Wednesday 7 October 2009
Go to a Yates Wine Lodge. No: that is not a command. I’m telling you it is something you must really never do sober. In fact you must never do it even if you’re drunk. Please – just don’t. I have kindly done it for you, so now you don't have to.
The mere mention of a Yates Wine Lodges take me back to my extreme youth in the Northern Provinces. I recall taking a short cut behind a Yates Wine Lodge with Morag, Mrs Cohen and others, and seeing one of the Yates Wine Lodge bouncers 'at it' with a customer on the grassy bit in the car park. The bouncer’s bouncing buttocks gleamed white in the moonlight as did his partner’s practical-looking thighs. She was still wearing her frock (around her waist) and was of an age that suggested she was most probably called something along the lines of Beverley. The bouncer wasn’t exactly going for it and, in fairness, Beverley herself looked less like she was in the throes of passion and more like she was wondering whether she had enough corned beef to make her husband’s sandwiches. For a few long moments we gazed upon the bleak horror and I recall, at that point in my young life, having particularly low expectations of both Yates Wine Lodges and sexual intercourse.
Tonight I visited the Yates Wine Lodge on Leicester Square with Two-Woman and Daisy before we went to the pictures. Putting aside my Yates aversion, there was a certain nostalgic charm to going out in Leicester Square. I harked back to when I first arrived in London and truly believed that Leicester Square was the capital’s hip epicentre of going out. Many a night I spent in The Moon Under the Water choking on the thick odour of rotten carpet and screaming “WHAT?” while tourists hit me in the ear with their rucksacks. And nothing changes. Except that it’s not quite so quite so elbow-to-nose in the next-door Yates. Possibly because it’s absolutely and unexpectedly massive in a manner believed by its rather narrow exterior facade.
Another wave of nostalgia upon entering. Cheap perfume, alcopops and sick: ahhh the smell of my early 20s. All the girls were tossing their silky, luxuriant manes of hair and all the boys were wearing polyester-mix starter suits from Burtons. They were all properly drunk and, as it was a Wednesday evening, there was every chance that they were going to go to their starter jobs the next day properly hungover. Well, you can’t knock them. That’s what being 22 is surely all about.
On locating Daisy and Two-Women, a brisk 45 minute walk down to the back of the pub and sitting under what presumably turned into the dancefloor later (disco balls overhead: always a giveaway) I bought myself my first ever non-alcoholic beer – a bottle of Becks Blue. There was something quite lovely about holding a beer bottle in my hand once more. I quivered with excitement at the shape and the coldness and thrilled at the slightly farty whiff that hovers over the neck of a freshly opened bottle. As a placebo it wasn’t bad, although the taste was admittedly more burnt toast than lager. My only issue as it slipped down my eager gullet, was that, as with flogging a dead relationship, it wasn’t really working. But I remained calm and carried womanfully on.
Alas, what goes in, must come out. And so I was forced to venture to the ladies where, horror of horrors, there was a toilet attendant. At 7.30pm. On a Wednesday evening. Chupa Chup lollipop? Actually, no thanks, I’m 33. Squirt of Britney Spears/J-Lo/Lily Savage/ Trevor McDonald perfume? Erm – I’ll stick with what I’m wearing. Would you like me to pass you a tissue to dry your hands on so you don’t have to trouble yourself picking one up for yourself? Jesus. Tell you what – why not pop into the cubicle and help me pull my tights up and then I’ll give you a pound.
That’s quite enough Yates. We eventually moved onto the cinema after two hours of saying “What time is it?” Drinking revelation of the day: time goes v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y when you’re sober. To compensate for the 3000 calories I had failed to consume in beer, I chose to consume 3000 calories in popcorn instead. I am aware that popcorn is actually pretty low-calorie... but not when the box it comes in is larger than my thigh. “Sweet or salt?” said the nice man. “Both!” I said and then closed my eyes so the layers would be a surprise. Never let it be said that I do not know how to have a good time.
And so, on to the film. The trouble with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is that it’s an exploration of the horrors and pleasures of leading a double life (whatever your other life may be) but people muddle the book with the real and actual life of Oscar Wilde and expect it to be 200+ pages of unfettered bummery. They then come away rather miffed because all they got was a spot of low-key homoeroticism and a few opium dens.
The new film version, Dorian Gray, is for those who demand to be beaten over the head with the obvious. There is opium den action a-plenty and these sections resemble the old 1980s adverts for Turkish Delight. Other naughtiness includes Dorian doing a posh mum while her daughter hides under the bed, and then, oh yes. Bring on the bummery! He does lots of chaps too. I got a little confused when he started drilling someone (not a euphemism – I mean with a drill – as in a Black & Decker drill) because it kept cutting between that and an image of someone spreading jam on a scone. Plus i was trying to pick popcorn kernels out of my scarf at the time. Did the drilling really happen? Can someone else please go and see it just to clarify?
Most tiresome of all was the picture itself. It kept groaning, laughing manically and doing Darth Vader style breathing. But not in an especially terrifying way. It was more like the bit in the Haunted House at Alton Towers when a plastic corpse suddenly pops out of a wall with a flashing red light bulb over its head and goes “WA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!” and you “Come on – let’s have a go on the teacup waltzers instead.
In short it was Hammer Horror meets Confessions of a Window Cleaner meets Saw 6 meets Carry on Fin de Siècle. It was followed by a mad dash for the train home, which made my eyes rattle in their sockets. They had been reduced to raisins by the salt in the popcorn.
Units Dodged: Seven. I could so easily have glugged two very large glasses of wine to ease the pain of Yates. And, in the cinema bar, while Daisy very kindly bought me a tomato juice (why is tomato juice sold in such small quantities that it barely comes halfway up a lady glass?) I would much rather have copied her and had a small glass of wine. Extra kudos tonight for not panicking and buying tequila shots off the lady with silver trousers and a ‘tequila holster’ in Yates.
The Unit Dodger
I had forgotten about that sight behind Yates'. I think I had thrust it from my mind. Getting flshbacks now though. Quite lierally. His arse was that white and the moon that bright. Bless her though. She was so bored. Maybe it was 'one for the team' and her mates were off shagging his fitter bouncer friends in more hospitable surroundings like the back of a white van or the disabled toilets perhaps.
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