Guilty Pleasures

IF much of your childhood involved social housing, drab concrete walls and the choking fumes of passing buses, as mine did, there will always be something mystical and alluring about the unmistakable scent of fresh cow dung.

All I have to do to acquire my daily fix is throw open a window and take in the morning air as it moves across the neighbouring farmyards like a cloud of mustard gas swirling through the trenches of Verdun.

Seconds later and there it is in all its naked, unpretentious glory: a sickly-sweet intoxication that fills my senses to the brim like an olfactory tipple that has been delicately crafted in the malodorous depths of an Alchemist’s laboratory.

Manure from heaven.