Spring apparently takes 8 weeks to travel up the country from Land’s End in the south to John O’Groates in the north. Apparently that equates to it traveling at something like (DISCLAIMER- this is purely hearsay.. and not based on any thorough research, or calculations for that matter, Hmm, how long IS Britain?!) 3 1/2 miles an hour. And how do they know this wondrous fact? Well, through the detailed study of when certain flowers bloom in different places, of course. When I heard this I got an image of some, disney-style, cartoon flowers blossoming in a big swoosh across the map- I reckon the swoosh is pretty pactchy and slothenly in reality, though. Like many Disney/Real-life comparisons..

Anyway, us Laundry lasses have had our first lunch of the year outside which must mean Spring is here I wonder if the scientists would appreciate this data being added to their spring-tracking?

Do you have any fail-safe method for identifying when spring has sprung?

Spring Fact # 1: Daffodils were brought to Britain by the Romans who thought that the sap from Daffodils had healing powers. Actually the sap contains crystals that can irritate the skin.

Ooh itchy.

Continue reading

There is no routine for Florence these days because every day is full of plenty of surprises or funny things, on top of the weather’s caprices of course…

Ladies (perhaps men too?), do you remember,  have you ever lost a heel on a London tube’s escalator and then had fun with the passers by as they take in your unfortunate situation?!

Or, perhaps the taste of a white coffee you were expecting (the same as it’s been for years) but have in such a hurry ruined it by adding salt instead of sugar!…

Or, similarly,  ruined both your books in your bag by putting in it (even though extremely carefully it must be said) a cup of tea for 2 seconds when need your 2 hands!

This is Florence’s routine over the last few days!

She could be a friend of those characters of this book’s collection for children…remember! Mr Clumsy, Mrs Chatterbox, Miss Giggles… what about you, who could you be?

Continue reading

There is a helicopter that seems to land above The Laundry’s office every now and then. It’s sooooo loud, but you think Helicopter in the city and you think emergency organ drop off, or mountain rescue mission, or something really worthy so its no bother. Then Flo and I got to thinking- where is the hospital around here? We definitely hadn’t seen one. Then we had fun trying to figure out which way the back of our office is facing- turns out towards Faringdon station.

Anyway, I googled Hatton Garden Helicopter, thinking we could figure out why there seems to be a helipad that is regularly used in such a seemingly normal area of the city… I mean yes there’s diamonds and everything, but its not like we’re in Chelsea or in a James Bond Film.. or is it.

I stumbled across this pilots’ forum that has all kinds of rumours about who the helicopter belongs too. That it might be the CEO of De Beers Diamonds getting ferried into work every day. Classic! Imagine, avoiding the rush hour and travelling to work like that every day. The only hustle and bustle would be a few pigeons twanged out the way by your whizzing heli-blades.

Have you heard any rumours about this helicopter landing around Hatton Garden? Or do you have some strange neighbourhood commuters in your neck of the woods?

Continue reading

People are often confused by our name.

This has ranged in extremity from the odd phone call about dirty linen, to my sister thinking that I worked in an eco-laundrette, to our sales pitch involving the preamble- “No! You do need to speak to us, honest… it’s not clothes.. it’s PAPER! Like a paper Laundry… WE CLEAN YOUR DIRTY PAPER!!”.

We were considering putting ‘It’s a metaphor’ as our strapline, but then realised we’d been beaten to it by a certain Tango ad (D’you ever do that? Come up with a brilliant idea and then realise you’ve just nicked it from someone else?!)

So, although there is much confusion, we do still ride the gag and play on the words. For instance, calling ourselves The Laundrettes..and.. sending you Christmas cards of us inside a Laundrette… and.. calling our blog ‘Clean thoughts’. So its not like we are cursing the branding genii that came up the name.

So,  for this blog I am going to embrace the theme of Laundry:

1. Check out this pretty special invention that former Laundrette Steph (ah steph you are missed) emailed me through:

http://studioblog.designaffairs.com/?p=264

2. For those who need a little help when it comes to getting started understanding the washing machine:

http://www.ehow.com/how_46_laundry.html

3. OOh ooh! Another Laundry that isn’t a Laundry

http://www.laundryline.co.uk/

Keep it on the straight and narrow, Harry. You said you were going to revere REAL Laundries- now give it to ‘em!..

4. Check out this futuristic Laundry-goer:

Have you got a favourite Laundrette? Did you almost turn me away from offering you wonderful recycling because you thought I was trying to peddle you washing services?

