A dirty little secret now out in open

IN the corner of my room, I have a chair on which I drape items of clothing I’ve worn but haven’t yet decided to consign to the laundry basket. It’s a sort of purgatory between a cycle of cleansing and rebirth at 40C and that seventh circle of hell that is being re-worn.

And I am not alone. Apparently, 60pc of millennials favour a chair-based approach to clothes management. But the trend inevitably leads to a slump in detergent sales. Enter stage left the villain of my piece, Unilever.

Finding wisdom in the old adage that naming your fears helps to destroy them, Unilever came up with the name ‘chairdrobe’ for the source of all of their woes.

Young people’s refusal to bundle every item of clothing into the machine after it has made contact with their skin is more than just laziness.

Ever heard of responsible laundering, you environmentally heedless heathens? It’s not just the water-wastage issue, either. Synthetic fabrics shed plastic particles which end up in our waterways. Plus, every fashionista knows that over-washing leaves your clothes looking old before their time. And, of course, there is the cost factor. Those €30,000 deposits don’t save themselves.

However, Unilever seems to think a few new products could change the laundry habits of an entire generation. Last week they launched a spray that “refreshes, reshapes and dewrinkles” clothes on the chairdrobe, with special versions for jeans and delicates.

They are also testing a portioncontrolled detergent in the Netherlands called Less ( I’m no marketing guru, but that just strikes me as a terrible name for anything).

Is washing our clothes less frequently – helping the environment, saving money and prolonging the life of our wardrobe – really that bad? Well I, for one, won’t be giving up my chairdrobe any time soon.

When the chips are down... eat small fries

ANOTHER century, another potatobased national crisis. In 1845, it was a crop-killing scourge of blight; now, in 2018, we face a new tuber trauma.

While we basked in soaring temperatures this summer, potato farmers across Europe were staring into the abyss of a 20pc drop in yield. Those potatoes that did grow were much smaller than your average spud.

The upshot? Chips are expected to be around 3cm shorter this year.

So those of you who favour a long, skinny chip that bends just to the brink of collapse under the weight of a dollop of ketchup may struggle, while fans of those stubby abominations they call chunky chips can rest easy.

I’m in the former camp. As Kate Moss (or someone) once said, when it comes to fries, you can never be too skinny.

But we should spare a thought for the Belgians, whose national dish is frites served with a dizzying array of sauces. But they seem to be taking it on the chin. Pierre Lebrun, head of the Walloon Potato Growers’ Association, told a British paper this week: “We will all eat small fries.”

Touché, Pierre, touché... ‘Sesame Street’ shoves puppets back in closet I WAS sad to hear that Bert and Ernie of ‘Sesame Street’ have been unceremoniously shoved back in the closet. Earlier this week, show writer Mark Saltzman described the co-habiting puppets as being in a “loving relationship”, but the show quickly denied any such thing, insisting puppets don’t have a sexual orientation. So I must have imagined Miss Piggy lusting over a certain frog.