The Pink Lady
Last week, thanks to some work colleagues, I had a nasty flashback to my youth. Back, back I went to the dark, dingey dive that constituted the one nightclub in our country town. Think painted up young women dancing around handbags, blokes leering over lager, blaringly distorted top 40 music, couples snogging in darkened corners, people passing out on sticky floors by 10pm and 2-for-1 offers on the sort of cocktails where you go straight from a sugar high to feeling strangely queasy as soon as you stand up, and you’ll know the sort of place I mean.
If I was being cruel I might describe this as a typical Australian night out for people of a certain age. It was definitely something I hadn’t experienced in quite some time.
So it was with bemusement that I witnessed this same scenario taking place again just last week. This time the location was a dark, dingey bar in the City of London (known as ‘the financial centre of the world’ until last year), and my town’s shop girls and army jerks were replaced by corporate lawyers and management accountants. And as I sipped on my 2-for-1 Pina Colada, which tasted more like sugar than rum, and watched my 19 year old colleague get her bum pinched to Beyonce whilst a man did ‘amusing’ things with his tie, I reflected on the universality of horrible bars and nightclubs.
Mostly, however, I was snobbishly greatful that I now knew that there was life beyond drinking Sex on the Beaches and Slow Comfortable Screws to bad over-loud music.
The next evening, safely installed at home, I made us our own garish pink cocktails (but ones which actually tasted like alcohol), switched on Frank Sinatra (at a reasonable volume), got out the olives and sighed contentedly. Like Five-Centres says, it’s called ‘getting older’.
The Pink Lady
1/4 oz lemon juice
1 egg white
1 -2 dashes of grenadine
1 1/2 oz gin
Shake well over ice cubes in a shaker.
Strain into glass and enjoy.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Cocktails Sorry to go off topic – but I thought you may miss this if I posted in the previous story – I probably won’t ever blog it – it’s not quite the tone of my usual blog-bits but am comfortable to share it here as I feel you, and anyone who may read your blog may be interested
The basic’s of the genetics/music story touched on in the last post is:
I grew up without knowing about my two half brothers (I was adopted age 2 weeks) and never had any contact with any birth family until five years ago. I discovered them via Friends Reunited and a site I think called 1847.com – it turns out we are all complete music nutters. Nothing in unusual in that perhaps. But the difference is in the detail. After making contact I would regulary regularly hear from one brother DJ and Electro fan that he’d both recently bought some obscurity/oddity of an elctro, new wave, punk soundtrack CD or single at the same time as me, or we’d both be on a buzz for some piece of randomness (film, book, artist) independently of each other.
While my other brother is more guitar based, and found before meeting, we had dressed the same – and when buying a new acoustic had whittled it down the same choice of two specific make/models – he bought one I bought the other..
Further to this my two mini-mondos were both given names, that I’ve that found out since from that side of the family, have been handed down through generations going back about four centuries..
Bizarrely one brother (the DJ one) lived half a mile away from where I was working at the time I found him, and both used to go to Spitalfields record mkt a long before we ever made contact. It’s not unlikely would have been there at the same time..
May 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
PS ’scuse the screaming typos – I got a bit boggled when keying it all in..
May 13th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Thanks for that Mr Mondo, it’s a fascinating story. It feels like its got something more than genetics though – genetics doesn’t prescribe how people feel about guitars or particular punk 7″s does it? Does it?! I’ve heard similar stories before regarding separated twins though so maybe there is… I guess you’ve speculated a lot about this yourself though…
It must have been fabulous, not to mention strange, when you all unravelled these connections. Do you have anything else in common? Any strangely similar tastes in food or anything?
May 13th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
It’s more than just the obscure tracks, I only mentioned those as it’s the level of detail it goes down to – if you drew a Venn Diagram of shared interests (music, films, books, food, clothes and also things we actively don’t like DIY, sport ) there would be more cross over with my two brothers than anyone else I know, even though we’ve shared no influence or experiences together that would have shaped these tastes.
And it works on all levels looking at my brothers bookshelf and record collection for the first time, was like looking at a mirror of my own – when we go out to eat out we’ll both order the same thing without consulting each other – purely based on taste. Even silly stuff like the Geordie accent – which grates on both of us..or my other brother and I will turn up wearing the same thing
So there’s a ton of shared commonality yet we grew up at opposite ends of the country with completley different upbringings and parenting – so would guess it could only be preprogrammed preferences somewhere in the DNA
PS – I also found out I had cousin who’s a bass player, and complete comics and music nutter too…
May 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I had a chill running down my spine reading that. We’ve all done our fair share of those sort of places. Once, I was even the man doing amusing things with his tie.
I’m glad to be 43.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
never sure about alcoholic drinks with egg in them!
May 13th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Fascinating PM! I love this stuff. Thanks for sharing.
If you were once the man doing amusing things with his tie F-C, then I am also glad that you’re 43.
BLTP. you can leave out the egg white. It’s just there for viscosity and ponceyness. Works perfectly fine without. And, if I remember correctly, aren’t you a fan of advocaat?!
May 14th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
That sounds like a lot of the dives I’ve been to over the years. I don’t do much in the way of clubs anymore. I’m more likely to go to somebody’s cocktail party. It did bring back some interesting memories.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
BLTP nailed it with the egg comment!! I’ve always liked the sound of an ‘egg-hon’ at Christmas, it sounds very warming and yuletidey… but it also sounds a bit eggy! Maybe I could have an egg-nog without the egg?? Can you have just the nog??? I’ll shut up….
P
May 14th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Eeek! Why don’t i ever re-read carefully before publishing!! When typing it definitely said EGG-NOG, on pressing the button it mutated to EGG-HON!
May 14th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
‘Interesting memories’ eh, Keith?! I like your style with the cocktail parties though. It certainly sounds a lot more sophisticated that a dingey old dive.
I was thinking that an ‘egg-hon’ sounded interesting Piley. Although a bit too sweet potentially? I’ve never actually had an egg-nog. It does sound… eggy. But again, I’m sure it has no taste and is just there for texture.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I went into something called the Ha Ha Bar in Brighton a while back, and it was like a quick trip to hell. Everyone screaming at each other over the top of the most horrible music you’ve ever heard. I made my excuses after one warm poncey overpriced beer, and will never go back.
Loved Mondo’s posts – fascinating stuff for someone in my line of work!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
mmm, thanks ISBW, I’ll add the Ha Ha Bar to my list of places to avoid in Brighton. On another tack entirely, I was reading in my latest issue of… ahem… Birds magazine that the starlings are a sight to be seen over the West pier…