I’ve got a piece up today at Comment Is Free, the Guardian’s blog, on the phenomenon of flowers losing their scent. Go check it out, along with the very perceptive literary criticism in the comments.

1. 
   Theriomorph 2008 04 20 at 10:23:18 am

   Wonderful, Chris! Congratulations on good work getting noticed!

   And yeah, I thought I was in an AOL or YouTube comment thread there for a second. But I liked the very British smackdowns of MindYourOwnBusiness and gunnison.

2. 
   jmartin 2008 04 20 at 11:55:27 am

   And I’d thought Piltdown Man a hoax.

3. 
   embee 2008 04 20 at 1:24:43 pm

   Lovely piece, Chris.  And just to let you know that at least some yellow freesias retain their scent: I’ve had a pot of them overwhelming my living room for the past two weeks.  They hold their own against the orange and lemon trees outside. Walking through my front door is moving between scentospheres. (A word to go along with poetophobes, hee!)

4. 
   nina 2008 04 20 at 8:43:03 pm

   I don’t think you’ve really lived until you’ve been called a wanker.

5. 
   Rob G 2008 04 21 at 9:18:37 am

   “pretentious wanker” is even better. But the sad bastard couldn’t even spell “pseuds”.

   Congrats on getting into the Grauniad, Chris!

6. 
   Chris Clarke 2008 04 21 at 4:11:17 pm

   Well, to be precise, I’ve achieved a couple of the above-mentioned achievements before: my writing has appeared in the Grauniad before (see here) and I’ve been called a wanker before (see entire history of Usenet).

   Don’t know that I’ve been called a pretentious wanker before, though, which practice I suspect involves an extended digitus minimus.

   That above sentence is pretentious too, but there’s no way I was going to use the word “pinky” there. I know you all far too well.