Ian Jelf wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 1 Nov 2004:

The distinctive smell of the Paris Metro - variable thought it is - has
never gone away since my first visit in the early 1980s.

I can assure you it was there in the 1970s! In fact, it was the thing
that "took me back" more than anything else when we went back for the
first time in 1993 (it might have been 1994, now I come to think of it,
but would swear to neither!).

the people I'd had the day before from another part
of the UK didn't venture outside Covent Garden during the r free time
because they wouldn't have dreamed of getting a tube or bus......)

I can never understand this attitude - for me, part of the challenge of
a new city is working out how to use it's public transport!
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 31 October 2004