North v South East v West – Part 2
My thorough investigation of the yawning chasm between East and West London began, appropriately enough, in a small dingy pub off Holborn. Rupert, myself and Poppy, Decline and Fall‘s arts correspondent, were staring at a Tube map and attempting to make ourselves heard over the sound of lawyers yelping in the back bar. I had dragged along the other two as the best bets for knowing exactly what was going on in the halves of the capital concerned.
“Right, West London,” I said decisively. “Er…where is it again?”
Rupert jabbed imperiously at the Tube map near somewhere called “Westbourne Park”, or something equally improbable. “I know it quite well. Most of the guys from work live…”
“Hush!” I said. “Anyway, I’m doing this series of articles comparing the quality of life in different areas of London. But I think there needs to be a starting point. What does everyone need to do? I mean, what would be a good indicator of the convenience and quality of life in a certain area…something concrete, coherent, and that isn’t as obvious as…as a pub, or a restaurant?”
“Galleries?” suggested Poppy.
“No,” I scowled. “Far too middle-class.”
“Broth..” began Rupert.
“Shut up,” I said. “No, I need something more mundane. I think what we need here is a resolutely ordinary activity that might mean something to the average Londoner. And although entirely typical, you are not an average Londoner.”
“I have an idea!” squeaked Poppy. We both looked at her in anticipation.
West London
We were walking along somewhere near Ealing Broadway, or Fulham Broadway, or something like that, when the Editor rang and asked me what we were running with for the first part of the issue.
“You’re what?” shouted the Editor in a tone that suggested veins were starting to explode on his temples.
“Doing laundry,” I said. “Poppy’s idea, and a damn good one too, I think. You see, as the first point of comparison I wanted something that would compare how simple or pricey a crappily pointless everyday chore was in the areas concerned.”
“I…er…oh God” gibbered the Editor and hung up.
“He likes it,” I said to Poppy. “You’ll be promoted for sure.”
“I like it too!” she squealed. “It is a good idea, isn’t it?” and started skipping happily, swinging the laundry in an alarming manner.
“For God’s sake, woman,” I muttered. “You’re thirty-two.”
Well, West London proved to be something of a washout, if you’ll excuse the pun. There was a distinct paucity of late-night laundrettes in our chosen area, which can only suggest that either a) the quality of life in West London was worse than anticipated or that b) everyone was wealthy enough to own their own washing machines. We wandered around for some time through a largely featureless landscape of gastropubs, estate agents’ offices and drunken Australians. I was just beginning to pray for a quick and merciful death when Poppy squeaked that a lighted window containing washing machines was visible up the road. We hurried over and pressed our noses against the glass.
“It’s an authentic recreation of a ’50s American laundromat, apparently,” said Rupert. “Hey, isn’t this a Tom Conran project?”
“Can we actually wash clothes there?” I practically wept. I peered through the window. A few Sloanes were desultorily stuffing their laundry into some retro-chic coin-ops. “Thirty pounds for a service wash? Jesus! No, I don’t care if you get a free mojito.”
“They’ve spilt a lot of washing powder over there,” said Poppy.
“I’m not sure that’s washing powder,” I said grimly, dragging Rupert away from the entrance by his Hermes tie. “Stop it! This place is clearly not for the likes of us.” And indeed, neither was West London, it seemed. We stumbled to the nearest Tube station as best we could.
East London
I’m going to pass over the majority of our East London excursion in silence. We went into at least two laundrettes that actually turned out to be laundrette-themed DJ bars, one that was actually a small community arts project and a fourth that was genuinely being used to launder money. It was much later that we found ourselves staggering along in the glare of the kebab shop signs, our lukewarm cans of Red Stripe (courtesy of the last laundrette-themed bar) clutched in our fists.
“This is the worst night out ever,” I said. “Although in its own way entirely typical of what East London has to offer. Hold on, that looks promising!”
It was a small laundorama, a tiny fragment of Old East London wedged unprepossessingly between a heaving bar and an organic tearoom and trainer emporium. Pushing our way through a crowd of revellers, who all seemed exceedingly pleased to be finding themselves on a Bethnal Green pavement being charged over the odds for plastic tumbler of lager, we entered the steamy interior.
Pleased to have some concrete information at last, I began noting down prices of washes, powder and the like, while Poppy checked out the machines. Rupert merely looked disgusted at being forced to enter such an environment, and dropping the bag of laundry I had compelled him to bring, propped himself against a wall and began examining the prices in the FT.
“Are you helping or what?” I said to Rupert, who merely sneered in response.
“Don’t mind me, I’m just earning my Christmas bonus,” he said smugly, before howling in rage and frustration as a passing group of East London scrotes made off with his laundry bag.
“Pay attention,” I said to him. “This isn’t West London now, you know. They went that way, incidentally,” I added, pointing helpfully in the right direction.
“You…you little bastard!” Rupert went shrieking up the street, hurling his half-empty Red Stripe can at the departing youths. “My shirts are in there, you miserable toerags!” Youths and pursuer disappeared into the crowd of people standing outside the next-door bar, resulting in a chorus of “oh reallys!” as Merrell-clad feet were trampled to left and right.
West London: Dull / expensive, I carefully wrote in one column of my notebook.
East London: Pretension / thievery, I inscribed in another. I sighed wearily.
“Rupert’s lost his shirt playing the stock market,” I commented to our arts correspondent, who was amusing herself with a stray soap bubble. It was with some surprise, however, that I noticed a familiar figure detach itself from the shouting crowd and stride over with a look of fury.
“What” bellowed the Editor “in the name of God are you doing?”
“We’re washing our dirty laundry in public”, I said.
“If the entire purpose of this article was to bring about that pun, I may well kill you,” said the Editor.
“Of course not,” I replied. “We’ll do some restaurants or clubs next issue, it’ll be safer.”
God knows what all that was about, but it’s continued next issue