The Smell became apparent when, on entering my place, acquaintances would buckle at the knees, grasping at the walls for support as they staggered around the living room before reeling out onto the balcony, gasping for air and dry-retching. Those of less robust constitutions quite often didn't make it as far as the balcony, collapsing into the carpet as their eyes rolled skyward and their feet thrashed feebly.

   "Anything wrong?" I would ask as they clutched their hands to their faces and clawed at the floor in their futile attempts to reach the sanctuary of the great outdoors.
   "The...smell...!" they would moan.
   "What smell?" I'd reply, sniffing the air as they gagged into one, or on more spectacular occcasions, both of my potted palms.
   "That dreadful fish smell," they'd wheeze as they slipped into unconsciousness. Suddenly panicked by the thought of losing the acquaintance of those few people who still spoke to me, I began sniffing around the apartment.

I ran first into the laundry and checked the washing machine, remembering that time some years ago when I'd put a piece of barramundi in the spin-dry bowl of the Hoover. This was not some exotic cooking technique - take one fish, spin-dry for 30 minutes and serve with socks. Rather, it was a piece of fish I'd bought along with some other groceries and which somehow had ended up in the laundry.

I remember thinking at the time that I must have left it at the supermarket checkout and made a mental note to call the staff. As making a mental note is my equivalent of writing in the air with my forefinger, I never made the call. I still don't know how the fish got into the washing machine, this destined to remain one of those little mysteries we tend to ponder when sleeplessness strikes at 3am.

"That bloody barra," I still sometimes think as I lie in bed. "How in the name of God did it ever get into the washing machine?" Sadly, by the time I had found the barra it was well past its use-by date. So I checked the washing machine and the laundry cupboard and was relieved to find that while my grip on reality might not exactly be vice-like, I hadn't yet taken to filing the fish in the laundry.

Fearful that my friends' patience, or perhaps my friends themselves, would expire, I ran out and bought a large can of air freshener. This had the effect of making the apartment smell like a public toilet in which someone had been cooking fish. Hardly an improvement.

I was standing at the stove when realisation dawned. Simple soul that I am, there are five meals I am capable of cooking: stir-fry, curry, steak, spaghetti bolognaise and fish. I prefer fish above all else, Atlantic salmon being my favoured species. I buy a slab of it - with the skin on - throw it in the pan and toss back a beer or two while it cooks with the extractor fan whirring away over the rangehood.

Over the past 12 months, the fumes emanating from the 50 kilos or more of salmon I'd sizzled my way through had built up in the fan filters until the entire rangehood smelt like a large piece of very greasy, very old fish. Engulfed by it, I had become oblivious to The Smell. How was I to know? Nobody told me you had to clean the filters. I didn't even know I had filters.

The Smell is gone now and all my fish cooking is being conducted on the barbecue, to the horror of my neighbours who have taken to eating indoors.