We want to know x

Continue reading

After last week’s blog about THE WORST SOUND IN THE WORLD I thought I might tell you I have now, in a similar vein, discovered the worst smell.

It’s the smell of my burning coat.

It smells like when you accidentally burn your hair, or your nails. Hmm hair burning, why do I know so clearly the smell of burned hair? I’m having shimmery flash back to some school nativity thing in church with these candles with little paper funels wrapped round them to catch the wax. The children would sing something cute and christmassy and do a little procession round the church, candle-to-plait, like elephants trunks-t0-tails. Needless to say my coordination wasn’t too hot back in those days. Hell, it’s not so great now, but no one asks me to do things like walk in a candle-to-plait procession these days.

Anyway, back to the coat. It also had a candle confrontation at a friends house. I thoughtlessly draped it near some candles whilst waiting for a taxi to arrive, and then this horrible stench crept in the room and I leapt up seeing the steam/smoke rising from my poor new special woolly coat. Haven’t bought a bloomin winter coat in about 5 years because every year I think about it and then deliberate over which one is best, then wait for the January sales, then can’t hack shopping in the January sales, and then suddenly its March again and I think ‘oh there’s no point spending all that money now..’!!! And then I make the effort to invest (who was gonna get through THE BIG FREEZE without a proper coat this winter?) and ruin it within about 2 days of ownership.

So, it is a disaster.  Florence our lovely new sales person, thinks it smells like a pig. I think this might be a saying, like when you burn your hair in France you say it smells like a pig, but we haven’t got there yet.

Basically, I’m looking for some commiseration from you lovely Laundry lot.

Something like, how my brother once had a snake who only goes to the toilet every 3 years dump its load on his brand-spanking new white jeans. That’ll teach him for wearing white jeans.

Have you ever spilled a blueberry smoothie on your brand new handbag? Hot washed your man’s favourite pants?

Write in to us now- accidents of attire we stand united xxx

Continue reading

I’ve just bought some headphones with an extra long cable bit so that I can plug into my computer ( extra long cable is to fix the prob of old skool computer on the desk under the table… in the past trying to listen to music has been conditional on my happiness of rubbing nose to knee) and become an antisocial whatsamacallit when I’m trying to concentrate on that sort of busy busy cut and paste and concentrate hard-damned-diggety work. AND it has brought to my attention all the awful, terrible, finger-curlingly BAAAAAD noises that my computer likes to make that previously I didn’t have to put up with.

Like, when I do something wrong in excel its like this really uncharacteristically microsoft kind of HOOOOOHHHNNNNNK, like a small train has been passing through (though not stopping) in  my ear. It made me recoil and tear the ear bobblets out quick sharp. A bit like my reaction to some other wondrous variety of the world’s worst sounds.

Like the squeek of leeks when chewing, for example. Or the sound of nails scratching startchy shirt collars. Or the classic black board screecher. Urrrgh. I’m tugging a my neckline (weird reaction I have to being tickled and hearing baaad noises) as we speak.

I wondered if you have any similar noise-focused hates you’d like to share fair Laundry luverrrrs?

Continue reading

Although we love it that you send your dirty, used paper to The Laundry to get cleaned up, we have been looking at things that other people do with their paper.

First off, one of our customers Mumford Fine Art of Soho is holding an exhibition of a whole load of art works all created on, or using, or about paper:

paperworks-4th-annual-exhibition-of-art-produced-on-paper

They describe the exhibition as “Ranging from photography to etching, and watercolour to graphite, the exhibition champions original fine art on and of paper”.

I’ve visited Mumford’s roof top delight and it is pretty spesh. A totally Soho experience.

Here’s their contact deets: Mumford Fine Art, Rooftop Gallery, 12 D’Arblay Street, Soho, London W1F 8DU. Opening hours Tues-Fri 1.00-6.00pm, Sat
1.00-5.00pm. http://www.mumfordfineart.net contact email
info@mumfordfineart.net

Now this website has a catalogue of some amazing paper snippery. 100-extraordinary-examples-of-paper-art Check out the first one where the skeleton looks like its rising from its papery grave to come and haunt us.

At Christmas last year I did some snowflake art… boy does that take a while to get back into. You know, to remember the rules of which corners to cut so you don’t just end up with a pile of confetti or an ugly mishapen square.

