Mr Poubelle is not one of the famous characters of Mr Men and Little Misses who I blogged about last time. No, Eugene Poubelle is the French king of the Chiffoniers (rag-and-bone men). At the end of the 19th century and the industrial revolution this man decided to set up a segregating system for our waste in Paris.
The device became so useful and made a such change to our way of life that his name was given to this container “poubelle” and now means bin or rubbish as well… A bit different from having your name commemorated by one of our beautiful avenues, but hey, it’s more famous in the end right?!

Seeing as there are so many snazzy bins available nowadays to help us separate our waste and ways to get our recycling collected, it seems a wonder that we aren’t recycling 100% of our waste. This week I took a little look at the statistics to see if we could understand the reasons for this.

I watched this documentary about food waste in London. It’s a bit disgusting (like the movie ‘We feed the world’) so not recommended around lunch time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tkr88/Great_British_Waste_Menu/
Apparently we waste 1/5 of our food and drink with or without packaging in the UK which works out at about £12 billion a year chucked away!

So why do we waste so much food in the UK? These are my thoughts. Do you agree?
-    Massive marketing consumption? Advertising and discounts everywhere? So does an offer like “Buy 2 for 1” make us waste the free one?
-    Lack of organisation or consciousness as we were in the past like our grandparents who lived wars and know what looking after food means?
-    Laziness and used to having food that is ready to eat?
-    Lack of creativity to save food with some old but famous recipes like “pain perdu” or “French toast”. In Normandy we add some apple jam and Pommeau alcohol. Mmm.
-    Fussy? Most of the food waste in the big food distribution field is just based on the consumers’ standards (size or shape of products, packaging not as bright as expected, it’s chucked away by suppliers and retailers before we even get the chance to say- actually I like the look of the 3 pronged carrot- I’ll ‘av it!). And, what about the taste?!!

Anyway, I also spotted this brilliant campaign by WRAP- called Love Food Hate Waste. You might like to take a look at their website where they have some brilliant ideas for helping us cut down on our food waste including recipes for using up leftovers and a handy calculator for figuring out how to get your portions spot on.

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

If you have any ideas of your own- we’d love to hear them too.

Have I got it really wrong and have been only making use of London’s rude bus stops where it’s more a case of bundling and shuffling as one great organism onto the bus?  You know, everyone probably trying not to be too rude  and to make allowances for those who really should go on first (kiddies, those with walking sticks, pregnant women) while at the same time trying  to make sure that sneaky, elbow-heavy people don’t get ahead and take that last seat.

I just wonder how it all started, this queuing in Waterloo business, when to my understanding bus stops elsewhere are more like bars- bundle and shuffle and no queue? Maybe the first person to get off a train and wait for a bus each morning is extremely polite! Maybe it’s one of those unsaid behavioural traditions like standing on the right on escalators that commuters just DO. Well, queues are said to be very powerful things. Potentially,  if you plotted yourself in the middle of a busy pavement somewhere in London other people walking by might nestle in behind you just because they thought you were a queue. Heh heh. I dare one of you to try it out.

Apparently we spend the equivalent of 23 working days a year waiting in queues! Surely that figure has got to be wrong- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/590856.stm that is an outrageous amount of time wasted! It’s got to be one of the most blood boiling activities on the planet. Just about doable in comfortable shoes and when the queue is moving along fairly quickly, but so unpleasant when not. Really, it’s a wonder we feel the queue and queuing is such an intrinsic part of our culture when I’m sure we all hate it so much.

So have you guys been on your holidays already or do some of you still have them to look forward to?

I’ve just been in Ireland for a week, so I’m loving all things from and related to there even more than I did before! Spent a couple of days in Belfast and did a few of the obvious things, like the bus tour and being embarrassed by my friend who wasn’t at all conscious to open the map up fully to keep checking where we were! We were told to head to the Crown bar for a drink, and it’s a beautiful old pub. We ended up chatting to a local couple and carried on with them to the next stop on their saturday afternoon pub crawl. Just like that guy says on the radio advert; “Go where Ireland takes you”.

From Northern Ireland we headed West to the coast in Donegal and then down to Mayo. Beautiful loughs and mountains and beaches. Part of my criteria for the trip was plenty of pubs and traditional music, which we achieved 7 out of 9 evening so pretty good going. From The Reel Inn in Donegal to Matt Molloys’ in Westport, such a good time. I’m not a Guinness drinker, so couldn’t enjoy a pint but I think my friend drank enough for all 4 of us.

Any of you been to these places or from anywhere near them?

It’s a bit of a contrast to come back from the countryside and quiet towns to the fast pace of London city life! Any recommendations for other parts of Ireland and I can start planning my next trip??!

Florence and me were having a chat here in the office about the difference between the UK and France when it comes to paying for drinks in a bar. She said when she first ordered a pint over here out with a group of friends she was counting out her pounds and coppers on the table like she always would back home, just for her drink, then was amazed when someone paid for all 8 or so people’s drinks in a round. I was saying that although that’s the general British culture, the recent recession has meant that people have been thinking differently about how to spend their pennies. For some people being extremely careful in their choices has empowered them, for others ignoring the media reports and enjoying each minute as they’d wish without a care for putting away savings has helped them keep happy while the rest of the country gloomily skulks.

So, I thought we’d make a silly little quiz to figure out which type of money-spending group you belong too. DISCLAIMER!! We made it all up. Oh.

Inane, we know. But Hee hee, it was fun.

1. You see a voucher in the free press for a free bottle of wine with any meal at your local pizzeria, so you;

a) Rip it out quick! Yesss. Free wine. Email all of you friends to say Friday’s plans are all sorted.

b) You ignore it. It’s a blatant scam to get you drunk and buying expensive tasteless pizzas,when actually you could spend a third of that AND have ice cream if you stayed in.

c) Voucher? Friday night? Dinner? Erm, no. If you’re going to go out for dinner it’s gonna be three courses and whichever damn wine you fancy.

2. You walk into a bar (ouch. he he), both you and your mate have no cash and there is a £10 minimum spend, so you;

a) Say lots of Ooohs. And erms. And what shall we do’s? Shall I go to the cash point? Then they end up paying with you promising to pay next time. Honest.

b) You pay, but next time you see them you make absolutely certain that they remember they owe you £3.75.

c) You say: But, Darling! It’s cocktail night, first round is on me. Of course.

3. You and your partner decide you need to buy a hoover. The way you go about this is:

a) Walk in the shop. See one. Recognize the brand. It’s marked down from £70  to £35. You think! Yesss, hoover sorted. Now on with my day and on to my next ingenious money-saving moment.

b) You spend about a month reading web reviews and talking with friends who have hoovers. You weigh up the odds. You end up spending a little bit, but compared with old a) type up above your cost per use is going to be significantly less- that’s right sucker!

c) You employ a cleaner.

