| Luncheon |
[Dec. 4th, 2002|07:27 am] |
So yesterday I met a friend for lunch at the National Liberal Club - and was that a bit of a culture shock or what?
I've been there twice before, but neither really counted as a 'proper' visit. Once was a PR company staff day, once was a gathering of Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidates. On both occasions the club was simply a venue that had been booked. This time I was a guest of a member... and entered a completely different world.
For a start, there was a dress code. My leather jacket and smart shirt wasn't good enough. The bloke behind the front desk - doorman? concierge? - produced a suit jacket and a big box of ties from nowhere, and I was obliged to dress up. He was very discrete about it, but it was still half embarrassing, half amusing.
Inside, it was very quiet (for one thing, rules say you must either switch off your mobile phone, or mute the ringer). But it wasn't oppressive or cold silence, it was comfortable silence. I was heading for the bar, where I was meeting my friend, and had to go through the smoking room to do it. A smoking room? In this day and age? Cor.
And it wasn't a poky little room full of cigarette smoke, like the one smoking carriage on a train, or the smoking corner of a restaurant - look at the picture under 'facilities' on the club website linked above. This was a 'club' room in the proper sense of London Gentlemen's Clubs (women are admitted as members on completely equal terms, but the name still means something as a description). Roaring fire. Armchairs. Quiet corners with murmered conversations.
And - of course - the bar and restaurant were simply stuffed with uniformed flunkies hovering to help you - waiters / waitresses, barmen, the restaurant maitre d' - this was nothing like the grudging and understaffed service you get in many restaurants, where eating out becomes a battle of wills.
It was a very strange place. One part of me loved the retreat into the nineteenth century - it was so very clubbable. The other part of me hated the implied superiority. It's not elitist - anyone can join who can afford the fees, membership is not by election by other members (unlike many clubs), but it was still a deliberate denial of the real world out there and that made me want to shout at everyone, shock them out of their complacency.
I don't know... part of me wants to burn it down, part of me wants to join it and visit lots. But since I'm a law-abiding citizen without easy access to petrol bombs, and since membership costs ?350 a year with a ?175 joining fee, I don't think I'll be doing either just yet... |
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