Vacuous Impressionable Peacocks.

I went to a friend’s birthday on Saturday night. It was at a rather swanky spot call café de Paris. Now to be honest, I usually love clubbing, but maybe I’m getting a little more jaded, but it seems that the whole nightclub world has changed gears on me. Without me noticing. More to the point, maybe it’s because I’m now not hitting clubs loaded to the gills and I’m only just realising what clubbing means in 2004. It’s not for me anymore. Now usually I wouldn’t even bother entering a club with big guys in tuxedos, all six foot between the eyes and secret service walkie talkies dangling out their ears. Let alone having to go through a red velvet rope. Thank god I was on the guest list, because my night would have ended there. Now when I used to go clubbing, it was jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. Not the case now. I think I was about the most underdressed person in the place. Don’t get me wrong but I like to dress up, maybe to dinner, but to go to some dark, smoky place and get all messy? Knowing me I’d ruin any decent clobber, by getting quite clobbered myself. Any way, I can deal with looking a bit shabby. Easily solved. Just hit the bar, and act like you have a wedge of money. I did have a little wedge, so I was looking forward to a bit of vodka action. Got my first drink. A nice vodka and tonic. Plain old Smirnoff and a slice of lime. 7£. My wedge was going to turn into a slice, pronto. I figured out after a few more voddies, that they had to charge these ridiculous prices because of the 40 or more staff that seemed to work here. I got to figure them out after a while. Most of them are dressed in black. Svelte women just standing by the bar doing nothing. Seriously, I watched a lady for 1/2 an hour and saw her move once. What the fuck did she do? Look pretty? Look important? God only knows. Then there’s a whole gang of people who go around playing sleight of hand with ashtrays. Usually while you are having a cigarette. Most annoying. Then there are the other monkeys who like to take your drink away when you put it down to chase the lady who took away your ashtray. Bastards. I even told the barman, my drink wasn’t even finished only to be met with a smug what-the-fuck-you-gonna-do look. I resisted telling him exactly what I thought. Well you cant cut the booze line off in the middle of a session can you? So what do you do? You shell out another 7£ for a drink and hold onto it for dear life. Or do what I do. Drink quicker. Which brings me to my next interesting observation. When exactly did they start to have huge guys guarding aftershave, moisturiser, chupa-chups, chewing gum and watch you have a piss. I’ve been in a few toilet cubicles in my clubbing life all over the world, and yet in this town you have a guy that will hand you paper towels, turn taps on for you and give you a squirt of smellies. I wonder if he’d wipe my arse, if I couldn’t quite manage it. Are we that useless as males? That we need some other guy to make sure we wash our hands after a pee-pee. I’m sure they don’t have a women stationed inside the ladies, with blush and lippie on hand, and a hairdryer? Surely not. It makes for a very strange time when you want a nice quiet time and relieve yourself, when there is some guy right behind you towel and soap in hand. The word stagefright comes to mind. What I end up doing is just fucking forget about the task in hand and get out. After a third attempt of walking into the loo and seeing the cubicle occupied, and not want the peeping tom routine, so quickly doing a u-turn and coming back 5 minutes later, I managed to secure the cubicle and have a well-deserved piss, Next thing I was accused by the bog bouncer that I must be doing drugs in the cubicle. Again I had to restrain myself from telling this bozo exactly what I thought. Well just like the bar man earlier, you cant cut off the booze line off in the middle of a session can you? Sheesh. Then there is the pinnacle of going to a club. Hanging out in the VIP room. Zzzzzzzzzzz. How boring. A room full of peacocks trying to be ubercool. VIP now stands for vacuous impressionable peacocks in my book. Also just to let you know, drinks taste exactly the same in the VIP room as they do in the main room. It was then to my amazement when I went to get a drink after 3am. I was told they were not serving booze anymore. Excuse me? Am I hearing this right? It was then I thought the VIP room might have some saving grace and actually still be serving. How wrong I was. I was curtly told that I could get a soft drink. Hahahaha. Yeah right. Just the very opposite of what I needed, which is a hard drink. Then I noticed there was a VIP room for the VIP room. What the fuck? VVIP room? Very vacuous impressionable peacocks? This must be the last bastion for a drink. Thank god. Then I realised that you only basically got into this room if you spent 150£ on a bottle of champers. I didn’t have 150£. I wish I did. Only so I could go in and swig straight from the bottle and belch. That would have been a brilliant and rather fitting end to a night, and most probably got me banned from ever going back there again. Which probably isn’t such a bad idea after all.