The Laundry » History

The Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree

Steph — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:40:45 +0000

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The Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree

Did you know…that every year Norway donates a Christmas Tree to the people of Britain in recognition of the help Britain gave to Norway during the Second World War? Apart from this being quite a nice way to say thanks, there are a number of other rituals that accompany the giving of the tree that I have found personally quite charming, if a little funny when I imagine them in my head. Things like the selection of the tree. Imagine the Lord Major of Westminster, the Mayor of Oslo and the British Ambassador to Norway trekking through the Norwegian pine forest to hunt down the so-called ‘queen of the forest’; the carefully selected spruce that’s over 20 metres high and 50-60 years old. That image makes me smile. In fact any image with trees in it usually does the trick to be honest. But, did you know….that the tree is decorated with energy efficient light bulbs. No? Me either. I am heartened, I have to say.

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Tell us about your tree, or about the time you visited Norway. Or any stories about Mayors or Ambassadors. Speak to us, we’re listening…

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Finding the way

Rachel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:11:44 +0000

I’ve been trying to be more cultured recently on the cheap. Or I mean use my brian for non work activity. So last night, and I’m not sure if I approve of this or not, but I went to a free preview of a More4 film that is on Tuesday 9th. I think I thought it was the ICA, which seems little bit more cool with fewer strange hats. Anyway we found ourselves there, had to struggle through a protest, I say struggle, I mean engage the protesters in a healthy debate about the pros and cons of giving everyone (no matter who they are and how aborant their views are) a platform.

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After the film – I won’t ruin it just in case you’re going to watch it. But afterward there was a debate with the film maker and a guy from channel 4 news. How exciting I thought, no. It was a really weird set up. People asked peculiar questions, like why did you sacrafice style over content, you could see him thinking ouch and Channel 4 man stepped in a started to defend the shots of mountains and market scene. All the while questioners were being bullied by an extrememly insistant american lady who kept on interupting people’s flow to get them to hold the microphone closer to their mouths.

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After this pretty exhausting experience, my mind felt a bit addled. So instead of going to the loo, like I’d told my friends, I thought I’d go and explore the building, woo hoo hoo. I came across the fellows library, yes, I thought, I can get away as being a fellow of the RSA, despite wearing Sam’s eurohike pullover to keep warm, I have an air of….errrr followship?

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So in Library I found this amazing book on the history of maps in London. This is my really long way round introducing the history of finding the way.

Killer's Kiss I absolutely love finding the way, have an impeccable sense of direction, which comes in handy when route planning The Laundry lorry. I’m also deeply intolerant of people who can’t read maps (I do try to keep that under wraps). So imagine my luck when I found out that my boyfriend is part of an international community trying to make a free map of the world???? It’s better than googlemaps because you can stick anything you like on it.

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The oldest known maps are preserved on Babylonian clay tablets from about 2300 B.C. Cartography was considerably advanced in ancient Greece. The concept of a spherical Earth was well known among Greek philosophers by the time of Aristotle (ca. 350 B.C.) and has been accepted by all geographers since. Maps became increasingly accurate and factual during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries with the application of scientific methods. Many countries undertook national mapping programs. Nonetheless, much of the world was poorly known until the widespread use of aerial photography following World War I. Modern cartography is based on a combination of ground observations and remote sensing.

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Rachel

Web Slights

Rachel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:54:49 +0000

With the official launch of our new website at 4pm on Tuesday the 30th September, what an historic day! I thought I’d treat you to the history of websites. Whoopa.

There is some debate about the first ever website, some say Al Gore claimed to invent the www, others say that’s hear say – some people accuse me of not knowing the difference between the internet and the world wide web, some people might be right.But here I can unofficially let you into the secret of the first website and here it is:

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Some guy called Tim Berners-Lee (an Oxford grad in physics) invented the web as a way of posting information for physicists at the European Particle Accelerator at CERN.

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Blonde Ambition full movie download Gojira Vs Biorante dvd It’s those trouble makers again. Just as I had forgiven them when we didn’t all get sucked into a big black hole when they tried to recreate the big bang in a concrete tunnel in France…they get me all riled up again. They are to blame for my-face, hours and hours of wasted time refining search words in yahoogle and yes, I couldn’t believe this either www.sugardaddie.com. Pesky scientists and their big ideas.

