Right. Enough babbling. On to smell.

But firstly, lets look at ear wax. Which has nothing to with with smell. But which did yield up some 'nugget' facts in the children's section of the library, that I feel Zorillaed to tell you about. You see, it turns out that ear wax comes in two different varieties, wet and dry. And that the type of wax you have is dependent on your heritage. Most white, black and hispanic people have wet wax, which is oily, sticky and tan coloured. Whilst most Asian and Native American people have dry wax, which is sticky, brittle and grey. Either way, the 'point' of the wax is the same. Namely, to gunk up your earbud headphones. Or, alternatively, to catch dirt and dust and stop them from getting into the ear and causing damage. The 'magic' then happens after some fly, or other nefarious object has been tamed by your three foot mountain of ear wax. Because it then naturally hardens, clumps together and drops out from time to time.

You could of course shove a pipe cleaner, or the equivalent up there with cotton wool on the end, to get it out. But the truth is that that is a seriously bad idea. Because you can often push the wax deeper into the ear, and end up damaging your ear drum. So, not a good plan. You are better off letting nature take its course and dropping candles wherever life happens to find you.

Smell is equally as interesting as ear wax. And in the spirit of disgusting facts the world over. I feel zorillaed to tell you that it is the ammonia in stale pee that gives it its strong smell; and that the average person farts 14 times in a day. Where the amount of gas that this represents has been measured at between one cup and two litres a day. Nice. Mostly these gases are actually odourless, and mainly consist of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane. Both hydrogen and methane are highly flammable, which probably accounts for the dangerous fart-lighting amateur dramatic performances by some students and other amusing folk after a particularly large curry. Not to be recommended (unless you like getting badly burnt). But the 'smelly' component comes from small amounts of hydrogen sulphide which makes the odour smell of rotten eggs.

You can think about all this the next time you go for an Indian.

My advice though is to breathe in deeply through your nose and thank your lucky stars that you aren't within a half-mile radius of a Zorilla.

PS - You can find out more about Zorilla's here

Copyright - Stuart Brown