There is a sign.
An Illuminated sign.
There are signs.
Handwritten signs – notices, instructions, scribbled hurriedly, underlined, highlighted, boxed for emphasis.
Taped up.
There are machines, top loaders, best left half empty.
Terrazzo floor, leatherette banquette.
Out of disorder comes out of order.
Close the door when you leave
Standing immutable on the south coast seafront is the View Hotel, forever almost changing.
A seventies delight of exuberant geometry, tiled detail, protruding balconies and audacious window frames.
Its confidence is overwhelming.
Recently refurbished this trade union run hotel and conference centre has preserved much of its period interior detail, a swirling spiral stairway, unique circular light fittings, dark hardwood fittings and furnishings.
Suitable setting for high espionage or low talking.
Swept along by the verve, vivacity and capacious volume, I suggest you take a peak.
http://www.theviewhoteleastbourne.com
Somewhere at the edge of the World ice cream vans go to die, I know I saw them from the train back from Brighton, I just had to go and have a look. I was received warmly by the busy proprietors going busily about their business, readying the working vans for their working day on the coast. It seems they break the invalids up for spares keeping the ageing vehicles on the road for another season – dispensing joy to jolly girls and boys in cornet, tub and lolly form. There is however something inevitably heartbreakingly poignant, seeing the signage fade, in the southern sun, as brambles weave in and out of open window, steering wheel, wheel arch and fridge. Ask not for whom the chimes chime. They chime for you. Nevermore.
Cycling along Curzon Road one sunny Sunday afternoon, I found to my surprise, facing me across the Whiteacre Road junction.
– An empty yet extant launderette.
One lone drier tumbling, lonely – an absence of presence, save myself.
The usual spartan interior almost unkempt, enlivened by four legged, almost alien, ovalish plastic laundry baskets. A sunlit shimmer of brushed steel surfaces, low lit and deeply shadowed linoleum tiles.
Under the illuminating hum of bare fluorescent tubes.
I snapped and exited, unwashed.
Great!
Wandering amiably down Whalley Old Road towards Blackburn one warm sunny day today, I came upon yet another launderette.
Somehow, somewhat frozen in time.
Front window cracked, but just about holding together, signage almost intact, machines formerly fully functioning – flagging, fluorescent tubes softly flickering, unguarded against the wood chip.
Patterned formica surfaces care worn and faded from use and abuse.
Washing done at home takes longer to dry (and costs you more).
You have been warned.
I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last
My heart should be well-schooled
‘Cause I’ve been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love so easily
I fall in love too fast
I fell for you the very first time I saw you – imbedded in the wall of the Postal Sorting Office.
Though now each time I pass by and try my best to look the other way, I’m helpless and hopelessly can’t resist.
But you’re closed – all I can do his stare at your stopped clock.
And wonder what might have been.
It’s twenty three minutes to seven – forever in my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zrSoHgAAWo
Did you know,
That there’s some corner of Huddersfield.
That is for ever Merrie England?
A local café group, that has the market cornered in West Riding mock-baronial dining.
Walking into a half-timbered, overwhelmingly cream and red, world of tea, toast and hot beef sandwiches, there is a dislocation in time and location. No longer March 2015 in the centre of a Yorkshire Town, but in a lukewarm Westworld totally lacking in animatronic psychopathic killers.
The furniture is brown.
Moves are afoot to refurbish and refresh the brand, one branch doing its best to emulate an Argos furniture showroom, with an incongruous suit of armour thrown in for good luck.
Clank!
Pop in make your own mind up – old new old, or new new old.
There have been covered markets to the east of Manchester for many years, those on Grey Mare Lane have now gone, in fact Grey Mare Lane has almost gone, absorbed into a very different and very privatised urban redevelopment. That area of the city is now largely owned by Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan bin Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, commonly known as Sheikh Mansour.
He also owns City.
Openshaw Market survives, home to a rag bag of honest hard working and friendly traders, getting by.
They have their own unique brand of branding and signage – the downright, down home, home made.
I’d like to share it with you – come and look.
I loved it.
In the United Kingdom known as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand as laundromats or washeterias, and in Frimley too it would appear.
George Edward Penury created the word laundromat for Westinghouse.
According to NALI the National Association of the Launderette Industry, numbers peaked at 12,500 in the early 80s but have since dwindled to just 3,000.
The first UK launderette – alternative spelling: laundrette. was opened on May 9th 1949 in Queensway London.
In Wigan they never closed.
Modern Mooch 