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HA! I wonder if this blog spot will cause as much controversy as the big cardie commotion. I hope so, winky winky wink.

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Of course the web isn’t all bad; it has all the answers, all of them. These are the questions I’ve asked it…

How was bread invented?
How was butter invented?

How was cheese invented?
How was cake invented?

Ok, so maybe I’ve only tested it out on food innovation, but I’m sure there are more answers out there. Please ask the web something and post it for us.

And finally here are my current favourite websites:

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and of course the new

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Soul Mates

Harriet — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:46:31 +0000

Ok, so this might be the geekiest email I’m going to write. For about 8 years now I’ve been collecting pairs of words.

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I find it a bit hard to describe…it’s adjectives and adverbs that only seem to exist to describe one noun only.

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For example
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Dulcet Tones

Dulcet describes sounds that are soft and pleasant to listen to, but you don’t often hear of dulcet waves or dulcet rain.

I wanted to be able to give you more examples of this, but I haven’t actually collected all these pairs one sensible place, they are scribbled on note pads and diaries and books and I’m too lazy to go on a rummage, so I decided to ask some bloggers on linguistics, if they knew any more and if there was a name for it.

Lo and Behold = HOLD ON A SECOND, is that one? You don’t often hear lo without behold, brilliant. Ok, sidetracking.

Lo and Behold, I did actually get a reply from Graham Pointon:

“Fixed Collocations”
I think this is a good enough term for what you’re looking at. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (by R.W.Burchfield, OUP 1998 in my edition) has, under the heading Collocation, pairs such as “innocent bystander”, “habitual liar”, “far-reaching consequences”. There is also “rancid butter”. These are not strictly as indissoluble as “dulcet tones”, but pretty close, I think. The term “collocation” was first used in this sense by J.R.Firth, Professor of General Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

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Now hit me with yours…

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Also, for fun, have play with the singing horses; it’s an art…sort of.

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Love from

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Mayday Mayday

Harriet — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:12:17 +0000

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At my primary school we had this headmaster called Mr Mather who was well into his May Pole dancing. Every year he used to get out his accordion and each class in the school would have a go at careering in between each other directed by his megaphone! Swinging off the brightly coloured ribbons- often crashing shoulders and making irrevocable knots where there was supposed to be an intricate pattern. Each dance had a name like ‘hop skipping barley’ or ‘double ducking maid’s hat’…

The May Pole and other May Day traditions (like ‘Morris men’: hankies and sticks and bells) Wikipedia says marks the end of uncomfortable winter- So, watch out! This is where it all begins oh lovely launderers. Even as I write this the rain is slashing down, but from tomorrow- which will be today as you read this- we can expect a stonking start to summer sunshine, and maybe the odd spot of rioting down near Downing Street- that’s the forecast from wikipedia anyway.

Well, apparently (as all the best British festivities seem to be) May Day comes from a pagan tradition celebrating spring and fertility. But the May Pole itself is of Germanic descent. In Britain the May Pole would be dressed with flowers and greenery (to make it look pretty), they mainly went up in villages between which there was apparently a competitive edge to the length of pole. London was fairly May Pole free until the 1660s when they started cropping up everywhere, and the similar ‘who’s got the biggest pole’ jibe persisted with silly effects. The tallest was near the church in Aldwych and it was so tall it got blown over by a ‘high wind’- what would the planners say today?!

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Easter Information

Rachel — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:24:48 +0000

Owning Mahowny move This week guest stars Helen, an ex-Laundrette who emailed us some interesting facts about Easter.

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This year is the earliest western Easter any of us will ever see for the rest of our lives! Only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early, and none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Don’t believe me? Here are the facts:

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1) The next time Western Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913. Only those who have outgrown 95 years were around for that!

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

This means my Grandad experienced Easter on 23rd March when he was 8 years old.

The rule has, since the Middle Ages, been phrased as: Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the spring equinox.

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The word Easter is derived from Eostre who was the Goddess celebrated at the spring equinox. So there are sort of pagan links…

In 2007 we bought 80 million eggs – do your bit this year!