Look how good these guys are at snowflake making:

If you, like me, need a little help making the perfect flake see here:  snowflakes.html

Do you have any wonderful or straightforward things you do with your paper before handing it over to The Laundry. Remember we love pics and so does the blog..

x

Continue reading

A couple of weekends ago I was coming into central London on the train and got a really good look at the Gherkin building all shining in the sun. When I first lived in London it was getting built and it seemed to sit right at the bottom of our high street in its increasing stages of stature. They made the lighting all red and green at Christmas (thought that was gonna stay.. but no). Anyway when I was looking at it recently, I thought: Doesn’t really look much like a gherkin does it? More like a bullet? But I guess that doesn’t have quite the same quirky-catchy ring to it. They’d have been saying..”Violent Londoners Commission Building in the form of Deadly Arms” .. Instead of “new sky-scraper nicknamed the erotic gherkin…”

Anyway, I find it quite hard to tell whether girt-big sky scrapers have any aesthetic appeal at all , so I thought I’d put it to you, Fair Laundry Lovers. What’s your fave London building (sky scraper or not)?  I’m going to mull it over and will be commenting with mine.

Continue reading

Just looking out of our windows as I write this and I have the residue of our low key, low budget, Christmas shindig FAKE snow on the windows with a backdrop of the biggest fattest REAL snowflakes ever. I mean, boy was it fun squirting that fake snow on the windows. I mean really really fun. But surely nothing in the world (or at least the snow-related world) beats snow falling down on London? ESPECIALLY when its been happening everywhere else all day and not settling here in central.

So this is the theme of my pondering. Which version of things is better: Fake or Real?

Noooo noo noo not thinking page 3 material here. More like, What’s better fake banana flavour or real bananas. Definitely real i’d say. What about Xmas trees- there’s this whole eco debate- (and perhaps some would say an aesthetic debate!)- what’s better for the environment real or fake?

I’m thinking REAL will triumph over FAKE in most cases, but also getting quite into thinking about the anomolies where it’s all about the phony imposters.

So I put it to you:

What’s better Real or fake Coffee?

Real or fake money? (gotta be a diehard monopoloy fanatic or true crusador against capitalism to go for the latter..surely..)

Real or fake flowers?

Real, or fake, fires. That plastic molded charcoal that flickers electronically and is tipped in fake fire effect oranges and gold.

Fake sea (swimming pool) or real sea (ocean- seaweed? Tsunamis?!)?

I think I’m more of a realist. But I’d like to hear what you think

Continue reading

Sharing Fridges with people is quite an intimate interaction. At The Laundry’s old offices the upper echelons of the fridge were a treacherous place dogged by half full jars of leftovers brought in by staff, many open soya milk cartons (REALLY bad taste when it’s gone off, that soya) and plenty  of hummus  for mass consumption. Whereas the bottom of the fridge was full of fresh veg that a lovely lady called Clare would use to cook lunch each day. Nice.

Here in the new office the fridge is pretty much bare apart from some muller fruit corners, milk in cartons (not bottles, boo) and one s0litary can of diet coke and some proper coffee. It is pristine-clean as it’s not really used for storing propper food (there’s only a micro wave, no hobs) .

In both fridge sharing situations there is the potential for shared-house style stealing/borrowing to go on. To what extent is this practice moral? That is my question.

download House of 9 I got caught red faced ‘borrowing’ our friendly neighbours cafetiere (the star of last weeks’ blog) and now he thinks that I was stealing his real proper coffee too! To me- the chaste use of a cafetiere is OK- but stealing the actual coffee a big no-no that I’d never want to get caught doing.

Now, I’ve just put 2 cold bottles of cava in the spotless fridge at the new office. And it got me thinking, should I put a sign on them ‘THIS ALCOHOL IS FOR THE LAUNDRY’?? Or is the practice of labeling your food with your name the reserve of pernickety selfish folk?

download Small Soldiers

Tell me your feelings in this matter. We would like to know.

Continue reading

Florence Le Brun, or Flozza/ Flo as we are currently trying to nickname her, is the newest recruit to team Laundry. She is fabbo. A frenchy with attitude and style and passion and a go get em approach to sales, which us exactly what we need.

A few lucky customers might have had the pleasure as she’s been ploughing the streets in the east these past few weeks, door knocking to convert more of your fellow office dwellers to the way of The Laundry.

Anyway, during our first few weeks working together Florence and me have learned a thing or two about our cultural differences.

For instance did you know the the French (besides doing many real-life kiss kisses) don’t write ‘xx’ after their names in birthday cards or text messages? Florence kept wondering ‘what is this xx? What does it mean?’. And then I tried to explain.. and it all sounded a bit odd. How exactly does ‘X’ stand for kisses?

