STINK TANK

Some bad smell trivia for your pleasure. Take a deep breath and don the gasmasks:

A recent Newsround (UK kids' news show) poll among children rated these bad smells (worst first):

1 vomit
2 smelly armpits
3 bad breath
4 'bottom burps'
5 toilets
6 fish
7 egg sandwiches
8 trainers
9 cooked cabbage

...while at about.com, readers voted for:

1 wet dog
2 grampa taint*
3 navel fluff
4 Staten Island
5 Leonard Nimoy's ear salsa

*don't ask me, though I can sort of guess...

Other substances claimed to be 'the worst smell' include:

1 mercaptoacetic acid or methylmercaptan (a chemical said to be repulsive)
2 skunk spray
3 hot tar
4 fermented chicken feed
5 lime chutney
6 hockey goalies
7 'Bigfoot'
8 mildew and related moulds
9 the tenrec (Indonesian 'stinking badger')
10 paper mills
11 dead rats and other rotting rodents
12 durian (the fruit that 'tastes like heaven but smells like hell')
13 unchanged bandages
14 baby sick
15 the hoatzin (an Amazonian bird)
16 soft dog food
17 burning human flesh
18 high oysters
19 Shasta daisies (which smell like sweaty feet)
20 boiled urine
21 burnt popcorn
22 poultry farms
23 radiator water
24 tanning hides
25 burnt hair
26 the waste products of maggots
27 ammonia
28 brussels sprouts

The government is on to all this, of course, with UK and US governments having recently developed two chemical smells planned to dispel mobs, though they are not yet legal. This stinky pair is:

1 US Government Standard Bathroom Malodour - which is said to be an overpowering smell of human faeces, but highly concentrated.

2 'Who Me?' - which is a sulphur-based aroma, based on the smells from rotting carcases and decaying food.

Source: various / RcL