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Tell us some more about Easter.

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Share your email pain here

Helen — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:44:24 +0000

This week, I have been thinking about emails. It seems all modern and shiny, but did you know the first systems that sent messages between computers started in 1965? The email address as we know it today, with the @ symbol, was invented in 1972 and now more than 600 million people internationally use email.

The @ sign, otherwise known as the ‘at sign’ or officially the ‘amphora’ has lots of exciting names in other languages. The at sign is often seen as an animal: in Afrikaans and Dutch it is called aapstert, which means monkey’s tail. The Danes call it snabel-a or grisehale, which are elephants’ trunks and pigs’ tails. The French see it as a petit escargot (little snail), whereas Russians apparently have a more imaginative approach to these things and call it sobachka, which means little dog (not seeing it myself!). My favourites are the Thai ai tua yiukyiu, which means the little wiggling worm like character, and the Finnish miukumauk, which means the sign of the meow as Finns think the at sign looks like a curled up, sleeping cat! Bless.

However, the advent of email has brought with it a whole new load of social faux pas and potentially terrible situations to get yourself into – think of all those poor people who write a very rude/explicit/revealing/downright stupid email, and the recipient sees fit to forward it to their friends who forward it to their friends who forward it to their friends until you’re reading about it on the front page of the newspaper on the tube.

And then there’s email slang, something that makes me feel very old because I haven’t got a clue what they’re going on about. Y’know, all that LOL, LMAO, BRB, BTDTGTTSAWIO (prize for the first person to tell me what that stands for!). Here’s one that makes me laugh: AITR – adult in the room. Well, you can see what age group invented this one!

Can’t deny it, email has changed the way we communicate. Also the way we record our life – how are historians of the future going to know what we wrote to each other? Will they stumble across old email accounts in the way you might find a stack of letters?

I really like this great project set up by the British Library. During May 2007, The British Library is creating the first ever national archive of emails, which aims to record a snapshot of British life through emails, permanently archived for generations to come. They want everyone to send them emails they have received, in different categories:

1. Blunders – embarrassing revelations, a case of mistaken identity etc

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2. Life changers – job offers, marriage proposals etc

< “um. I have a lady in my life these days. I do believe some of you have met her. You seem surprised because it’s fair to say I forgot to tell any of you. You

. That’s been keeping me busy for the last month. Hmmm I guess it’s more of a conversation thing so that’s all for now”

Complaints – public transport, poor customer service etc

A complaint is a very rare thing here in Laundry Land, so I can’t show you an example. However, here’s a useful website: http://www.howtocomplain.com/

4. Spam – the best (or worst) spam emails received

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I really don’t need to post any here, everyone knows what Spam looks like! Post any good examples on the blog. Here’s a website about a spam experiment: and another one about people who like keeping spammers busy and here’s the official spam website for good measure.

Love and romance – romantic emails which tugged at the heartstrings

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6. Humorous emails –funny forwards, office banter, jokes etc

The Laundry email, every week! Here’s one I got emailed the other day: while The Laundry of course has no political affiliations or opinions, this joke did make me laugh!

Bush and Cheney are at a restaurant for lunch. The waitress comes over and

asks what they will be having.

Bush says, “I’ll have a quickie.”

The waitress steps back in disgust and says, “Mr. President, I thought that

kind of piggish behavior went out with the last administration!”

She storms off and Dubya looks confused. Cheney shakes his head at the

president and says, “George, it’s pronounced QUICHE.”

7. Everyday emails – exchanging recipes, organising nights out etc

From my housemate:

“I’m going to invite some friends to our party, is there a theme or anything special, or shall I just suggest people turn up with a bottle of pop and some crackers?”. It was a good party.

8. News – good and bad news, births, illness, accidents etc

An email from a very excited friend:

“Guess what I’ve just bought… a car!!!! I am officially a car owner and I’m rather excited about it! I can’t pick it up until Saturday (I’m having a CD player fitted, naturally) but then i can go zoom zooming all around town and beyond! Technically I don’t really have anywhere to go in it but I’m hoping I will in the not too distant future”.

