Alex James

Slow Life | 26 July 2008

Going clubbing

issue 26 July 2008

‘Lunch at the Athenaeum!’ I told my mum. No idea what I was talking about. ‘The Athenaeum! It’s a gentleman’s club on Pall Mall. I’ve arrived, mother. Look at me now!’

I’ve been trying to break on to the gentleman’s club scene for a while. I’ve even joined one, a creaking Goliath down by the river. The dining room there is about the nicest in London, but I’ve only been once. The food is good: reasonably priced, old-fashioned splendour, whacking great Chateaubriand and whumping puddings that trump the décor for scale and invincibility. The ceilings are high and the conversation is low. The view is of the river and a room half full of people I’ve never seen before. I wonder why I don’t go there more often, really. I like the idea of it.

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