Smells like the 1970s!

'Eeerrrwww! What is that?' I shrieked as my O.H wafted through the kitchen door smelling like a used car salesman.

'What?' he replied, sheepishly.

'It's you! Oh no. You haven't...'

'It was very big in the 70s,' he retorted defensively.

'It's 2012!'

'Well, I like it,' he snapped. 'Can't understand why you don't.'

'It reeks!'

'Perhaps my customers will appreciate it,' he said as he flounced out of the house taking a tidal wave of the 1970s with him.

'Where are you going?'

'Fairbourne.' (by the sea, for those of you that don't know)

'Well, go and stand on the beach when you're done and don't come back until that disgusting smell is halfway across the sea to Ireland!'

My O.H was wearing Brut. A 'fragrance' and I use that term loosely, that was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public in the 60s by Faberge. I have to admit, at the time, it was a revelation. Despite being labelled as 'The Essence of Man' I knew several girls that wore it.

When my O.H recently re-discovered it in a store, he was thrilled.

'Oh, this brings back memories,' he sighed as he doused himself in it while I found one of the masks we usually reserve for cleaning particularly stinky houses and glued it to my nose. It was my intention to make his Brut mysteriously disappear but he clearly doesn't trust me and keeps it well hidden.

Brut was supposed to be the smell of 'real men' and the heavy weight boxer Henry Cooper, the original 'face' of Brut told men to 'splash it all over' in an ad campaign -- and splash it over they did! The smell of it floods my mind with memories of sweaty lads, in a smog of Brut, loitering around the dance floor in the Leicester Top Rank Disco.

Philip Glenister reportedly wore Brut to get into the character of DCI Gene Hunt.









It isn't the worst fragrance in the world. In my opinion, that is definitely reserved for Old Spice. When I was a teenager I had a very nice boyfriend who had impeccable manners. He opened doors, walked me to the bus station after we'd been out and wouldn't leave until I was safely on the bus. Unfortunately, one day he appeared to take me to the ABC cinema and was drenched in Old Spice. I knew at that moment, our relationship was doomed.

My father - six feet two with hands the size of dinner plates - thought aftershave/cologne was effeminate. The only thing manly enough for him was Brylcreem, which he pasted on his thick black hair, driving my mother mad as she could never get it out the pillowslips when she washed them.

I remember watching him shave one day and I suggested he get some aftershave.

'Aftershave!!!' he said, horrified. 'Only ********* wear stuff like that.' I won't tell you his actual words as they weren't particularly politically correct, but he firmly believed that any man that splashed 'scent' on himself wasn't a real man. He also felt that way about chocolate. According to my dad, only ***** ate chocolate!'

And it's odd how old attitudes rub off on you as a child, because when I first met my O.H I recall looking at him a bit suspiciously when I discovered he could easily eat a warehouse of Cadbury's!

So folks, I am now about to search for that odious bottle of Brut before my O.H decides it's also cool to undo his shirt buttons to his waist and wear a medallion!