4. For lunch in the office you;

a)  Purchase buy one get one free soup X 4. Friday is nice sandwich day.

b) You buy all the ingredients for sandwiches at the beginning of the week. On Friday everyone goes to the pub. You have the willpower to still eat your sandwich in the office, and then maybe join them for a drink afterwards.

c)  Have Hot paninis Monday to Friday baby!

Mostly a)’s- Bargain Bunny

You just can’t resist a little half price or BOGOF action. You dream of discounts. You measure your money performance in savings rather than spendings. Your unlikely to be much richer as a result of this type of behaviour, but you can still feel a bit superior than your mates as you always know where the bargain is.

Mostly b)’s – Hardcore Money Saving Expert

Wowzers. You could have your own TV show telling the rest of us how to save up for a mortgage deposit in multiple savings of less than a fiver. People envy your willpower, but sometimes they might get a bit peeved with your focus on savings.

Mostly c)’s- Credit Crunch? Waah hah hah. I don’t think so, buddy.

You are just carrying on like normal. Wow, if everyone was as confident as you maybe there’d be no recession- huh? You like luxury and you don’t think holding onto your dollar is going to make you any where near as happy as frittering it. Hurrah.

Or a dream can be an idea, something in your mind that gets explored in your sleep, when your subconscious plays around with something you’ve seen or experienced or emotions that you’ve felt. People spend hours analysing your dreams to try and work them out and discover what they say about you (that’s if you can remember them as a lot of people never do!… maybe that’s a good thing, especially if you have nightmares, definately not nice)…. I used to have a recurring dream of being chased by a lion (which i always assumed had something to do with my Mum reading me the Lion, Witch and the wardrobe when i was little!) The lion never quite caught me, but never stopped chasing me either…

I recently saw the new film Inception which is all about going into other peoples’ dreams and planting ideas in their mind (A really good film if you get chance to see it). Florence is going tonight so i await her review tomorrow! It’s quite confusing and makes you think which is always good, sometimes you want a film that challenges you and not something with an obvious ending that you can predict. In the film, other people can create the world that you see in your dream and interact with you as strangers or as projections of someone you know. When you are asleep, the subconscious has no idea that you didn’t create that projection of the world yourself so happily goes along with this…. until someone or something gives the game away and the dream starts collapsing.. cue buildings crashing down, car chases and gun fire all round!!

Common dream themes include falling, flying or having to take a test. These each reflect how you are feeling or dealing with something in your life, whether you realise it or not! So those of you who enjoy dreams where you are flying high, are feeling in control of life and have a strong personal sense of power.

Have a look and analyse your own and see if you can make sense of it;

http://www.dreammoods.com/

Anyway, rambling aside ( it is possible that you might be thinking, when is it ever rambling aside. In which case, I am sorry, and I am trying!). Whilst up there, up north,  my niece was showing me her baby book. This is a book where parents of new borns collate interesting data on their child such as size of finger nails and number of eyes at birth. It’s actually really cool and I am going to make sure I do one if I ever have a sproglet. A loose leaf of paper drifted from this book which listed all the things that my sis and her hubby would like to pass on to their first born. It was a goodie. Things like how to make the perfect campfire listed high.

I wondered, if say, you were going to have a child, or perhaps leave a note in a time capsule for future alien life forms inhabiting earth to discover- what piece of knowledge would you choose to impart? What’s the most substantial/ important/ unique thing that you have learnt? Rachel. This is a rhetorical question-mark.

Perhaps instructions on how to build a kite.

Or, the basics of Suduko, so that it is never lost.

Or that being compassionate will get you further in life than being competitive.

Or that jerusalum artichokes are just not worth the bother.

Hmm. I think mine would be- you know, if you had to take a snap shot of right now- which might change. So don’t hold me to it…It would be….

Always peel your mushrooms, it means you don’t have to wash them and get all slimy and the sensation is truly unbeatable. It’s really fun.

‘A newspaper!’ Hahahahahaha. Trully magic the first time you get how to play with words.

Here’s a slightly more challenging riddle for you guys today.

‘You’re in a place called Jack’s world.There is a mirror but no reflection. There is cheese but not chalk. There is pepper but no salt.  There is a law in Jack’s world- but what is it?

Also, quite like this one too:

What jumps when it walks and stands while it sits?

Although teenage mags with their mostly a)’s  or mostly b)’s approach might have introduced me quite early on to the idea of how people are often very different from each other it was more to answer the burning questions,  ‘Is your man your soul mate?’ or ‘Which spice girl are you?’! See here for a modern day example (if you take part, you simply must let us know which one you are!! http://www.teenvogue.com/magazine/polls/trendtest/gossipgirl

Seeking a more thorough analysis on personality later down the line I reckon these type tests ain’t half bad. They’re not without their downsides of course. Generalisations, cheesy suggestions on how to deal with weaknesses on your part, being part of the whole management/self-help sector of the world isn’t so cool, facing up to the bits of yourself that aren’t so pretty- yeah all of that. And, most frustrating part about personality tests is filling them out. You tend to feel boxed in, like: ‘Don’t just give me one option or another- I’m both goddamit. Yes I am that amazing. I’m a relaxed perfectionist don’t you know.’ But after you’ve finished, the outcome is often surprisingly apt. And, who doesn’t love reading about themselves, huh?

The good thing about these things is seeing the findings from other people you know or work with. You might find some surprises. Nothing could be said to have done this more with the group of people The Laundry works with than the section that talks about extraversion or introversion within the Myers-Briggs test. Everyone seemed to have a strong feeling of which way they would fall, but actually it was just that everyone had the wrong understanding of what these opposite types mean. Someone recently explained it to me with a metaphor I quite liked: It’s like the introverts and the extroverts live in a house. There’s lots of people outside the house. The introvert and the extrovert go outside. The extravert’s energy is powered by the sun, so the longer they stay outside talking to people the more energy they get. The introvert on the other hand is mains powered, so even though they’re having a great time chatting to people, after a while they run out of energy and need to go back inside for a recharge. So, basically not that extroverted people are SHOUTY SHOUTY LOOK AT ME people and the introverts are quiet as mice. Really it’s just different ways of processing thoughts and feelings- either through other people, or internally.

I reckon people can be different and deal with things differently depending on their mood, or the weather or so many other factors. Sometimes I feel like the extrovert rushing around to see all the people I know and get their opinion, and sometimes instead I fancy a cool glass of water and a lie down on the sofa with a book inside on recharge. I guess knowing that you can be different form day to day should help you to understand how others can think of things and behave differently from you.

