Wake up and smell the potpourri

Bring back tobacco, says Adam Edwards. At least it doesn't reek as much as some customers

In the mid-'60s it was said of soap opera Coronation Street that if the public could smell it, they wouldn't watch it. In those days, the reek of the poor was palpable - few terraced houses had indoor bathrooms and bathing was a weekly, rather than daily affair. Advertisers turned the expression BO (body odour) into a whispered calumny.

The stench was enriched by damp (central heating was only for the very rich), fried food (microwaves and convenience food didn't exist) and bad plumbing. Fragrant, efficient cleaning fluids were in their infancy and the new fangled Vent-Axia was rarer than a melodious Black Sabbath single. The Swinging Sixties stank - and lots of hippies drenched in oceans of patchouli oil didn't help.

That mix of smells was particularly pungent in pubs, which suffered from malodorous sulphur emissions due to excessive consumption of keg beer.

This miasma rarely attracted comment, thanks to the cigarette. In fact, tobacco in its various guises has successfully masked the stink of England since Sir Walter Raleigh first pulled on a clay pipe.

But on 1 July 2007 that protective aroma was outlawed. And much to the dismay of smoke-ban supporters, who believed introduction of the legislation would make pubs smell sweeter, pongs of the past have come back to haunt us. The fag has been replaced by the fart.

Ozone layer

This smelly truism has unnerved many of our pub chains, including Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), which has experimented with an "ozonic" fragrance to emulate a sea-breeze scent in four suburban pubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow (wouldn't a whiff of porridge have been more appropriate?), in the hope of blanking out real life.

"We are testing the smell of leather, which suggests luxurious indulgence, and the clean, domestic aroma of cut grass," Oliver Devine, senior manager at Sizzling Pub Company, part of M&B, told The Sunday Times.

It seems to me that the logical follow-up to these trials would be to match the scent with the name of the pub.

So, for example, the Nag's Head might be infused with the aroma of hay and saddle-soap. The Cricketers would reek of linseed oil, the Plough of fertiliser, the Bell of Brasso, the Kings Arms of deodorant and the King's Head of shampoo. It's probably best not to dwell on what might be deemed appropriate for the Bear, Goat-in-Boots, or Dirty Dick's.

But scents are emotive. Vegetarians hate the smell of bacon; puritans can't bear incense; petrol fumes are loathed by environment-lovers; manure stench is disliked by townies; and the jewelled-card air freshener stinking of fruit-flavoured lavatory cleaner is universally reviled by everyone except minicab drivers.

There is only one distinctive smell evocative of a cosy pub interior - a bouquet that seems to suit all hostelries and one that is rumoured to be undergoing tests to check its potential popularity in some pubs. It's called tobacco.

Fag-break fiasco

A foodie mate who runs a London gastropub is no friend of the new smoking ban. Many of his customers nip outside for a cigarette between the first and the main course. Their second fag break happens between main course and pudding. The final gasper happens before the arrival of coffee - and that's when the customers do a runner. His takings are down 30% and he has no idea how to stop the scam.

"Smoking has been criminalised - I suppose that's only one step further towards not paying the food bill," he mourned as he lit a Marlboro Light outside his fashionable premises.

Early doors

Archaeologists have discovered that Ireland's love affair with alcohol began thousands of years before the foundation of the Guinness brewery in 1759.

Research published this month in Archaeology Ireland magazine says the 4,500 "fulacht fiadhs" (horse-shoe shaped pits) dating from 1500 BC and dotted across the country are not, as had been commonly thought, Bronze Age cookers - but ancient microbreweries. The find means Ireland had the most widespread brewing industry in the prehistoric world. I suppose it goes some way towards explaining why some Irishmen claim they can see little green men.

Spot the difference

A council official in Durham has called for the Fat Buddha's pub name to be changed because of fears that it may upset Buddhists. Presumably the official will now champion name changes for the Actress & Bishop in Birmingham, Fallen Angel in Walthamstow, Jovial Priest in Bradwell, the Polite Vicar in Staffordshire, the Old Friar in Skegness, the Grey Friar in Preston, Black Friar in the City of London and the Holy Drinker in Battersea. I expect he would like them all to be called the Non-Denominational Person.