On the way to work this morning there was a pong in the air that seemed to be following me. Having checked my shoes and seeing nothing on them I thought I was going mad... until I saw this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7354538.stm

Has anyone else noticed the smell??

I too thought I was going mad this morning. Glad I stumbled across the BBC news article...

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh - that explains it!

I caught a faint wiff of 'something' at gipsy hill station this morning. I didnt think much of it until i got to Croydon thought i must have a) stepped in something, forgot to clean my teeth for a week, or c) needed to see a doctor.

glad to have read the article and not made a doctors appointment!

Oh so that explains it. I kept checking my shoes this morning all the way to work, thinking I had stepped in dog s***!

Dog poo or the French. I knew it was one or the other.

jee I did not notice anything !!!

Well I thought i'd forgotten to brush my teeth this morning, so thanks for clearing that up

*Disclaimer* I am in no way suggesting that my breath smells of dog sh*t in the morning

I noticed it too and checked my shoes on the way to the station in Penge! Thanks for relieving the mystery!

It doesn't have to be bad .....when I lived in Amsterdam I noticed that often on a Wednesday afternoon/evening the air would suddenly smell like chocolate. It smelled the real thing...and turned out it was, as there was a factory a town or so away that got going on chocolate production on Wednesdays.

Welcome to my world...

Looks like I can let my other 'alf off the hook then!

me and my dad assumed someone had put something on their garden but this explains it! thanks!

Does Somerset smell of doo poo then??

Doo poo?

I actually suspect the particularly pungent whiff we experienced last week may have been that which is the subject of this thread but yes, when one is quite literally surrounded by working farms, the smell of animal "product" is never far away.

I actually find it preferable to the smell of fumes I sometimes feel overwhelmed by when in big town.

Hear hear. (Or should I say smell smell?) BBC referred to it as 'pollution' which had me asking how exactly this gentle whiff of cows is so much worse than the stench of car fumes we live with every day.

Thanks for the explanation! I noticed this smell last week, it was really strong and I noticed it all the way from leaving my house to WN station. Then I noticed the smell again at London Bridge so became convinced it was somehow me and had to ask my colleague "come on be brutally honest... do I smell?" I'm such an idiot...