If you’d like to try out some of these tests for yourself there are lots of free ones online- here’s an example.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

In the UK at the moment we are only capturing about 39% of our plastic bottle waste. That’s a lot of bottles that are still being thrown away people, make sure you’re putting yours in our orange Laundry bags to help get this percentage up!! The bottles arrive at the plant in bales on a truck;

There are all sorts of fancy, technical processes going on at the recycling plant and the different types of plastic are seperated at several stages. There’s optical sorting where the bottles are scanned and then gusts of air shoot milk bottles in one direction and other drinks bottles in another direction! The plastic is shredded down into tiny pieces and then seperated again by another scanner into different colours. Then the flakes/chips of milk bottle plastic (HDPE) float in water which allows them to be seperated from the other bottle plastics and bottle tops (PET) which sink in water. So simple! The final bags of pellets and flakes are sold on to the bottle manufacturers to be made back into new bottles.

What you can see in this photo is what those in the industry like to call ‘jazz’ – it’s all the other types of plastics that don’t get used for new bottles but get sold on to other recycling companies. pretty huh!

As you can imagine big factory = big noise so we were walking around with ear defenders whilst we saw the different parts of the machines. The recycling plant uses the most advanced technology and it’s developing all the time as new plants are built and improved so that we can process increasing volumes of our plastic in the UK.  Keep up your good recycling efforts everyone!!

Watching the world cup matches that don’t involve England on the other hand (which will now be.. erm.. all the remainder) is somehow far more relaxing. No strings attached viewing. Well, that was supposed to be by silver lining comfort to you. That and the mention of this fabulous weather we’ve been having. Apologies if you hate football and sunshine.

At The Laundry this week Charlotte has been getting mad for Wimbledon and murray’s mound. Ooh I say. And a bar and a half chocolate bars- seemingly just the right size to satisfy the afternoon urge. Yess. Florence has been working extremely hard canvasing our neighbours into joining The Laundry- so, well done to Flo! She has also been having the worst week in IT ever- it always comes right when you don’t want it, ey? And, she’s been sampling all the many examples of humous that one can now pur-chase. Peppers, lemons, herbs, pesto. The lisr is endless. She warned me only moments ago, that although humous has this holier-than-thou reputation as super healthy- in fact, the shop bought variet is really fatty! Shock horror. Harry has been getting back in to the swing of things since an epic 2 week long holiday. This has involved loosing her fob key to the office- boo after having put it somewhere especially secret in her flat for safekeeping, only to go and forget. Harry would make a bad squirrel.

Hope your team won’t get the flight return ticket as soon as the French team…

It’s so cool to spend a summer in London with all these events such as the World Cup, Wimbledon…and music festivals!

What about music festivals? Which one are you planning to attend this year? So much choice!

Just back from France and Paris where every summer’s day so the 21^st of June we celebrate “la fete de la musique” all around the country since 1982 by playing music down the street mixing all generations and all kinds of music.

That’s brilliant! I am wondering why a Country like England which is so famous and musically creative hasn’t developed this kind of event so far, has it?

Actually in France we have couple popular events such as “la nuit blanche” in Paris a night at the beginning of October where artists and amateurs offer a demonstration, an exhibition or music bands down the street all night long that’s why it is called litterally “white night” that means you don’t sleep!

We also have free museum night where you can appreciate light games in beautiful monuments and places and discover special exhibitions of course. Another event which is growing  “la fete des voisins” so the “neighbourhood day” where neighbours meet each other and share food and drinks… Best way to establish a proper relationship! In my city rouen we obviously got the “fete Jeanne d’Arc” Jeanne of Arc’s Day or a funny one literaaly called “the belly day” where you taste and get proper fresh food from the deep country side.

What famous popular event would you enjoy or recommend the most?

Ok who’s been following the world cup?!! I’m looking forward to the next England game tomorrow and hoping that it will go better than the first one! (If by some chance you didn’t hear what happened, our goalie made a big blunder, failing to make a very easy save and letting the ball roll out of his hands and on into the goal. No, don’t think about it again!) Wonder what the chances are that he will be in the starting 11 tomorrow. hmmm…

And what about the Vuvuzelas! We were listening in the office and at first couldn’t work out what the sound was.  There’s not much sign of the noise subsiding either and now there’s loads of money to be made selling ear plugs (just read in the Metro!) Great idea whoever thought of that one first.

It’s an easy topic to bring into conversation, did you see the football last night?/are you going to watch the match tomorrow?. Just like the topic of our lovely ever changing english weather… And even though I find an England match is never quite as good as you hope it will be, or are told it will be (often also like the weather!) I still always continue to hope that we will play at our best and close the next game out when we have the chance instead of sitting back, leaving room for the dreaded equalizer. All we can do is hope!

I hope you enjoy the rest of the World cup 2010 and get behind your respective county!

Do you know anyone who has actually flown out to South Africa to see a match?

So, did Carnation just feed some milk into the rain cycle to come up with their ‘evaporated’ and ‘condensed’ milk products? Hmm. No it appears the similarities drawn end here. I tried to remember something about heating up liquids in science class and apply it to this situation and these words in a conversation in the pub, but it doesn’t seem to stretch to answer my quandary:

Do you know the difference between the two? Until recently I thought they were the same thing. But having made the mistake of buying Evaporated when I wanted Condensed, I now know they most definitely are not. Condensed milk is sooo damn tasty you can practically eat it on its own from the tin (bit gross, but don’t tell me you didn’t have a little lick as a kiddie). A milk based goo with added sugar, it forms the basis of many wondrous desserts such as Banoffee Pie. My friend also makes a deee-lish coffee of sh0rt espresso with a dollop of condensed milk plopped in called a ‘Bon Bon’ it is bloody brilliant but must imediately rot your teeth on contact.

Mightily tasty is this beige elixir but surely someone is pushing it with this-a recipe for condensed milk mayo- eeeuuurgh!

Evaporated milk on the other hand is like the ill fated marriage of UHT milk and flattened squirty cream. I mean, where is the fun in squirty cream with no squirt? Who came up with that? And, what, pray is it used for?

A close friend of the Laundrettes reported that Wimbledon strawberries are sold with evaporated milk on!! So, so sad to hear. I always imagined hand whipped REAL whipping cream being jazzed into a frenzy by the delicate and skillful hands of gentile elderly tennis folk, and then lovingly plopped onto brilliant red sugar-dappled strawbz, oozing in the sunlight. But no.

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong and evaporated milk is the misunderstood milk product of the 21st century? Maybe you have a way with it that will change my mind? If so, as usual, we want to know.

So, the only rules are the treasure must be free and it must be fun! Here are our ideas. If you have any to add to the list post your comment so other Laundry readers can join in too.

