2025-12-26
32 分钟This is The Guardian.
Hello, my name is Claire Longrick and I'm the Deputy Editor of The Guardian Longread.
This December we wanted to bring you our top picks of the year from The Audio Longread.
Today I've chosen a story by Tom Lamont.
called The Human Stain Remover,
what Britain's greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job.
Tom Lamont is one of those writers who will turn an idea over for some time,
sometimes years, before it takes shape as a story.
Often there is a curious, surprising and intriguing character at the centre of the pitch.
It's always a joy to hear him say, I found a guy.
The guy at the centre of this piece has an unusual profession.
He's made a specialism of removing stains that most industrial cleaners can't or can't bear to reach.
The anecdotal detail, as you'd expect from a Tom LeMond story,
is a joyful parade of yuckiness, an array of seeping, pooling and organic explosions.
Tom is a master of the list.
I can't resist giving you an example which demonstrates the art of escalation.
Boilers suited and plastic booted,
Giles learned how to eliminate most evidence of spillages, collisions, protests, hemorrhages,
severings, explosions, fires and floods,
becoming a self-taught stain savant, a walking database of remedies.