Other notable points, seem to be areas where a certain English teacher of Florence’s got it a bit wrong. For instance, Flo was picking up the phone saying ‘Here is Florence’ as she’d been told it was the most polite way to announce yourself. I thought it was quite cute, but Rachel couldn’t bare it any longer and broke the news that its not the most traditional way of saying hello on the phone.

And I’ve always thought that those coffee devices- ‘cafetiere’ or FRENCH PRESS was something all French people would be familiar with. Well this is not the case at all. Florence asked me to show her how to use this to make coffee. A little delving into wikipedia shows that the name is a little misleading. Although Flo reckons her grandparents used to use one during the war!!

The classic mince pie confusion also came up a couple of days ago. Florence’s french friend would like her to pick some up and bring it back to France for Chrimbo. It’s the just the name isn’t it?!! Why call it mince meat when there is no meat. She was going mm yeah, I’ll try that, spicy sugary mince meat filling, still thinking that there was bit of beef inside. Thanks to pictures of the Internet and some gesticulation its all square.

So, this is what I learned about the French this week.

Are you French, and find some English thing bizarro? Are you English and have a funny tale of getting it all wrong on a French holiday? Do share

X X X

Continue reading

Here we are in the new Laundry HQ and I’ve been out roaming, exploring our territory, scoping the place out and getting some fresh air in between the showers.  There’s a square behind Leather Lane market, away from the diamonds and past the stalls.  I don’t know what it’s called yet, I’ll check tomorrow, but it’s got 6 benches comfortable enough to have a sandwich without your bum going numb.  (Warning a few mild swear words follow).

Continue reading

I got this strange fruit in my veg box last week which looks a bit like a tomato and a bit like a chinese lantern fruit but much larger and without any of the cool leaf-skelaton casing..

Has anyone any ideas? I would send a picture but  lacking the wherewithall… lead/photo transmitting airwaves as I’m writing this from my technologically deprived computer desk at home…

More clues are that it has the texture of a pear/ banana and the taste of sweet tea…? Anyone?

I would like to return the favour.. If you have a plant/pciture/object/song that you can’t identify and think The Laundry might be able to help.. do show and tell.

Here’s some other weird fruite to inspire you:

square melon

corporate fruit

weird fruit medley

religious fruit, very weird

Sadly, none of these are my weird fruit.

Continue reading

Apparently the whole practice of reading someone’s future from a crystal ball  could stem right back to the megalithic peoples of ancient Britain. That’s pretty old stuff. They were all about rocks and stone structures, and this thinking that it all goes back to them comes from an observation of the similarities in practices between these guys and the Druids, known fans of crystals in general. Tentative, but hey. History isn’t science is it. Unless it’s archeology- that could well be a  science. Anyway, point is crystals seem to have played a major part in people finding out what was going on with their world before Mystic Meg and Wikipedia (source credit!) came along.

• Bull Durham divx

It’s interesting though, that even nowadays when Science has really expanded the minds of humans; their understanding of the hows and whys of the world always growing, that still, we look to older, less concrete ways of finding out about the world and ourselves. Star signs are always to be found sandwiched between the real news and sports section of the major newspapers, and I always read them when I come across them, even though I’m pretty sure my logical mind thinks it’s a load of old boot. Mine and maybe my boyfriends too- nosy parker. And why? What is it that I think I’m reading exactly? A personal advice column written just for me? Some piece of cosmic star dust sprinkled between the words, waiting to be read and unravel my destiny? I really couldn’t tell you. But I have to say I like them. Sometimes, anyway. (and then when they don’t say quite what I’m looking for, I think: Well, it’s all a load of codswallap anyway!!).

Do you trust any particular future predicting method? Tea leaves left in your mid-morning green tea cup residue perhaps? Or, maybe the letter of the alphabet your apple stem breaks upon whilst twisting, wishing for wedlock. Wow those are healthy methods.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Or daisy petals?Don’t snort them. Pick them off, one by one deliciously. And then loose count when there’s only a few left as you can see the outcome unfolding, and you don’t like it. He loves me.. erm…. Ah! He Loves MEEEE!

• download 2012: Science or Superstition

Ultraviolet psp

Lines on your hand? (Personally this one scares me.. I’m thinking that craggy line that cuts off half way between by thumb and forefinger can’t be great news).

• Episode list for move Back to School film

One Night with the King download I’m looking into my crystal ball (actually it’s a globe-shaped blackboard that lovely Rachel donated to The Laundry) and it’s telling me… it’s telling me.. maaaanny maaaany Laundry customers are going to write in and tell me they are as mad as me.

Continue reading