1. Waterloo sunset. What a winner. The best fun is to try and decide which way is the best view. Like if you were only able to look one way for the rest of your lives would it towards Westminster and the wheel or towards the city/ Southbank?

2.  Blackheath Bike and Kite Festival on the 12th and 13th June sounds amazing!! Free kite displays on one of the windiest parks in London has got to be spectacular.

3. My friend just let me know about Free cinema screenings in the Grand Union pub on Acre Lane in Brixton on Thursdays. I’m planning to check that out very soon! Obviously you’d probably need to buy a drink to take part, but on a warm summer evening why wouldn’t you want to enjoy the film with a nice cold something-something.

4. On a similar theme, the scoop near the Mayor’s building by the river in between London and Tower Bridge has a schedule of free cinema screenings on during September. Sooner than that, during lunchtimes and evenings in July they have free music concerts. One of which I went to last year and accidentally danced on someones hand. Eeek.

5. Open House in September offers the chance for some super snooping around some of London’s most interesting architecture, including a windmill in Brixton (!) and The Laundry’s old digs, that sustainable village BedZED down in Hackbridge. www.londonopenhouse.org

6. Lovely Clissold Park up north in Stoke Newington has a zoo! Well, Zoo might be a bit of an exaggeration but there are deer, goats, rabbits and chickens. Definitely the wow factor. On that note, which is your favourite London park/square?

7. Free Opera! Carmen Sing Along in Trafalgar square next Tuesday 8th June from 6.15pm and more opera events throughout the summer. Be cultural without the commitment of spending lots of your hard earned cash, without trully knowing whether opera will be your thang. I’ve certainly been burned before- Hansel and Gretel Opera anyone?

Now, if you end up going to any of these we want to hear about it! Equally, if you think our suggestions are rubbish or have many more of your own then write to us and share the knowledge.

There are 260 around the city but a large group of them are sitting on display in Trafalgar square. They are being auctioned off for charity and will hopefully raise £2 million to help conservation efforts for Asian elephant populations and to ensure their habitat corridors are protected so they can continue to move around safely. I used to live in Norwich and there was a similar display of these arty animals a couple of summers ago. Again, lots of money was raised for charity. What a great idea and something so quirky and different to see around town!

For those of you who know your big fashion names, Julien Macdonald, Diane von Furstenberg, Tommy Hilfiger and Paul Smith are amongst those that have contributed designer dumbos to the parade! There are also ones that celebrate London life (such as a black taxi design with real headlights for the eyes that are solar powered!) and topical event (1 representing each of our 3 main political parties).  No doubt thousands more people will witness the spectacle over the bank holiday weekend (including me i think!)

Where have you spotted one?!

Anyway, even if it was less dramatic and more of a gradual trial and error process, thank the lordy for our ancestors’ discovery as cake is trully great.

Delia Smith has a great recipe for sponge cake where you just bung 4oz flour, 2 eggs, 4oz sugar and 4oz butter/marge together in a bowl and beat it like a demon, then bake. You can add anything you want like apples and cinnamon, or cocoa to mix it up a bit. So simple and easy that I once had to ban myself from buying replacements for at least one of the vital ingredients for the generic delia cake as  it was too easy to start cake baking in the evening at around 9.30ish when you start just fancying something sweet and tasty and I was getting fat!

So, the main point I was getting to- after all this rambling was- Do you have a favourite cake recipe? If so let’s swap.

Here’s my fave banana cake- ‘ Ital Banana Cake’ recipe from The Rasta Cook – what a classic. It’s not too sweet as there’s only honey used- so super healthy and a good way of using up slightly too ripe bananas. Just add a bit of brown sugar if you prefer yours sweeter.

4oz Veg Marg

3 large ripe bananas

2 tbs clear honey

8oz wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

4-5 drops vanilla essence (seriously such a magic combo overipe bananas and vanilla essence!)

2 oz cashew nuts

1. Cream the marg in a bowl

2. Peel the bananas

3. Slice 9 diagonal slices from one of the bananas and set aside

4. Mash the remaining bananas in with the marg and add the honey.

5. Sift the flour into the banana mixture and fold in

6. Add the nutmeg, vanilla essence and cashew nuts (if using) into the mixture and stir.

7. Grease a square cake tin and spoon in the mixture.

8.  Smooth the top of the mixture and lightly score 9 squares with a knife.

9. Into each of the 9 squares place on of your diagonal banana slices.

10. Bake in a preheated over at 180 degrees for 35-40 mins.

11. Leave to cool, slice and then enjoy!

XX

My sister is currently doing some uber-hard fast tracked teacher training and as part of this she made a paper cut out of a tree for kiddies in her school to put leaves with qualities in themselves they are proud of (green leaf) and ones they would like to let go of or ‘lose’ (brown leaf)- on the tree. Her headmaster said it was very nice- but could she spot the spelling mistake?! It wasn’t on the kiddies’ entries but she’d written ‘loose’ like not tight,  instead of lose. It’s that classic thing where you never learn your mistake because spellcheck doesn’t pick up when you use the wrong word- just if it doesn’t match any word in the dictionary.

There are always some rules you remember. For me- it’s ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c. That’s a winner of a rule- shame there aren’t more out there. I only just got the hang of when to write  ‘its’ and when to write ‘it’s’ and I have to say I just don’t understand why you’d say ‘Harry’s shirt’ but not ‘it’s shirt’. The English language is full of exceptions to rules!

Perhaps you know some other handy sayings out there in the vein of ‘e’ is for envelopes? If you know of any- please write in. I’m thinking of making a little placard by my desk!

Apparently this is called a homonym. Same sound, same spelling but multiple meanings. Whereas a heteronymn is when words are said slightly differently when they have different meanings, but on paper look the same. Like lead (metal) and lead (to lead someone in a certain direction).

I wonder if there’s a term for words that sound the same, but are written differently and have different meanings. Like ‘c’, sea and see? Just to have all bases covered, like. OOh yes there is. Homophones!

Can you think of any examples?

Well, English lessons over for the day. Now, the reason we got on the subject. First off Flo is going to English School so has the curiousness of a child just starting to read about all things wordy. She also tried draught ale last night (not impressed). She is constantly thinks our office is too cold and thus was looking for the word to describe the unpleasant chilly breeze coming from our open window (online translator gave her ‘air stream’- we thought not. we thought ‘draught’). Then! After Flo showed me her Suduko of the day (must be literally the third of fourth time someone has explained to me how it works, and I still never remember) we were chatting about games in general and Draughts came up. No! Really? A third meaning. Then I got excited and thought I’d found 2 more: Drought (nope that’s not spelled or pronounced the same) and Drafts, as in the first draft of an essay (as you can now see, and probably already know, this is not spelled the same either).

So that’s our wordy day. I have two questions for you.

