Smells like teen spirit, not

Are people getting smellier or is my nose getting more sensitive? The trains stank of human unwashed odours today. I smelled the bad breath from men three feet away from me; I smelled the underarm stank of immaculately made up young women laughing away on the phone; I smelled the oily scalps of twenty-something office workers from across the carriage. I rudely scrunched up my nose, and covered it with a tissue when I thought no one was looking.

The smell of hard working, sweaty, fast-food eating, milk tea drinking, non-flossing, non-tongue scraping, non-mouth-rinsing, non-deodorant using, on-daily-hair-washing human kind.

The ironic thing is, these days, you can’t walk 50 metres on any shopping street or arcade without seeing chemists, cosmetic stores, supermarkets, with stackfuls of personal hygiene products getting cheaper and larger each day. Body wash, mouth wash, shampoo, all sold by the litre. Buy one get one free. Hardly anyone goes out without a packet of sugar free chewing gum. Fifty-four pellet jumbo tubs for only the price of half a pint of lager.

Reality check required - is it me, or is it them?