FIELD NOTES № 001 — The History of the World in 10 Smells with Katie Puckrik

FIELD NOTES — The Thinking Salon · № 001

Someone leans in beside you — and, just for a second, they smell of an old flame. You weren't looking for it. One breath, and you're years back, somewhere else entirely, before you've decided a thing. Smell doesn't knock. It lets itself in.

For one night, Katie Puckrik does this on purpose — ten times over. The History of the World in 10 Smells is an exploration of time, space and emotion, told through the one sense you can't switch off: a playful scratch'n'sniff journey across pop culture, psychology, history, science and sex, led entirely by the nose. Ten smells, passed round the room one at a time, and the stories each one drags in behind it. One species, explained.

Her evening

Katie built the first perfume channel on the internet, and she has spent the years since making scent make sense — funny, exact, entirely her own. This evening is hers alone. She is very good at the one thing it needs: putting words to the thing you can never quite describe.

And what you take home isn't Katie's ten. It's your own — the ones that ambush you on the walk to the Tube, and won't leave for days.

How a Field Notes evening runs

Doors 7:00pm. A field notebook waits on every seat.
The idea, 7:30–8:30. One sitting, no interval. Phones away — and, alone among the Notes salons, the lights come up. The work is a living mind in the room, not a playback.
Then the room takes it up. Questions first, then time to stay, talk and connect. The conversation that doesn't end at the door.

★ Ten smells, passed hand to hand — bring your nose
★ Time, space and emotion, told through the nose, in a room of fifty-five
★ This only works up close — Circle & Star is the right size to take it personally
★ Field Notes № 001 — the first numbered salon of Volume One

About Katie Puckrik

Katie Puckrik made her name presenting Channel 4's The Word, and has been a voice on popular culture ever since — devising and presenting ITV's Pyjama Party, fronting the BBC's I Can Go For That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock, and writing for The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, Elle and The Sunday Times. She co-hosts We Didn't Start the Fire, named one of the Observer's ten best podcasts of 2021. Before television she danced — with DV8 Physical Theatre, the Michael Clark Company, and the Pet Shop Boys.

In 2008 she launched Katie Puckrik Smells, the first perfume channel on YouTube and the one that changed how perfume gets talked about.

Notes Week I — this salon falls between its two sisters. Tuesday 1 September: Sleeve Notes plays Joni Mitchell's Blue, whole. Thursday 3 September: Reel Notes screens The Graduate. The record, the idea, the picture — three nights running.

You won't leave with the answer.
You'll leave still thinking.

🚪 Doors 7:00pm · 🕗 The idea 7:30–8:30, one sitting · then Q&A and networking
📍 28 Heath Street, Hampstead, London NW3 6TE — thirty seconds from Hampstead tube
💷 £22 · 🪑 55 seats only

STEP IN. COME UP. BE PART OF THE STORY.