First, do you know any more homonym/heteronym/ homograph/homophone/ examples? If so let us know. We might catalogue them for confused English learners everytwhere!

Second, what’s you’re favourite board/ card game?

So far we have Cluedo, S**T-head (why oh why doesn’t it have a nicer name) and Frenchy’s contribution Belote

Here’s our romantic take on our Grandparents’ love stories. All humdrum has been removed.

Charlotte’s Granddad went off into the army in the second world war and met a friend. This fabulous companion turned out to be his future brother-in-law. After being shown a (perhaps) crinkled picture of his sister her Grandad liked what he saw, and started writing to her romantically. Ahhh. What a thing to get you through, a picture of a beautiful woman. When her Granddad returned to the UK he married his penpal and lived happily ever after.

Flo’s grandparents were married whilst France was being invaded. She has this beautiful image of them in her head  (in Sepia of course) getting hitched in the countryside. Perhaps there are some cows and meadows. But all this with bomber planes screeching and soaring in the background. Wonderful juxtaposition, our Flo’s mind.

I never met either of my Granddad’s so I can have a wickedly free artistic take on their stories. On the one side, my Grandma was working in a nursery in Bethnal Green where both her and my Granddad had been in children’s homes as kids. They used to meet in secret while they were ‘courting’ at a bridge in Victoria Park. Which I’ve never found myself, but hey. On the other side, my Grannie was a physio nurse in the war which meant she got placed in lots of different countries. She met Granddad whilst in Egypt. They had their first date going to see the pyramids!

It’s wonderful what the passage of time does to stories. It makes me think of how glitter only sticks to some of the gluey bits when a child shakes their picture once it’s finished.

We’d love to hear your black and white tinted stories.

It’s made me think about the sound of planes. I was thinking.. it’s almost as if their distant buzzing (that and lawnmowers?) is the soundtrack to a lazy summer afternoon in the park or garden. How funny that something that’s a relatively modern phenomenon has garnered such a well established place in the human psyche as being symbollic of summer. And then along comes nature flexing its muscles with a-little-eruption-here and some lack-of-wind-there and ZAP! Planes are gone.  Somehow amongst the mayhem and madness there’s something good about realising, or at least remembering, that the world is actually quite a big place and without that fancy invention to propell us from place to place those huge distances remain just that.

Anyway, I really feel for you unlucky ones that have been grounded in the UK when you thought you’d be sunning it in the Bahamas I just hope that you’ve been able to enjoy the brilliant weather you’ve had as a consolation prize! It’s the sort of weather that you’d dream of having for an English break by the sea but that you’d never get in a million years if you decided to go back to basics with a little camping action.

Well as for those people stuck on a beach in Spain or Panama as someone told me today. Lucky sausages.

Do you have any ash-ridden stories of gloom or glory? We want to know about them X

Ooo- it’s a funny old time this getting ready for a general election. Suddenly everyone has an opinion and you start seeing people putting posters up in their windows. Like where I live it says in big one-letter-to-a-page posters ‘Herne Hill for Mitchell’ I didn’t know who Mitchel was when I first saw it. And to be honest I was a little peeved that this neighbour felt they could count me onside without any consultation first!

Anyway, if you are feeling a little confused by all the options. Or perhaps a little dismayed by all the sameyness being touted by the political parties, then why not try filling in this online questionnaire which gives you the chance to pick the policies you like blind (i.e. not knowing which party they belong too… although it has to be said some are a little obvious!) then tells you which party you should vote for based on your answers. If it doesn’t give you your final decision I reckon it will definitely help you think about what sorts of policies are important to you.

Happy voting.

http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

What did you do over the long weekend?

As I saw Michael McIntyre point out on the channel 4 comedy gala night, most cultures go without food at times of religious significance, or in the run up to holidays but then  holiday’s in the UK are always focused around the opportunity to eat to excess!

And over Easter I’m sure we eat until we feel we must announce just how full we are that we might burst if we eat anymore. But half an hour later you can guarauntee that there will be some leftovers or chocolate that still manages to get finished up.

All of us at the Laundry ended up going away either for part or all of the weekend.  And we’ve agreed that it definitely feels more like a holiday if you travel away from home for a change of scenery.

And of course we were all very relieved to hear that the train strikes were cancelled for this week. What a nightmare that would have been. Grouchy/sleepy commuters still waking up again after 4 days of lie ins, plus having to stand around on platforms not knowing how long they will have to wait for their train. No more delays please!

The reason Easter jumps about all over the place is because of some very complex system of deciding the day of celebration- they call Easter a Movable Feast, to describe this unfixed date (although, it always used to make me think- there’s a specific date for the designated day of celebrating the birth of Jesus, why isn’t there a designated day for celebrating him rise again?). Basically. Well, no, not basically at all really. Since the Middle Ages Easter has been set as the first Sunday that falls after the 14th day of the lunar month that is after the Vernal Equinox (21st March- officially the first day of spring). Wow. And who takes responsibility for calculating this? Letts Diary Maker? The Pope? I don’t know, and Wikipedia is bamboozling me with facts so I haven’t managed to extract this one yet. Please write in or comment if you know the answer.

I love Easter stuff. I still have our Christmas Tree inside our flat- as its one of those in-the-pot trees and we haven’t got a garden to plant it properly. Even though at the time I was sure I was being swindled into buying a completely un-eco top of a tree chopped off and bunged in a pot of soil it has proved me wrong and is till going strong. So, I’ve decided to have an Easter Tree too. Always a fan of ritual celebrations, especially ones that feel like they fit with the stage of the year really well. Not too fussed about conflicted/ fused meanings. If it means decorating the tree, a bank holiday, some chocolate and a look towards Summer through Spring- I’m happy.

Looking forward to lots of egg-based breakfasts. Ah yess. The wallowing slow started days that bank holiday weekends allow in terms of being able to stomach much richer foods for breakfast than the usual shreddies mush. Yeah! Scrambled is my fave, with poached a close second. Poached eggs are so hard to get right, without the stringy whites fanning out and scumming on the top of the water. Seriously, I don’t know how people do it so it comes out perfect. Must be magic.

Anyway- Happy Easter one and all. If Easter has already been when you get this, then I hope yours was wonderful and felt long.

I can remember when I thought it was a cocktail if it came in a jug, was the colour of a raspberry freeze pop and maybe had a couple of sparklers nestled in it,  if you were lucky.

How things have changed with the world of cocktails. Nowadays its more like a fine dining experience in the way they are presented to us lick-lipping consumers (and the price tag to go with it)… Infusions, muddled fruit , spiced spirits, and Mixologists! Yes. Those people.  Magicians of the knowledge of what taste combinations are delicious even though you didn’t know it- basil?nooo. Egg white- urrrgh. These people are not so much your bare chested cocktail shaking juggler. More scientists of pleasure.

