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Smell of Success
By KENNETH J. ROBINSON
• it I've been slamming my car door for the last half-hour. It didn't need slamming, but I was testing my chances of keeping up with the Joneses. I'd just heard about an American firm which uses a panel of design experts to 'evaluate the sounds d smells of new cars' and claims it has the ost expensive door slam in the business.' I n't want this to become an obsession, but I st be outside again soon, listening to the neigh- ours as they come home. I may be over-sensitive, Ut it seems to me they all go `crunk' rather pensively, whereas I can't manage more than Cheap `gedoink2 I'm not even very confident bout smells. At the moment I've got lobster ayonnaise upholstery with a boudoir finish—a Y, you might think, for any olfactory worker's aytime. But all I can detect is the sweet sourness sun-kissed oil rags and an ecclesiastical musti- ess, which comes from unopened Inland Revenue tters in the boot. Nor can I remember noticing nYthing more expensive in the smells of earlier odels--apart from the elusive scent of bread ad butter which haunted my car-number-two (ter about 75,000 miles.
That, now I come to think of it, was a smell worth aluating. There must surely be a lot of scope Or sound-smell research as an aid to second-hand les. This sort of thing would be nicely handled Y the man who sold me my first car. I can just ear him stepping up the price because the fan rapes noisily against the radiator and lets you now the dynamo is charging. And given a few i0 Yringes of disinfectant, liquid fertiliser and vol de WI, he could cope with almost any type of snob- stonier. 'Hear that, Joe? The gentleman's asking bout the smell. I told him we done our best, but hen a car's been parked for months near Harley reel (/the Ministry of Agriculture/the Ivy) ercs not much we can do about it.' But I'm t really bothered about second-hand scents and ises at the moment. What I need is someone to aluate the purring I get from my vibrating ving mirror and the superior rending sound hen the rear ashtray is prised open. Until I get n expert on the job I shan't be too sure about the aloe of the car. I'm not even sure the whole thing ft part of a giant leg-pull, especially after read- g that General Motors' new Cadillac is to have built-in radar device. This, it is said, will give a tgb-pitched warning, like that of a back-seat tolher-in-law, when other cars are approaching.
pid y011 know that when you brace yourself gainst your dentist's foot-rest you're not really trying to ease the pain? You are, in fact, trying vainly to make yourself more comfortable. I have this on the authority of the Human Factors Divi- sion of America's Department of Operational Dentistry, who are sponsoring a 'Euphorian' dental chair which does without a foot-rest and the usual collection of adjustable controls. Years of research have shown that 'this will eliminate the preliminary conversational skirmish between dentist and patient as to what is comfortable and what is not.' It seems this introductory chat is 'a point of possible enmity,' so it's a relief to know that the new contoured chair, designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, will remove tension from the dentist (who can sit down) as well as soothing the patient. Some dentists are muttering that patients would be more reassured by the familiar shape of the old type of chair. Of course they would. Some people would be happier to see a good old- fashioned horse and cart fired at the moon. In fact, with so many convention-bound people about it's surprising that there can be any re-thinking about the design of something that is taken for granted, like a dentist's chair. Incidentally, I don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy, but I'm a little worried about the ominous statement that 'certain patterns of patient behaviour, commonly accepted, will have to be altered.' Perhaps there is something to be said for that old euphorian string and door-handle.
There's a really nasty piece of otlicial vandalism (talking of change and decay) laid on in Norwich —one of the few places in the country which has kept its original character in the face of the democrat at the steering wheel. Until now no one had thought of approaching it with arterial motives. But the City Engineer has just hit on a novel way of making the beauty of the city avail- able to more people per mile per hour. Because the narrow, intimate streets are out of date for pique- hour traffic he proposes to make them wider and less intimate. And that's not all. He has also thought up a scheme for driving a new highway right through the city, tearing a hole in the street that was recently given a face-lift with the help of the Civic Trust. This would have the amusing effect of taking traffic away from the roads specially widened for it. Fortunately there are too many friends of Norwich for this scheme ever to get anywhere. Public pressure will almost certainly push the new road where it belongs—around the outskirts of the city walls. But it's alarming that a City Engineer is in a position to draw up a plan without even once consulting the City Architect and the Town Planning Committee—the officials most concerned with the appearance of a city.
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