The Guardian
Monday 2 May 2022 3
The Guardian
Monday 2 May 2022
I’m addicted to
podcasts and
audiobooks –
blame Matilda
B
ritain right now smells like sex. As you stand outside
the post offi ce, looking through your bag for a mask,
you are bathed in the smell of fornication. As you take
your aunt Elsie for a quick stroll to the hairdressers,
the air drips with coitus. While lining up outside
nursery to pick up your child, your nose is full of
the smell of bonking. The sweet, vaguely piscine, sometimes acrid
smell of shagging is hanging heavy everywhere – and we seem
determined to ignore it.
At least, most of us. While poems are written about the nodding
heads of daff odils, and Instagram stories are awash with swaying
oceans of bluebells, most people seem rather less inclined to admit
that – to paraphrase that famous Mitchell and Webb sketch – every
park in England smells like semen. That walking your dog is, for
a few weeks in May, the nasal equivalent of squelching through a
bordello. It is quite an impressive act of dissociation to be standing
beside, say, a hawthorn bush at the No 3 bus stop, as a sexually
active adult, and not immediately turn to the person beside you to
say, “Wow, this pavement really smells like fucking!” And yet we do.
You might notice the odd quivering nostril, catch a conspiratorial
smile, but you’re unlikely to meet a stranger who acknowledges that
the air beyond their chin smells like nookie.
It isn’t necessary to study for a degree in
botany to understand the reason for this aromatic
assault. Just as birdsong is the auditory result
of a few million horny creatures standing on a
branch after a long and lonely winter, screeching
“I neeeeeed to get laaaaiiiid”, so the sticky,
tannic smells of May’s various blooms are the
fl oral world’s attempt to attract pollinators.
The country is ripening and plants have a small
seasonal window in which to get fertilised,
produce seeds and ensure their future survival.
Like a hopeful 17-year-old slathering themselves
in Lynx Africa in the hope that they’ll get
served, and get lucky, they produce a chemical
compound, or pheromone, that signals to the
natural world that they are open for business.
We, as members of the natural world, are
attuned to this frequency, just as we are aware
of the smell of rain ( petrichor ), the sound of
rain or the heavy closeness of an approaching
thunderstorm.
What I fi nd most striking about this time of
year isn’t just the presence of conjugal smells
in totally unexpected places, but the variety.
On a single run through, say, your local nature
reserve or patch of woodland, you might snort
up the ammonia tang of sweet chestnut, the
glossy sweetness of gorse, the ferrous – almost
menstrual – smell of nettles, the spicy sickliness
of linden trees, the fi shiness of hawthorn or the semen whiff of
ornamental pear. It’s libidinous out there. Some of this is due to
triethylamine – a natty little chemical released by hawthorn fl owers
that is also one of the fi rst chemicals produced by a dead human
body when it begins to decay. Sex and death, just hanging there in
the air outside Lidl; no wonder studies have indicated that men
produce more sperm in spring – we’re being aromatically ordered to
get to it while we still can at every turn.
Britain may be considered a buttoned-up country, where we
cast ne’er a clout (never take off our clothes) til May is out (the
hawthorn is in bloom), but that’s not for want of trying on nature’s
part. While the phrase “the sap is rising” might make me queasy,
it’s hard to deny that, from the smallest mitochondria to the tallest
tree, something’s thrusting up out there. As spring blooms, the
subliminal signs are all around us, even if they’re tucked behind a
bottle dump, masked by petrol fumes or crushed beneath asphalt.Well powder my arse and call
me a baby because, friends, I am
addicted to stories. I can barely
function without a podcast,
the radio or an audiobook
accompanying my actions. Not
music, not silence; just talking.
Temporarily misplacing my
headphones this week (they turned
up in a bowl of potatoes) made
me realise quite how dependent
I have become on the human
voice for company, comfort and
concentration. An account of a
serial killer while you clean your
hob? Why not. A condensed audio
version of a literary classic while
you run 5km? Sure. An intricate
chat about favourite dinners while
you shave your legs? Go on then.
Falling asleep every night to the
autobiography of Malcolm X? In my
case, absolutely.
Is this hunger for recorded
speech a result of our atomised,
lonely little lives , in which you can
go hours, perhaps days, without
the tangible, audible contact of
another living person? Or is my
compulsion towards human chatter
a hangover from a childhood spent
listening to books on cassette and
the ever-present gurgling of the
radio beside the oven? It’s certainly
true that last year, while doing my
tax return, I listened to the very
same Roald Dahl audiobooks I fell
asleep to as a child. Somehow, the
Theatre Collection performances of
Mat ilda, The Witches and Fantastic
Mr Fox got me through the anxiety-
inducing hellfi re of my expenses.
This year, I might try The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince
Caspian and see if they have the
same balm-like eff ect.
Ironically, the very week in
which I lost my headphones, I
spent three days sitting in a small,
soundproof booth, recording the
audiobook of my fi rst novel. For 15
happy hours, I had nothing to do
but speak. And so, the addict has
become the dealer. The baby has
learned to talk.Buttoned-up Britain
can’t deal with
nature’s sexiness
Nell
Frizzell
Plants are
ripening and have
a small window
in which to get
fertilised
How we met
Sam and Eilís
I
n the summer of 2011, Eilís visited the
Earthsong festival in Ireland, a small
off -grid gathering with lots of singing
and music. “There was no electricity,
and we were all cooking on an open
fi re,” she remembers. “I spotted Sam
a few times but didn’t speak to him.”
Sam, who is originally from England but
was living near Belfast , had a free ticket to
the festival.
“I was friends with the woman who ran the
cafe and she off ered me a free ticket to work
there,” he says. Although he was offi cially
a member of festival staff , everyone else
pitched in to help, too. “ I had off ered to wash
up in the cafe,” says Eilís.
Although she thought Sam was “lovely”,
she was too shy to talk to him. Other than
exchanging pleasantries, they barely spoke
during the festival. On the last day, she
decided to take the plunge. “I wrote my name
and number on a piece of paper as there were
no electronics permitted. ”
Sam was surprised but fl attered. “She
went bright red and then ran off. I remember
thinking she had a nice big smile. ”
He sent a text message the next day and
asked for her email address. “We started
sending each other long emails ,” says Eilís.
“I couldn’t believe how straightforward
he was, so open and honest. He told me he
wanted to settle down in a wooden house
and have kids. It was really refreshing.”
Two weeks later, they arranged a date: a
hike in the Mourne mountains in Northern
Ireland. “It was a three-hour trip from
Kilkenny and I took my dog,” she says. She
arrived to discover that Sam had planned a
picnic lunch. He led her down to a large slab
of rock overlooking a picturesque river.
“I went to the toilet and when I came
back, she’d disappeared,” he says. He soon
discovered Eilís and her dog in the water
below. “ The dog had slid off the rock into the
river and when I went to get him, it was too
steep, and I fell in, too! It was
absolutely baltic and Sam
had to rescue both of us.”
Over the next few
weekends they continued
to meet up and soon
became an offi cial couple.
They moved in together
in Kilkenny in 2012 and
married the following year.
Eilís is a youth worker,
while Sam is a paramedic ,
and the couple have four children together.
“I love that Sam has always been open to
change,” says Eilís. “ He wants what’s best for
his family. ”
Sam admires his wife’s ability to keep her
sense of humour, even when he loses his.
“I’m the grumpy one but we balance each
other out. ”
Want to share your story? Fill in the form at
theguardian.com/how-we-metI wrote my
number –
she went
bright red
and ran off