Us ladies at The Laundry are going out for a cocktail treat on Friday as a reward for hard work this week. I am sooo after an Amaretto Sours- the tastiest thing I’ve ever had in my life. Seriously- Amaretto and Lemons? Whod’ve thought it? Damn tasty.

Do you have a favourite cocktail Laundry-lover? Or a favourite cocktail bar to share with us?

No! I’m not spitting on your fire. I promise I’ve been thinking about far away places. Beaches and palm trees, cities with market stalls and cobbled streets, festivals and fetes and vitality filled mountain vistas.

A little while back at the beginning of winter, just when things were starting to get dusky, wet and cold around Halloween, this dingy tunnel that provides a short cut into my local station was set upon by a group of artists. They’d spent some time asking busy passers by (it’s a pretty busy tunnel considering how dingy it is!) where they’d most like to be right now. The finished result was these swirling white block-lettered words describing all your fellow commuters’ and locals’ fantasy destination right then. They ranged from ’swimming in the swimming pool’ to ‘barbados’ ‘on the beach in barcelona’ and things like ‘walking in wales’ and one ‘anywhere but here’!! As the rain eventually flooded the tunnel and the feet of many hunched over people trapsing through every day wiped most of the words away.

This is what it looked like:

With this recent taste of summer in the air, I’ve been thinking about those fantasy places again. Maybe it’s time to start planning a holiday lovely Laundry people. Tell me, where do wish you were right now?

One of my friends just got married and I was bridesmaid for the first of 3 times this year. I know “3 times a bridesmaid, never a bride”, but I have already been so twice before so am now up to 5 in total.

I have subsequently discovered that years ago bridesmaids were believed to distract and confuse evil spirits and therefore protect the bride on her wedding day. Nowadays it is more likely that duties may include organising the hen party, encouraging the bride to get very drunk and then helping her with her dress on the big day!

It is a good job that hen/stag nights are more in advance of the wedding nowadays as both the bride and groom are likely to be not at their best the morning after!

And with weekend trips away becoming more popular too, the craziness can be spread over a few days and not all crammed into one night!

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.

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?

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?

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

You know the rules of benches.  If there are any empty benches you can’t sit on one that has someone sitting on it.  That would be weird, that would be breaking an unwritten social rule.  Keep your distance, same with buses. So today I sat on my lonely park bench and was admiring the peace and quiet, the lack of traffic, the green paintwork on the bright red stone building.  There was a rush and a flutter, I looked up and I’d say about 50 pigeons swooped into the air, a lady in one of the flats was throwing them some bread.  They did a circle of the square picked up some bread and then returned in a swoop gaining momentum to pick up the other 50 of their mates hanging out in the tree above me.

That’s when I heard it, I want to get this onomatopoeicly correct, but won’t be able to – it was a cross between pat, pap and splat. All these weird wet noises around the bench.  I looked up, a shower of white was raining down, not an early snow storm but 50 pigeons defecating their way to a free lunch.  I got up, I had to run to take cover like Billy the whiz running through the rain.  Right, left I dodged, I ran to the only bench that wasn’t under a tree. But a bench that did have a lady on it, who did not appreciate me sitting next to her when there was clearly an empty bench.

I don’t know which shower of shit is worse, the real or the social and metaphorical?  I opted for the non-dry cleaning one.

My friend Sam does tours around BEDZED the eco-village.  It was the end of the tour, during the final words of inspiration and a pigeon pooed on him.  He wouldn’t have minded too much as he has a sense of humour about these things, but no one laughed or smiled or even acknowledged it.  Which meant that he couldn’t mention it either.  Which made it awkward. He had to carry on with the importance of sustainable lifestyles in the context of the built environment all the while knowing, and knowing that everyone else knew he had a white shite on his shoulder.

Is it laugh and the world laughs with you, or does the world need to laugh first?

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.

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.

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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!

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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).

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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.

American Zeitgeist release

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Isn’t it funny how Google’s sentence completion works in the search field up there. Maybe someone who knows about this sort of thing can tell me how it works. Like when you’re searching for Gilles Peterson (tee-de-dee..great  sound track to my revision..) it starts to come up with Gilmore Girls (saccharine US TV show that I have been known to watch of a Saturday morning while consuming scrambled eggs, too-do-doo..yes I do I do I do).

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Now, I get the word-structure similarities going on there(ya hah)- but is the Google function where it shows you a list below that search field based on popularity of the search across the whole world?!! Are the Gilmore Girls really that popular in the whole of the google/internet-using world??!! That they come before gills (on fish) and hmm Gillette razors.. and I don’t know Gillian Anderson (you know who)?

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Well. Perhaps I will never know. Or, maybe I should just google it.

You see? Now mysteries have a whole different way of presenting themselves. There are so many answers to one question, that you think you know, but then don’t. Is coffee bad for you?

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End film But also, innocent dinner party chit chat… ‘Is a tomato a fruit? Really, truly a fruit?’ And then someone gets out their internet phone gizmo (starting to sound like my Grannie) and right then and there checks it out and tells you the bloomin answer! Without even a hope of a little debate, the googling has tranced defiant over all perusal.

Google. No stone lays unturned. Catchy innit.

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Exited about the lunchtime purchase potential (try and not be too unethical… we are moving near the diamond district of Hatton Garden after all. Not that the recycling business can be said to provide the diamond sort of lifestyle but hey.. we can window shop).

Exited about the idea of after work summer-time-sprawling-in-a-square as a cheap and romantic alternative to pubs. Oh oh oh. Excited about pubs too! Maybe that’s a more seasonally relevant thing to be exicted about. There’s quite a long time till the park is an option again.

Excited about it not taking an hour to get to any after-work event.

Excited about living the life of a Laundry customer, and you know, getting to understand your needs all the more better.

Excited about windey cobbled streets and little bits of history seeping out of doorways and into your eyes.

Excited about the view as you cross the river on the train and the sun is rising and catching the city skyscrapers.

Not excited about the sardine-squash for breakkie in the morning commute.

Are you still a romantic about working in Central Lon? What’s your fave thing about it? Or do you relish the day you can get away and have a nice comfortable commute in a volvo through the countryside?

Share and share alike.

New address details to follow!

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Which makes me wonder, why have I missed remembered this.  I love sleeping and going to sleep and waking up realising that I’ve just had a brilliant dream, I love my bed, I love the duvet, I only love one of my pillows, because the other one is a bit flat and sad.  To not remember my extra time here, in my place of worship, the bed, is not good.  I feel like I’ve got to evaluate my outlook, what else have I misremembered as a disappointment, when actually it was pretty great.

