The local Canary Wharf shopping centre is having one of its regular children’s days, which results in the main area being given over to face painting, balloons and the like. Not a bad idea, and the shopping centre do have themed days quite often – although I am still waiting for the “English middle class male” evening to be offered.
Anyhow, one of the stalls was handing out free candy floss and popcorn – and the smell permeated the area.
While for most people, the smell will bring back childhood memories of funfairs and circuses, it doesn’t for me. Being brought up overseas, the English funfair was something I didn’t experience until I was a young adult – and for me it was something to be enjoyed on a Friday evening with friends after spending a few hours down the pub after work.
Unfortunately, a sizeable quantity of beer, followed by fairground food and candy floss type snacks – followed by getting onto contraptions who have the sole function of spinning humans around in as many different angles and as fast as possible – tended to cause a not exactly surprising biological reaction in my stomach.
Hence, for me the smell of candy floss is one which is more likely to have me running to the nearest toilet to be ill rather than smile and remember fond memories.
