—Tellurian Edition—

NIGHTS ON THE TOWN

The civilised face of London's Clubland

Aristasians of longer standing will remember the delightful Sweethearts Club which met once a month in London for girls only with “Music from the 20s to the 60s and dress code to match”.

Unfortunately, since the demise of Sweethearts, pettes in London have been at something of a loss to know where to go in London.

Recently our Roving Reporterettes have been trying two rather interesting experiments. One was the Modern Times Club and the other The Fifth Column, the annual party of The Chap magazine. The latter might seem an odd choice for girly-girls, though many will be aware that one of our Aristasian writers is Ladies' Editor of The Chap and writes a rather incisive column therein under the soubriquet of the Silver Vixen.

This aside, the sad fact is that there is at present, as far as we know, no club for girls in London that a respectable girl would set foot in so our quest was for clubs of a civilised nature. Of course when one thinks of London night life, one immediately thinks of gentlemen in black tie, of the smooth tones of the Savoy Orpheans, of long cigarette holders and mink stoles.

Regrettably, the London nightclub scene is not, on the whole, like this, and is more likely to consist of gorillas in jeans gyrating to noises that sound as if they have been produced either by African headhunters or a road-mender's drill. In fact they are produced by scruffy groups of dreary suburban cockneys desperately trying to look outrageous in a world where there is no sensibility left to outrage.

I understand that illicit drugs play a substantial part in these activities. I can well understand it. I should need to be heavily drugged in order to enter such a place.

What hope then, remains for the girl of style, taste and elegance who wishes to enjoy a night on the town?

Well if she is prepared to venture into mixed venues there are some rays of the bright stuff.

Our first port of call was Modern Times, held in its new venue at Throgmorton's in Throgmorton Street — just opposite the Bank of England, which is quite handy if you need to pick up a few guineas for a champagne cocktail. It is a splendidly appointed establishment with oak-panelled rooms, gold-mosaic hallways and art-nouveau chandeliers and wall-lights in the form of bunches of stylised grapes.

The clientele is for the most part equally splendid. Furs, feathers, cigarette-holders and every kind of elegance abound. Gentlemen were respectably attired, though mostly not in evening dress. Ah for the days of the Café de Paris where black tie would admit a gentleman to the dining balcony but white tie was necessary for the dance-floor.

However a new standard of respectable elegance seems to be emerging for gentlemen, often entailing what one would regard as country or business-clothes for evening wear, and frequently the wearing of hats indoors. But more of this when we move on to The Chap.

Music over dinner was provided by a Trentish lady pianist who looked as delightful as she sounded and the recorded music was mostly of the tried-and-true Trentish-kadorian repertoire. Perfectly delightful. Entertainment was provided by, among others, a queenly gentleman of the old school reading poems of Noël Coward.

My brunette escort reports that she felt somewhat uncomfortable, sensing an atmosphere of type-3s dressed up and even overtones of “fetishism”. She wondered if my enjoyment of the event was not a result of blonde concentration upon the aesthetic exterior of things. My feeling was that I am not called upon to be the guardian of other people's souls. So long as they do not offend my outward senses (as almost any crowd of bongos normally does) I am likely to enjoy the event. And if there are beautiful and elegant girls to please the aforesaid outward senses, so much the better.

My blonde impression was that the assembled company — which was large — was a very mixed bag. At one extreme there were people who were clearly type-3s dressed up: shaven-headed women in Trentish dress (well, only one of these actually, Dea be praised) people with tattoos and odd piercings. There were also a number of people who, while dressed impeccably were indulging in the gormless bongo habit of drinking out of bottles. The Silver Vixen has had harsh words on this matter in her column in The Chap; words which some have considered unduly violent. I consider them duly violent.

Such appearance and behaviour was at one extreme, and one must allow for the fact that those wishing to be degenerate in the Pit must be conscious that there is very little left to degenerate from and will wish to pick up bits and pieces of the Real World in order to freshen their tired degeneracy by contrast.

At the other extreme there were certainly some people for whom this was a rare chance to enjoy a night on the town in something approaching the style of the civilised world in which they would prefer to spend their whole lives. Most people, I think, fell somewhere between the two extremes. Nonetheless, the very fact that people in considerable numbers (as also witnessed by the Goodwood Revival) are flocking to adopt, at least temporarily, the style of the real world is encouraging; and those who try it cannot fail to be impressed by certain facts; notably by the fact that if one gets a moderately attractive girl out of her Pit-pyjamas and into anything resembling elegant real clothes, the result is something stunningly lovely. I suppose something equivalent happens to chaps as well, though I am not such a connoisseur in that department.

Which brings us neatly to The Fifth Column: The Chap's aquatic event held aboard the H.M.S. President, permanently moored off the Embankment just a touch down the river from the Palace of Westminster. This event was perhaps a shade more serious than Modern Times, though by no means less fun. We were entertained by a Victorian paper-tearer who sang music-hall songs while nonchalantly producing papyrotechnics from old newspapers; the floorshow was brought to a thrilling climax by a snake-dancing African princess; and somewhere in between we were entertained by a fledgling dance-band known as The Chap Selective who performed, among other things, some songs written by the editor of The Chap on Chappist themes — and very witty and nicely-written they were too.

Contrary to what some might have expected, the event was not overbalanced on the masculine side, but was about evenly mixed with lots of charming and elegant ladies in evidence, some of whom were certainly girly-girls (as evidenced by a brief amatory encounter on the part of one of the more glamorous brunettes in our party).

Chappism, it seems, is something of a movement. The boat-party had apparently been preceded by a "Civilise the City" march. One was uncertain how to take this movement, as it seemed compounded in equal parts of a genuine concern for the fall of civilisation and a surrealistic absurdism. Having talked to some of the Chaps aboard the Chappist Warship of Fun, I came away convinced that their concern, like that of the Aristasians, is perfectly genuine, and that, like us, they mix it with wit, whimsy and sheer high spirits, partly to put the enemy off his guard, but mostly because we all happen to enjoy it.

There are Chap Societies forming in the Universities (what's left of them) and we met a number of young people evincing various degrees of commitment to Chappist fervour and festivity. Chappism is a curious creed, having much to do with outlandish mustachios and elaborate pipes. We encountered many gentlemen who bowed and doffed their hats (perhaps this is part of the rationale of the curious new custom of gentlemanly indoor hat-wearing among these circles). Large numbers seemed to be entering fully into the spirit of the thing.

Of course, there was the silly fringe here as well as at Modern Times, but here the core some form of authenticity was undeniably in evidence; and here, more than at Modern Times, Johnny Bongo really was the fringe.

The spirit of the event was expressed in its dress-code: “…spies, insurgents, agents raconteur…”. We were all elegant operatives in the movement that The Chap describes as “debonair dissidence”.

What Aristasians have termed the New Sensibility is perhaps starting to materialise and take its first faltering steps, and if so, this is a thing of which Aristasia-in-Telluria is spiritually a part.

On a more immediate and practical level, events like these may well make places where Aristasians and other like-minded girls can meet and enjoy a night on the town. In the absence of a rebirth of Sweethearts, this may well be our natural social milieu.

And the two aspects — serious and fun — are by no means as separate as they may sound. For as The Chap makes clear — and as Aristasia has been making clear since long before The Chap was born — having fun and fighting for elegance, decency and civilisation are not two separate operations, but are one and the same.

Here's to more nights on the town. Any girl interested in becoming part of an Aristasian party at a reasonably civilised London event should write to us. Don't be shy. The more the merrier!