There I was at the checkout at the Intermarché supermarket  at Saint Jean d’Angely close to my home in South West France. I’d bought mussels to make moules marinères and a half decent Muscadet to accompany them.

And, I was humming, then singing along – “give up the booze and the one night stands…” The French  guy in front of me turned as I went into the sax solo under my breath. He smiled – he knew the song too. There it was, Jerry Rafferty’s Baker Street blaring out on the supermarket sound system – cutting through forty odd years back to a London teenage bedroom and an unformed mist of life ahead. https://youtu.be/Fo6aKnRnBxM

I could never have imagined that supermarket moment in a different culture and language that lay ahead of me. Only a smell has that same power as a song to zap you back to some place you didn’t even know you’d remembered.

What’s been your Baker Street moment and where does it zap you?