9. Mexican Gangster video World around you – emails/views on topical events, news from around the world etc

From another housemate (TV programmes count as topical events!):

“Hope your day is going well. I am still recovering from last night’s This Life reunion. So bad it made me angry”. Took him days to recover from that.

10. Tales from abroad –long distance emails from far flung places

There’s a brilliant book called Don’t Tell Mum full of the emails gap year kids send back to their parents. Riders divx Have a look at some extracts here.

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I’m going to end with an email I was sent the other day when I asked someone why they were laughing. This someone will remain anonymous, for their own dignity.

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Re: Why are you laughing?

“I’m laughing because

I haven’t shaved my arm pits for about three weeks – oops”

TTFN! Tell us all about your email wonders and blunders and don’t forget to send emails to the British Library project – email@emailbritain.co.uk

John, King of Scots

Jess — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:27:50 +0000

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, better known as John Balliol (his Dad founded Balliol College, Oxford) became King of Scotland on this day in 1292.

It wasn’t actually a very pleasant job and he didn’t have a great deal of autonomy – he was known as Toom Tabard or empty vessel. He took over the post from Margaret, Maid of Norway. She had taken on the role at the tender age of 3, being the only legitimate heir to King Alexander III. Yolande, Alexander’s wife, did try to fake a pregnancy in order to ensnare the throne for her own offspring but she was unconvincing and Margaret, daughter of Eric II of Norway and Alexander’s daughter who was also called Margaret, was groomed for Queendom. She stayed in Norway for the first 4 years of her rule, and a series of politicians did the job of actually running the country. Then, worried that such a young Queen would cause civil war between the rivals to the throne, England’s Edward I had her married off at the tender age of 7 to his son, the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward II of red hot pokers fame). The prince was to act as warder to the Queen rather than as a husband (phew!) but, on her way from Norway to Scotland to start being Queenly, she became ill on the stormy voyage and died soon after disembarking at Orkney. Her body was taken back to Bergen and the corpse laid next to her mother. She was the last of the House of Dunkeld.

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With Margaret’s life cut short, Scotland was left with 13 claimants to the throne. Edward I appointed John Balliol, who he basically ignored and Ed did the real ruling. When John rebelled and set up an alliance between Scotland, France and Norway, Edward responded by brutally invading Scotland and crushing the rebellion. John was taken to the Tower of London and then exiled to France. This sparked the Scottish War of Independence, with the Scots uprising under William Wallace (this is the bit that’s in Braveheart). They claimed to be acting on behalf of the exiled King, but John, snug in the family estate at Picardy, refused to get involved. So, Scotland was left without a monarch until Robert the Bruce took the throne in 1306. Robert the Bruce was hugely successful and bashed the English hard before invading Ireland and forming a pan-Gaelic alliance.

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Today (did you know that John Peel’s favourite biscuit was the fruit shortcake?)

Jess — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:32:48 +0000

As well as being the anniversary of various stuff (English troops occupy Acadia, Nova Scotia in 1710, Angora (Ankara) becomes Turkey’s capital in 1923, Shroud of Turin, revered by many Christians as Christ’s burial cloth, is shown by carbon-dating tests to be a fake from the Middle Ages in 1988), today is also the first John Peel Day.

As you are all aware (unless you have been living under a stone with no radio) Mr Peel is a legendary DJ who died around this time last year. Just after he died there were loads and loads of obituary programmes and in literally all of them, there was a clip of John Peel being interviewed wearing a Headbutt t-shirt. Which probably means nothing to you but quite a lot to me as that’s my mate Keith’s old band who are one of the zillions of unknown bands that John Peel endorsed. And he’s wearing it on one of those tube posters for a posthumus favourites compilation album too, but sadly Headbutt are just on the poster not the album (which would have increased their sales from about 340 to quite a lot more). Given the astounding numbers of unknown bands that he played, there’s probably a good chance that at least one Laundry customer was also in a band that was played on the radio by John Peel. Perhaps we could add it to the data that Luke is collating; 19% of Laundry customers would be interested in recycling light bulbs and 7% of Laundry customers have been played by John Peel. Incendentally, John Peel’s favourite biscuit was the fruit shortcake.