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One of my friends says you should make a mental note to celebrate when something great happens like the bus comes just as you approach the bus stop, or your lost phone gets handed in, or you make it to the loo, just as fervently as you would have cursed if you had just missed the bus, your phone got nicked etc.  You have to shout in your head YES YES YE, just like you shout nooooooooooooooo, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, when someone gets in your way.  Bask in the golden appreciation of the sheer luckiness of it, because we’re too cross about things that don’t go well and forget when things do. I’m going to be appreciating my lie in with extra verve, hope you enjoy yours too.

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Some people do functional rucksacks, sharing the weight of stuff that might be useful (polos, diary, umbrella, tape measures…) between their shoulders, like a good sensible person. Even when I had the opportunity for rucksacks to be The Bag in my life (at school), I think I only ever hoicked it up on one shoulder. Now lying in bed at night with a twinge in my back,  I can hear my mum’s voice saying ‘You’ll only regret it when you get older and your bones are all misshapen’. So she was right after all. It may look well-cool for a bag with two straps to be worn on one shoulder, but in the long run we all pay the price.

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That’s wierd. That also looks kind of like a crying, snotty monkey. Sorry bout that. Didn’t do art, obviously still don’t.

And some people do the zsshhi-zzssshi clutch bag. That sort of out sized purse a slebritee might balance between their elbow and hip bone? Dainty indeed. But what is a bag with no handle, no strap, no means to attach itself to your person?! I have trouble enough keeping the essential contents of the bag in the bag, let along trying to keep the bag on me.

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Have you got anything surprising lurking in your bag? For example a brown leather briefcase with nout inside but a buttermint. Or, 2 pairs of socks to protect against puddle incidents. What sort of bag person are you? Leather tassel swinging from your sides? Hard-shell lap top case rucksack future-dude combo?

I want to know. After all, I’ve confessed I’m a coffee accident bag girl, just trying to make a step up in life with a leather investment in organization through pocket provision.

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Conkers act similar to seashells and beach stones that look so eye catching and brilliant whilst wet and shiny in their natural environment, but are never quite the same when arranged on the windowsill at home. голова болит секс голова болит секс

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Anyway, conker keeping aside, if you’re looking for a fighting conker. One that can bash up other conkers. Then ‘dried out’ is probably quite a desirable feature- and there’s all those school playground cheets to emulate the dried out hardness with vinegar varnishes and stints in the oven. If you’re too busy or cold to engage in some real, live conker fights this year, check out this online game I found: голова болит секс

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What I’d like to know is if there’s any other uses for conkers out there? Have you heard of a conker appreciation society that makes musical instruments out of their hollow shells? Or, maybe your mum knows a special sort of conker cake (probably not though, think they might be poisonous them conkers. Yep. they are. It’s all in the name, see? Chesnuts that are for horses, not humans…).

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I’ve decided that they look quite like people’s faces and am going to decorate some for your pleasure! Tell me what you think, or maybe make my conker man (Gerald) a friend and send me a pic.  He’s just bobbing along to Dizzee’s tune happily bending the words to suit his own needs. ah Gerald:

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I am about to untangle an ungrammatical little mystery:

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Why is sweetcorn sweet, and corn corn not?

Now, righteous posters in news groups everywhere will tell you that it’s to do with the age of the corn – as ‘SpiritX’ charmingly put it: “the age difference..same between a sixteen yrs old and a thirty yrs old lady ha ha ha” – on behalf of everyone closer to 30 than 16, I would like to say, for once and for all:

THAT IS NOT (ENTIRELY) TRUE.

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In fact, sweetcorn is a mutation Lower Learning ipod of maize, where recessive genes produce a higher sucrose content. This occurred spontaneously at first, but the result was tasty and delicious, so it was farmed into existence by several Native American tribes. It enters recorded history in 1779, when the Iroqios gave some cobs to European settlers, who were impressed enough to document the transaction.

Another difference between sweetcorn and not-sweet-corn is that the former is harvested in the milk stage (i.e. when it’s still gooey) rather than at maturity. This, technically, makes it a vegetable, not a fruit or cereal. So SpiritX is only a partial buffoon.

Sweetcorn did not feature much in my childhood. We were not a family of sweetcorn eaters. The closest I got to it was building a pyramid out of Green Giant cans at the harvest festival, right before the pumpkin bowling incident which saw me lose my position of responsibility as class can counter. There was a superabundance of tinned sweetcorn that year, much to the disgust of one intended recipient of our collective generosity, who rifled through his harvest basket and rejected every tin, leaving nothing but peach halves and lobster bisque.

Commando Duck psp “Trying to finish me off, are ye?,” he pointed his finger at the discarded cans, adding darkly, “That stuff is in-di-gestible.”

download Light in the Piazza And yes, it is quite sturdy stuff, a fact I tried to turn to my advantage as a small child by saving and drying kernels from school dinners, painting them white and loudly remarking that I’d lost some teeth. I was hoping for a cash reward from the toothfairy, but mostly just earned the consternation of my parents.

FYI, another good use of sweetcorn is to turn it into gruel and use it in a Shamanic ritual to cure absolutely everything that could ever be wrong with you. I can’t vouch for it personally, but, hey, wouldn’t that be sweet?

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Groaking.

Groaking is a form of food envy which involves watching someone eat in the hope that they will give you food. Children are terrible groakers, but dogs are even worse. You know that poor-me hopeful face they do? With the little huhhnmn sound? That’s groaking. Adults groak too but they are sly, couching it in flattery (“Ooooh, that looks nice.”), power play (“Can I have a bit? Or you’re fired.”) and reverse psychology. The last is the most sophisticated form of groaking. A conversation with a groaker employing the advanced reverse-groak might go something like this:

Eater:              Nom nom nom.
Groaker:         Oh…
Eater:              Nom nom.
Groaker:         No, never mind.
Eater:              What?
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Eater:              Ok. Nom nom.
Groaker:         It’s just…
Eater:              What?
Groaker:         Nothing.
Eater:              Burp. No, really, what?
Groaker:         Well.
Eater:              Yeah?
Groaker:         I thought…
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Groaker:         Oh never mind.
Eater:               Dude, what?
Groaker:         Aren’t you on a diet?
Eater:              …No
Groaker:         Really?
Eater:              No.

Groaker:         Oh, my mistake. Hey, what’s in that sandwich?

Eater:              Um, sausages.
Groaker:         Gosh.
<pause>
Eater:              You think I should be?
Groaker:         What?
Eater:              On a diet.

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Groaker:         Like, a sausage diet?
Eater:              No, a diet diet.
Groaker:         Nah!
Eater:              But –

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Groaker:         You look…fine. Better than fine.
Eater:              Are you sure?
Groaker:         Nah, you look great.
Eater:              Really?
Groaker:         For a sausage.
Eater:              [       ]

Groaker:         Kidding! Jeez.
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Eater:              <stony silence>
Groaker:         Hey, are you not going to finish that?
Eater:              Um.
Groaker:         Well then. Mind if I do?

