Do the Shake 'n' Vac

What gives with air fresheners? I don't smell. My house doesn't smell. The only bit of my house that may smell is my bathroom after I've been for a no. 2. And even then I'm the only person who uses the bathroom so I know to leave it for ten minutes afterwards. The few guests that come can use the downstairs 'cloakroom'.*
So why do we have this relentless march of air freshener technology? The HQs of Airwick and Glade must be 75% new product development. Every time I switch on the TV there's some hot new thing to get rid of 'unwanted odours.' I don't have unwanted odours, and if I've cooked something smelly I put on the fan or open the window. That normally shifts the bastard. In my day there were two types of air freshener: 1 - Air Ball. A round plastic thing with slits in it. My aunt always had those. Blue Peter showed once how you could use them to make a handy holder for your 7" singles. Yes, really. 2 - Glade. Glade was a plastic thing with some coloured blancmange-like substance inside that shrunk over the weeks. Mum always had those in the bathroom even thought the window was always flung wide open 365 days of the year.

This has all come about by this innovation I saw advertised in the telly the other night. My first thought was that it looks like one of those weird mannequins you see in shops that specialise in underwear and hosiery. No, not like La Senza or Knickerbox, but like those creepy shops you get in the backstreets of small towns that have that awful yellow film on the inside of the windows. You know, those mannequins of a ladies stomach and legs designed to show off corsets (or 'roll-ons' as they were called in our house) and big pants.
Then, if you look closely, look where the smell is coming from. Your home would smell like a knocking shop.

*Why is the downstairs bog suddenly a 'cloakroom'? I don't want to hang my coat where someone might go for a shit, thank you. When I went with my mother to see some estate agents about selling her house, they asked if she had a 'cloakroom.' Mother wasn't aware of this new development and said yes, she had a cloakroom. At which point I had to step in and explain that what the agent was driving at wasn't a room under the stairs that used to be a pantry but now housed, amongst other things, some coat hooks. Cloakroom, she thinks it's a bloody dance hall...