NIGHTLIFE
Originally published on Friday, 12 September 2008
Bar Fly: Decade in the ‘Ditch / Love Your Own Local / Danceflooritis
Who is this mysterious, debonair professional alcoholic they call the Bar Fly? Who is this hero of the libation revolution? This undercover gin-lover, drinking his way from bar to bar, club to club, gutter to gutter, just to keep you UJ readers in the know? He is a shadow, a secret, an unknown champion of the bar-rumour. That or a raging alcoholic. Let's see what gossip he's dug up this week.
Decade in the ‘Ditch
Last night saw the big, bad, and ever so infamous Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen hit double figures in inimitable style.
1 rather large bar rammed to the gills with guests
+ 1 free-flowing (and vaguely ironic) Jagermeister machine
+ 1 tonne of black balloons
+ several dwarves
+ 0 money spent on booze all night
+ several random guest DJs, including a little jiggery pokery on the wheels of proverbial steel from yours truly
= well quite frankly, carnage.
I’ll try to get the condemning pictures out to you next week. Assuming I can sneak them past the censor Nazis. But either way, trust me. It was a delicious mess.
Love Your Own Local…
… and leave mine alone. While Stella Artois, those famed purveyors of fine, handmade ales (cough), are attempting to battle the rather alarming trend for pub closures (well over 30 per week) with their Love Your Local campaign, the brand new 2009 Michelin Guide to Eating Out in Pubs is meanwhile trumpeting a number of our favourite London venues (including the Garrison in Southwark). Both of which is great. So long as we can still get a table at our local.
Danceflooritis
Not content with the weekend-favourite at Electricity Showrooms, and the forthcoming rumoured ode beneath the Tabernacle (launching in a couple of weeks), the Daft Punk-esque, Saturday Night Feverish dancefloor trend has finally gone completely insane, care of Paul Daly and his newly designed Vendome, which officially launches next week. An anonymous acquaintance described it to me as ‘a lighting technician’s wet dream.’ I, sadly, foster only vague memories of a swirling, swelling Technicolor blur. But that could have been the gin.
Yours, an ardent professional,
The Bar Fly
