Ironic that the author didn't just get a decent washer-dryer. They exist, I own one, it wasn't expensive.
I can remember when our washer dryer broke (and it's in the kitchen too, it being in the kitchen still doesn't seem odd to me even after the Kirsty Allsop tweet) and a new washer dryer being delivered, and I don't think on the newer model that the dryer cycle was ever used, and because "it won't work" – even if decent washer-dryer combinations now work, I think it's pretty engrained in British people that it shouldn't be used. Completely silly, now that I think about it.
Sure, but a lot of people living in London rent their flat and - even if renting unfurnished - have little choice over their white goods. I'm writing this in my London flat with my damp clothes hanging on a rack following a noisy washing run of the machine in my kitchenette :) I'd change product if I could, but it's not an option right now.
As a counterpoint, I have a washer-dryer and all the dryer part achieves is "hot wet clothes". Even if you do the recommended "only dry half a drum" (which is stupid because what do you do with the other half? And who would even remember this?), it's still "hot wet clothes".
Indeed. This struck me at times as a rather bizarre, alien article for someone who lives in Great Britain and owns a combination washer-dryer - both aspects of it work, it isn't noisy, and it was not expensive.