A Day in Clubland



There is nothing like having a good excuse!  Today I was meeting a friend in the afternoon in London, and had planned to see the French Fair in the morning.  I had the catalogue, directions how to get there, everything.  But somehow I was not in the mood.  All the way to London on the bus I was busy convincing myself that I ought to do the culturally responsible thing and go to the Fair, while continuing to feel reluctant and crabby.  Then suddenly someone in the bus sneezed – just the excuse I needed!  How could I possibly go to an exhibition with hundreds of thousands of other people, in a closed space, when there was every chance that half of them were diseased with some horrible germ or other?  What if I caught something, and became ill, and missed work?  We were very busy right now!  No, it would be irresponsible of me to do anything so dangerous, in the middle of the cold & flu season.  I would go to my club and have a quiet morning with the papers instead.  Which is what I had wanted all along anyway.

Clubs are one of the great contributions of Britain to the civilised world.  I am a member of one of the nicer ones in Pall Mall, and whenever I am in London it is my first port of call.  It provides a luxurious setting, free newspapers and magazines, cheap coffee, and (in the bar) free peanuts and twiglets.  Also really really nice toilets and a splendid place for meeting friends.  On this occasion I had arranged for R to come to the Club in the afternoon, so I did not even have to leave the Club to meet her. 

Reading lots of different newspapers while drinking weak coffee in a congenial setting is one of the great pleasures of my life.  After the sixth paper giving a different interpretation of the current news I slide into a mellow melancholy and start to ruminate about the general depravity of human nature.  Having finished the papers and concluded that I really couldn’t be bothered to worry about humanity on this occasion, I checked my watch and realised that I had another hour to kill.

One of the things I always wondered about is how people manage to photograph themselves in mirrors – I have never been able to do this.  Since my Club has lots of mirrors, I decided to experiment, starting in the Ladies’ Loo, a decidedly magnificent affair.

The first photo – see above – was totally amazing, in that the mirrors in front of and behind me reflected endlessly in each other and created an effect more usually encountered in fantasy/horror movies than in ladies’ loos.

The second photo somehow went mad with the flash and cast the loo into a golden glow, which I think is pretty cool, so I put that in, too.

After I had played enough with my camera I went into the Drawing Room, where magazines like The Lady and Paris Match are displayed.  There was also a copy of Vogue, which I decided to read in the interest of widening my horizons.  What an amazing publication!  Practically the entire magazine consists of advertisements for fashion items which are either ludicrously unusable or prohibitively expensive (or both).  There are a few written articles, but they are negligible in every sense of the word.  One has to admire the genius of the publishers to actually sell this magazine – why would anyone pay good money to look at adverts?  

I still had a few minutes before R arrived, so took a few more photos in mirrors.  I had to be a bit careful, because it is not allowed to take pictures of the club facilities (which is why there are none in this blog).  But I trust the one below doesn’t give too much away!

Then I met R at the entrance lobby and we retired to the Drawing Room for Tea and Cakes and gossip.  We are not so much Ladies Who Lunch as Ladies Who Take Tea in Drawing Rooms, which is much more refined and also cheaper.

Having completed our assignation to mutual delight and satisfaction, I made my way back to the bus station, and took this photo of the monument near Marble Arch dedicated to Animals used in War.  It is quite poignant I think.  What business have we to involve other species in our endless squabbling and strife?