Bananas

I have travelled quite extensively in the USA and one thing I have noticed is that whenever I go to someone's home it always has a very distinctive smell. Sometimes it's not in their apartment, sometimes it's just in the staircase, but I smell it everywhere I go. It's strong and sweet and has a tinge of rot but it's not exactly unpleasant. I have never figured out what caused it - a particular type of cleaning product was my best guess. I just think of it as American House Smell and until yesterday I had never smelt it anywhere else.

Last night I came home from a weekend away and my house smelt of American House Smell. It was very disorienting as my house was just where I had left it ie not in the USA. Eventually I tracked down the source of the smell to the fruitbowl, which contained three very overripe bananas. I can therefore announce that the whole of the United States of America smells of overripe bananas.

I wish I could segue from that into talking about how the Oscar decisions were bananas, but actually they were pretty much exactly the same as the Baftas except for a choice of Best Film, No Country For Old Men, which (a) was much better than Atonement and (b) poo-pooed my theory that NCFOM and There Will Be Blood would split the Important Movie vote. There's no point me repeating the comments I made then. Never mind. I'm off to surf the net for pictures of Diablo Cody's million dollar diamond shoes.