SUCCESS.

My dear friend Emily was the world’s worst groaker. When we went to a restaurant, she would do a tour of the room, then when the waiter came she’d point to another table and say, “I want what she’s having.”

Later, when the food arrived, her face would drop and she’d start gazing at my plate. The more she ate, the hungrier she got. It was like going to lunch with Erysichthon*.

For the first five minutes I would eat as fast as I could until, inevitably, with a wobble of the chin, out it came:
“I WANT TO SWAAAAAAAAAAAP!” Followed by some grizzling.
And a big smile as I gave her half of my steak.

Since then I’ve fixed the problem. I just order what she’s having.

The conflicting morals of the story are:

Groak as you would be groaked by

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– and -
Good things come to those who groak

– and -
In an equal world, there would be no groaking.

Think on it.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erysichthon -  I like the end bit, where he eats himself. That surely is the ultimate groak.

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And set up a worldwide initiative to help everyone  live within their fair share of the earth’s resources with their One Planet Living standard

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It’s pretty special and it’s where The Laundry comes from, so I thought you might like to know! You guys are part of this by recycling your rubbish with us.

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Seeing as we’re (I’m) talking about Birthdays. B-days (Not Bidets- what a weird invention they are, though. When I first saw one I thought it was a sink for shorter types. Not so), I thought we might share some Birthday experiences.

Infestation ipod I forgot my Dad’s this year. Very very bad. He called me! And I proceeded to talk to him about my week, and have a little moan, and then I asked him what he was doing that day and he said, ‘Well, it’s my Birthday, so, you know ..’ Arrrgh. Dad, if you’re reading this I’m sorry!!

Bad daughter behaviour besides, I remember one year having Mumps on my birthday celebration. Let me tell you it is NOT as fun as the name suggests. Big old painful face you get with that. Not a good replacement for birthday bumps either. Whatever happened to Mumps, do people not get it anymore? Was it a name  my mum made up for some really terrible disease? Might just have a little googlige..OH MY GOD! Look at the face on this child: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumps It’s not made up it’s real!

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XIII rip Moving back to more healthy birthdays…Have you ever tried a suprise Birthday party? Like in the movies, and soaps. Waiting with suspense in the dark to then screech at a frazzled looking suprise-recipient who is dressed in their yoga gear or something, and then either weeps with joy at the touching-ness of it all, or with pain at the proposition of spending the evening with a bunch of people they haven’t managed to keep in touch with (for a REASON!). It’s my other half’s 30th this year, and I’m thinking maybe it might go down well for a suprise-it-up treat. But you never know. He’s not the weeping type, but he might be the through gritted-teeth ‘Erm,how exactly is this supposed to be a treat?!’ type. It’s gamble. Maybe I should use that Derren Brown lottery-guessing trick? If I ask all of you guys- yes I do it/ no I don’t, I’m bound to get a more accurate answer, no? I think that Derren might be pulling the wool over our eyes. Surely if you can guess the lottery numbers, through whatever method, you’d do it every bloomin week!!

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Anyway, the link to this ‘animal rescue’ installment is that lovely Laura has just moved to Dalston, where I once had one of many doomed animal rescue attempts that have dotted through my life, it has to be said, most of which before the age of 10…. Walking down the market Tom (boyf) and me noticed a small pink baby animal thing about to be obliterated by the market clean-down hoses, so we scooped it up. It was a bit hard to tell what it was, or what it was going to be. But we spent hours trying to recouperate it with little droplets of milk delivered to it’s lips by our outsized fingers. Where’s a pippette in the kitchen drawer when you really need one??!

Looking up on the internet we though it might have been an abonded baby hamster. Turns out it was a common rat. You know, vermin, they like to call them. So , the RSPCA doesn’t take in rats for looking after till they find a new owner. In fact they said they’d have to exterminate it (maybe they used another word) because rats are pests. So, so sad. We became quite attached to that helpless little pink peanut.

Other failed animal rescue attempts include:

- half dried out bat that I found outside my childhood house and kept in a yoghurt pot hoping that the dregs of petit filou might somehow revive it from the after-life. Didn’t. Ended up smelling like marmite

- slugs exploited by neighbour playmate Joseph in a game of throwing them at my face till they stuck and then fell off slowly. Urrghgh. shudder at the memory of that texture. Tried to hide them under leaves as camouflage. He found them and did his worst.

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Have you ever tried to be a hero for a fury fella/ emulate Rolf Harris/do key hole surgery on your pet stick insect?

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Maybe it’s because I grew-up in South Africa where it’s not common practice and the whole pub culture ethos does (sadly) not exist. Or could it be that I’m merely inherently stingy and unable to shrug off the sense of injustice of being caught out buying an early round only to find that moments later everyone has mysteriously and quite suddenly vanished into the ether?

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I’m aware I could be taking this all a bit too far, but I’m convinced some people (naturally this does not extend to any of our morally upstanding Laundry blog readers!) purposefully time their arrival at the pub to best ensure getting the most out of the ’rounds’ system while incurring the least possible expense to themselves. ‘Cynic!’ I hear you shout! Possibly…

When I first returned to the UK  I was initially unaware of the general etiquette surrounding the ’rounds’ practice, so when it came to going to the pub with some colleagues after work I would often go and sort myself out at the bar. Naturally I was none the wiser to the social effrontery that I had unwittingly caused, and would return to the group to find that  most were looking at me as if I had something nasty hanging from the end of my nose.

It took a while before I realised the reason for this (coincidentally around about the same time that people started to vacate the communal kitchen area whenever I entered), so I took it upon myself to do some investigating.  For those of you who might be interested, apparently the custom is also commonly practiced in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia – where for some inexplicable reason it is referred to as ’shouting’. It soon became apparent that there was even more to this ’rounds’ ritual than I had originally imagined, and I soon unearthed a list of commandments that one clearly needed to be aware of – two of which I have included below:

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How High full movie It is generally accepted that not everyone will stay long enough to buy a round, instead of trying to avoid being in the round it is better to accept the drink with thanks. This is done on the understanding that at a later date this might be reciprocated.

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Etiquette demands that items of the same or relatively similar value should be requested by everybody.

Again – maybe I’m alone here, but this is all too much for my mind to take in after a long hard day at the office. Clearly I need to just go with the flow and stop over analysing the issue. Either that, or I become the lonely guy in the pub with a scruffy dog that everybody avoids sitting next to. At least that way I can go to sleep with a clear (if slightly groggy) conscience.

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

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Thanks for reading – Michael.

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