags.

    Comment


      #27
      Turkish Delight - my Grandmother

      Comment


        #28
        Body Shop White Musk.
        I was tall and lean and although unbelievable now, quite the catch at 17. Long curly hair, a car, a completely unearned sense of self worth and maturity that I'd fooled myself and others into, for a while at least.
        ALL the girls at 6th Form College wore White Musk, seemingly. And a few of the guys too. So much so that after a number of happy evenings with various people, doing what popular and good looking teenage boys are want to do, it caused a rather pavlovian response to develop in my hind brain. Life was grand, I was invincible: Everything was easy and everything came easy. Right up until it wasn't, didn't, any longer.
        The very occasional whiff I get of similar scents these days provoke a reverie of bittersweet memories and vague regrets. What would my life have been like had I tried to live up to my image and ego and had not so readily thrown myself onto the path of least resistance and allowed easy satisfaction in overeating, over drinking and other dull, glutinous and self destructive vices to rule my life?

        Comment


          #29
          Ironically, I probably put more Deep Heat on my bust shoulders now than I ever did on any part of my anatomy when playing. Although I always remember a schoolmate standing outside in the freezing cold trying to reduce the burning pain in his crotch because he put too much Deep Heat on his mildly strained groin before a hockey match (Have a can of Ralgex on Alan Partridge!)

          Comment


            #30
            Of a couple of the aromas referred to above, ale always brings back memories of evening pub visits on childhood holidays, as do the taste of my two staples of such visits, pineapple juice and plain salted crisps. Cut grass always sets off butterflies in my stomach - I'd have to walk across a large area of mown grass on the way to sit my summer exams and hence associate the two.

            Comment


              #31
              Wintergreen. Any whiff of it - fairly rare these days - gives me an adrenalin rush as it takes me back to pre-match school rugby changing rooms, one of the most exciting times of my life.

              Clarification: the rugby matches were exciting, not the changing rooms.

              White Musk - as with an earlier post, a scent worn by my first long term girlfriend, with similar involuntary tumescence on smelling it years later. Which was embarrassing when I found that one of our IT guys at work also used it.

              Comment


                #32
                I sat next to a girl called Rachel in English who wore a perfume called Poison. I always think of her if I catch that scene anywhere.

                Comment


                  #33
                  I've developed a considerable fragrance habit during the 'rona era and have a sample of "Cologne" by an interesting perfume house called Etat Libre d'Orange. The start of the dry down reminds me of a wet flannel left at the bottom of a laundry basket for too long from my childhood house. Nice though.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    I was chomping on a piece of uncooked spicy sausage-filled tortellini recently and got a taste of my childhood: liver sausage.

                    It seemed to be one of those food items that cropped up all the time, especially in salads and sandwiches, but I was never a big fan and probably haven't eaten it in almost 40 years.

                    Comment


                      #35
                      After Eight mints are an instant transport to the cinema in the late 70s (see also Matchmakers). Bovril is half-time at the football. Spotted dick (or any similar steam pudding) with custard is school dinners.

                      Most of those tastes and smells are comforting but there might be some Sunday meals I associate with Monday morning dread.
                      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 30-04-2021, 23:35.

                      Comment


                        #36
                        Mint Matchmakers remind me of childhood Christmases.

                        Mown grass reminds me of summer break times on the field at junior school.

                        Pipe smoke reminds me of sitting in the Wakeman Stand with my Dad watching Shrewsbury Town when I was about 13.

                        Comment


                          #37
                          I was at the Chris Anderson stadium in Aberdeen a few years back to watch my daughter at an athletics meet when I caught a whiff of the newly mown grass and was instantly transported back thirty years.

                          All the thoughts and emotions of just before kick off of an important game in front of a big crowd rushed back causing an actual physical reaction.

                          Butterflies whirring in your stomach as you walk slowly onto the pitch, looking round at the faces on the touch line, fathers, friends, strangers, urging you on or wishing you ill. The last moments of doubt and fear, ‘please don’t fuck up! Please don’t fuck up! Please don’t fuck up!’ And then the whistle and you’re off. Fantastic!

                          Glory days gone now but I’m glad I had a few of them. Fucked up too. Lost the ball on the edge of my box and the opposition scored. We lost that final 1-0. I didn’t sleep for three days.

                          Crikey, I can remember the teams, the park, the strips, the incident and walking off the pitch at the end not speaking to anyone. Distraught. That was 1979. Couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast today though.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Like many inland towns, we have a small resident population of gulls centred around the local waste disposal facility. Occasionally you will see a few of them circling overhead and their cries always give me a rush of happy nostalgia, a reminder of summer days at the beach as a child and with our own children, and more recent pre-Covid trips to Brighton wandering the North Lanes and the seafront. One day soon......

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Sometimes I find myself singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, from Jesus Christ Superstar. Oh, hang on.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Nitrous oxide.

                                My mum worked as a dental assistant and Thursday was "gas day", when the anaesthetist would be at the practice. So every Thursday teatime, my mum would come home reeking of the stuff.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X