I don’t know why, but launderettes make funeral parlours feel like 18th brithday parties, and doctors’ waiting rooms like ‘Arrivals’ gates at airports.

Having spent the last few months ‘homeless’, I’ve found myself forced to use them in order to keep my job (even hacks have to look smart sometimes).

And that’s fair enough – the launderettes here in this city are very good. But as for the people who use them, it’s a veritable alphabet of mankind, good and bad, starting with ‘L’ for loser.

Sitting in one just the other week, waiting for my Hot Wash (with pre-wash) to finish, I couldn’t help but have my space invaded by a man in his early 70s, I’d guess, who clearly thought he was still as ’ard as he’d been in his teens.

If he’d looked good, worked out, taken care of himself, then at least I could have respected him for that. But he didn’t.

Instead, he looked like you’re supposed to look when you’re that age...old. Yet despite the fact that he couldn’t have picked a fight with a Zimmer frame, he started tearing a strip off anybody and everybody who was also waiting for their programmes to finish.

Swearing, cursing, this troll-like figure in his white polo shirt, beige shorts, white socks and black lace-up shoes proved that old age by itself is not an automatic way to qualify for respect.

Thank God then for the young woman who caught my eye, winked, leant over and whispered: “My nan’s tougher than he is...”

Of course, a lot of the time, nothing actually happens while you idle away your time between the wash and fast spin. And particularly so on Sundays.

Which is why it’s so important to collect your copy of the News of The World.

In fact, so great is its place among the fabric and traditions of Great British laundering, it’s almost become an entrance ticket; something you need to show on the door before you can even get in.

You know, to this day, I’ve never seen a discarded Daily Mail or Guardian left beneath the dryers.

But inevitably, sitting there, scanning who’s kissed and told, you can’t help but eye-up the underwear. I mean, it’s natural, drawing comfort from the fact everyone else’s smalls are as worn, faded and stringy as your own.

Yet it’s the atmosphere of a launderette that I think stays with you. That quiet, dead, zone of zero that signals you don’t have a washing machine at home.

And, despite the fact I should know better, it still hurts...