I got on this morning’s Oxford Tube coach and took one of the two empty forward-facing seats on the downstairs, near-side of the bus. The young woman sitting opposite had a carpet-bag sized handbag on the table, various make-up items spread all over the table.
And she was painting her nails with some kind of toxic waste.
It stank.
I’m familiar with the normal smell of acetates (if I can use the words ‘normal’ and ‘acetates’ in the same context) and the liquid gloop she was covering her finger and thumb-nails with was offensively awful.
The smell was so powerful that it could clearly be smelt upstairs (I later heard one of the off-going passengers remark how much stronger the smell was downstairs).
B.