We've all bumped into them from time to time - and then wished we hadn't, probably for days as the smell just seems to linger.

The great unwashed.

There's a woman in Cardiff that you can smell at least five minutes before she arrives around the corner. It simply isn't possible to explain the strength of the smell, as it seems to have a life of its own. Bus drivers refuse to carry her, pubs and shops will not allow her to buy fags there, or goods or drinks, because the smell will stubbornly remain behind long after she has physically disappeared. One afternoon, as usual, her smell announced her imminent arrival at my local pub last summer. She begged me to buy her cigarettes in my local, but gagging, it was all I could do to gather up my papers and flee inside from the biological Woman of Mass Destruction. And inside, I was treated to stern looks of misgivings as the landlady tested the air with her quivering nostrils, the unspoken question lingering along with the womens odour that had followed me into the pub, have you washed today johnnymac?

In Elizabethan times it was considered unholy to wash but what was this particular ladies motivation? As I mentioned earlier, I've often wanted to ask, but the stink is simply too much, and trust me I have many friends to whom washing is at best a monthly hobby.Â

It was with interest therefore that I came across the following story in New Zealand, courtesy of the New Zealand Morning Herald who in turn nicked in of the Kenyan Times which just goes to show how incestuous and plagiaristic the world press actually is:

'A Kenyan villager that had not washed in ten years was forcibly stripped and scrubbed clean by his neighbours who were sick of his all pervading stench.

With masks over their nostrils, they ambushed the man and tethered him to a post before washing him in public, at arms length, with stiff brushes. It took four hours to clean the man, and at one point, an abrasive sand was used to remove a particularly thick layer of of filth. The man has since promised to wash at least once a week, and is now hoping to find a wife'

 Personally,I couldn't help but feel he'd be better off with a little scrubber.

 yechydda,