I made my excuses and left.

There's a notice pinned to the door of the Aqua Sauna. It gives you until Valentine's day to oppose a renewal of its 'special treatment licence' by writing to the Licensing Team, Public Protection Division, 222 Upper Street, London N1 1XR 'giving in detail the grounds for objection'.

I wonder what they'd do if anyone wrote in to support the application for renewal?

 Anyway, I had this conversation with my friend in Ireland last week:

'How can you tell if a massage parlour isn't really a massage parlour. I mean, apart from going on Punternet?'
'Is it open at night? Are the windows blocked so no-one can see in? Does it radiate seediness?'
'Hmmm. Yes, that would do it.'

We were avoiding arguing about whether Britain has a constitution (long story) and so went on to talk about words.

Here's the thing. The Aqua Sauna's pretence of selling saunas and massages is as transparent as that News of the Screws line I stole for the title of this post, and yet Islington Council's 'community safety update' doesn't say 'we raided a brothel and closed it down', it says 'Aqua Sauna, at 42 Hornsey Road, had no licensed staff on duty [and]  will now face prosecution.'

The Islington Tribune didn't run a 'police close down whorehouse' story; they wrote: 'On Friday, Aqua Sauna in Hornsey Road, Holloway, was found to have no licensed masseuses on duty – although it did have a special treatment licence – and was also temporarily closed.'

The Islington Gazette article says 'Aqua Sauna in Hornsey Road, Holloway, was found to have no licensed masseuses on duty – although it did have a special treatment licence – and was also temporarily closed' and then quotes Cllr Paul Convery:  'We are not turning a blind eye to this any more. This sort of thing should be removed from the neighbourhoods of decent law-abiding people.'

It's as though urologists wrote papers about down below and divorce lawyers accused their clients' spouses of having special friends. It's a funny fit with the Aqua Sauna's brazenness. I get that local papers and councillors would not want to talk about pimps, johns and whores*,  but I don't get why 'brothel' or 'prostitution' are off limits.

Non-brothel blogging will resume shortly.

*Side-note: Those slang words are losing their primary meaning too. I doubt 'ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off' is actually about prostitution, and I'm pretty sure the President doesn't think so either.