Some Massage Anecdotes

Since 2009 we are lucky to have massaged many thousands of great customers - from Londoners born and bred here who book every week to tourists enjoying a quick spot of luxury relaxation in their hotel room. Sometimes we see interesting and amusing things whilst massaging London better and here's a taster …

Unusual massage requests

It will come as no surprise that having delivered many thousands of massage treatments over the years, we have seen some pretty interesting bookings.

On one particular 31 January, we were asked to send a masseuse for the nearly the whole day from 11am – 7pm to massage the customer’s feet, neck and shoulders while he sat on his sofa and did his tax return! It was the final deadline day, he was really stressed and decided a massage might help him through it. He paid for the whole 8 hours but was kind enough to let the therapist have a 15-minute break every hour. She reported back that he was really quite stressed at the beginning of the day but seemed much better by the end. We hope our relaxation massage helped (he had a combination of treatments but most of it was Foot Reflexology and our Jet Lag massage). We suspect the real joy he felt was when he pressed that final submit button after completing his tax return on time. We wonder if the cost of the massage was tax deductible?!

Another regular customer used to ask our therapists to massage the front of her neck. Of course, this is a very sensitive area and should only be massaged lightly. However this customer would repeatedly ask the therapist to go stronger and stronger. Our therapist would apply a certain safe level of pressure and then no more. This lady would then say "Go harder! Stronger! I want you to massage there much much harder!". After booking several different therapists with us, all of whom refused to go beyond the safe level of pressure, this particular lady gave up and stopped booking with us.

We had the tale of the Arabian Prince who gave our therapists the best tips they've ever earned.

And we've also had a few customers who have asked our therapists to pick up secret treats for them on the way (such as a bar of chocolate) because they are on a strict diet and don't want to be caught buying the item! There is no harm in that, and in fact we think chocolate and massage make great partners when you're looking for an indulgent once-in-a-while treat.

Superstar customers

All our good customers are of course our superstars - and we mean that - but a celebrity booking understandably has an extra touch of excitement about it. As you can probably imagine, therapists love the thrill of visiting a superstar in their own home, one on one. Without exception, each and every one of the celebrities that we have massaged has been an absolutely lovely personality. Therapists have repeatedly said how they were very pleasantly surprised to see these well-known and famous people are so kind, friendly and modest out of the spotlight.

We regularly massage a Hollywood superstar and her husband in their London home … with this particular star being so relaxed that she often pops to her ensuite loo mid-treatment and just continues to chat to our therapist whilst there! Another Hollywood movie star very generously surprised his whole crew at a film set by booking several of our therapists to turn up as a surprise and give them all neck and shoulder massages at the end of a particularly difficult day of filming. The location was out of London, he paid for all the travel expenses too, so the whole booking was not at all cheap but we are pretty sure he could afford it (he has featured on the top actor earners list!). 

Our favourites star bookings however are those from our regular London-based celebrities, such as comedians, TV and radio presenters and musicians. Our therapists often say how nice it feels to massage a person that you recognise from the TV and newspapers and then to see them again in the media a few days later as part of your regular lifestyle.

Different strokes

London is a hugely multicultural city and it’s one of the reasons we absolutely love living and working here. Our business too is very cosmopolitan, with therapists from all over the world working for us. We would say it’s one of the best things about our business.

When we first launched most customers telephoned our bookings line and spoke to us … now however, the far greater majority of customers use our online booking system, email or SMS texts to communicate with our therapists. We love dealing with people from all over the world and are constantly impressed (and feel a little embarrassed about ourselves) with how people from all over the world have a much better grasp of the English language then most of us have of their language.

Getting people's names spelt correctly when they call up to book can be really difficult ... especially as people naturally know their own name very well so usually spell it out to us at the fastest speed you could ever imagine. It's a delicate balance between repeatedly asking the customer and just giving up and going with the best you can guess. We apologise for any unintentional or funny mis-spellings by our team in your bookings! 

Mobile massage means different things in different countries and cultures, so we often have to spend some time explaining the precise and therapeutic nature of our service. For some people this comes as a genuine surprise as they compare it to their own culture and experiences. It's not unusual for our telephone operators or massage therapists to hear.
 

"Really?? You really only do therapeutic massage even though you will come here and massage me in my own home??"

Yes, that's right, we do and that's very standard in London :)

Spanish is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages and so unsurprisingly we sometimes get requests about our “masaje” services … and we now understand that masaje is Spanish for massage.

We see a whole variety of spellings for masseuse, with "massoose" being the most popular. As long as you are understood, there’s no real harm in simply writing it as you hear it. People also sometimes ask about our “messuage services” so we need to check whether it’s a typo or whether they were actually after a conveyancing lawyer, as messuage is a legal term related to real estate.

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