Observations on the cloud

Curious, the power of a four-letter word. The great black smudge that spread across the skies of southern England from a burning oil depot in Hemel Hempstead couldn't fail to alarm those in its shadow, especially as reporters kept saying it was toxic. But it didn't seem nearly so threatening when a scientist from the Met Office declared it was a cloud of soot.

What could be more familiar,

more domestic? Why, a whole generation of us grew up in the amiable if mischievous company of a glove puppet named after the stuff. And it's seasonal: if you've read The Night Before Christmas you will know that when St Nick came down the chimney "he was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,/And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot".

Soot is even retro. The central-heating generation will have only an echoing, atavistic awareness of this curious substance, of its extraordinary blackness, of its wonderful smudginess, of its vast capacity to get you into a mess and into trouble. Where would a child go, in our smokeless homes, to meet the stuff, stick fingers in it and play with it? (The ink cartridge of a photocopier or printer would be one place, though I don't recommend it.)

Not that it is harmless, though it is not in the same league as those seductive white snowdrifts of asbestos dust some unlucky children used to roll around in. When soot particles are small and floating about in the air they have the capacity to attack the lungs, which is of course very dangerous if it is sustained over a long time (for example, by smoking) or if you already have dodgy lungs.

Scarily, soot is also associated with scrotal cancer, a condition (now relatively rare) that was common among child chimney sweeps and was the very first cancer to be linked to an occupation (by one Percival Pott in London in 1775). Soot contains a tar that can be carcinogenic, and the boys were intensively exposed to it over years.

Today soot is gaining notoriety as a global warmer and climate changer, mainly because when airborne soot settles on ice or snow - something it does in larger quantities than you might imagine - it causes it to absorb more sunlight and reflect less. As two Nasa scientists who studied the phenomenon report: "We suggest that soot is a more all-round 'bad actor' than has been appreciated."

Which reminds me: you will be wondering by now how a brown bear came to be called Sooty. Showbiz legend has it that the original puppet, bought in a Blackpool shop in 1948, did not have the black nose and ears and acquired them only when Harry Corbett, concerned to give his little comedy partner a more interesting look, applied a little soot from the chimney. After which no other name was possible.

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