Fancy a Saturday Night Out in London's Soho and Beyond....? PART 1

Your calendar may tell you it's Monday but, here on the Blog, it's early Saturday evening with a long night/morning ahead of us.  As the last post was necessarily rather dry and serious, t's time for something more relaxed and anecdotal.  A few of you have been so kind as to give me feed back, over email and FB messenger (and do feel free to do so by leaving comments on the Blog post itself) and even ask questions....one of which was, "what would a night out in the Soho gay village be like?"  Hence this post.  Get your glad rags on, let me take you by the hand (or not!) and let's head to town.

(Please Note - photos/videos are taken from public sites and assumed to be open source.  I do not hold the copyrights and, if anyone does and wishes the picture removed, just advise me and I shall take the photo down.  The use of a photo does not presume anything regarding the sexuality of the subject)

As you know from our discussion of 'gay culture', two posts ago, appearance and attraction are important whenever one puts even a toe outside the front door.  As a result, my years in London required an hour and a half workout in the gym five, or six days a week.

A&F Fierce men's fragrance

Then, for a Saturday night out, the product of such effort was clad in Ted Baker black leather flat fronted shoes, Evisu blue jeans, Armani black leather belt, Abercrombie and Fitch black tight fitting T-shirt and Versace blue jean (gold thread) jacket; all set against the alluring background of the Abercrombie and Fitch Fierce fragrance.  I can almost hear my ex Army mates struggling to hold back the laughter but, while the days of Savile Row two piece chalk stripe and three piece tweed suits, blazers, Regimental tie and cashmere/cotton twill trousers were only recently over, in many ways they were a world away (see phots, below, of self in '04, three years after leaving the Army and, by this time, happily 'married' to hubby....so after the period in which our Saturday night out is set).

Suitably attired, a less than one minute walk took me to the Underground (Metro, for my US mates); hence choice of apartment - no point looking good only to get wet and dishevelled walking to the tube.  Then just a nine minute ride to the heart of the West End.  Soho here we come.  First stop, as a long night lies ahead, is Balans restaurant on Old Compton Street, the heart of the 'gay village'.  A staple of Soho, Balans rather became my default eating place for a couple of years, during which time I would take breakfast (or, more honestly, brunch....steak and eggs) and dinner there perhaps two or three days a week.  Almost always damned good food, Bohemian atmosphere and a portion of eye candy served with almost every waiter.

Many of the staff made a fortune in tips, particularly at Christmas, Pride and just about every holiday when drunk gay guys were prone to showing appreciation for good service, a fine physique and an alluring, impish smile....I hooked up with a Balans waiter once, nice guy but totally mad (we didn't really DO dating, as understood in the straight world - which I will explain in a PART 2, end of the week)!  Food was preceded by a large Sapphire and tonic and, if dining with a mate, accompanied by a bottle of wine; otherwise, more gin.  On occasion I might also hit Balans in the late afternoon, if I bumped into a mate in town, when food was washed down with selections from the cocktail menu; which meant a trashy night always lay ahead!  For Saturday night dinners, the solid intake often took the form of seared scallops followed by the sesame tuna steak or the red curry, then it was off to meet mates at the first watering hole.

Old Comtpon Street was a kaleidoscopic lense into a Bohemian (NOT just gay), transient community drawn together by shared lifestyles or philosophy on life.  I passed so many hours away just sitting at the window of Costa Coffee looking out, or at one of the street side tables savouring the liberated, eclectic sights and sounds that would delight, amuse and often elicit a quiet "awwww", as my eyes followed a young gay couple walking down the centre of the narrow road, hand in hand; one imagined the "I'm his" and "He's mine" T-shirts they should have been wearing.

Balans, small frontage but goes back a
long way!

It was the same, but even more so during the evening, night and early morning hours.  That street was the centre of the universe for many of us, a celestial locale imbued with the power to buoy one up, fill you with a hedonistic sense of joy and anticipation and, crucially, a feeling of safety and security.

The walk from Balans to the Village bar took all of 30 seconds.  Village was the preferred bar of some of my best friends on the gay scene and was always the RV location.  The different decor in its various bars afforded an insight into the character and custom of that particular entertainment space.

Entrance to one of Village's four bars

We would always take ownership of the same corner of one what one might call the singles' bar.  Drink and chat ensued, while cruising the guys in the bar (I shall explain 'cruising' and things like hanky code in some future post) and comparing thoughts on what was on offer.  I never attempted to pick anyone up in a bar (though it happened by accident, once or twice) but I did meet my future husband in Village just over 13 amazing years ago.  I had a foot in two often distinct camps....the bar scene and the club scene.  I loved the bars and might visit same three or four times a week (I had left the Army and was a lady of leisure), but also loved the dance clubs.  As a result, a proper Saturday night would kick off in Soho and then relocate to Vauxhall or somewhere else between 23.00hrs and midnight.  As with all of Bohemian Soho village, the atmosphere in the bar was intoxicatingly hedonistic, vibrant, vital and heavy with anticipation as eyes met and smiles flashed.  The clientele was predominantly young(ish), with body shapes that had had real time and effort invested in them and were proudly sported in clothes that showed them off to best advantage.  Those who had been endowed with both cute looks and fine forms knew it and oozed that confidence, certainty, even annoying (or endearing?) and to some cowing arrogance that such riches afford their owners.  The staff was almost exclusively young 20s and Brazilian, attired in the tightest T-shirts one would imagine and the manager, the only Brit, became a mate; only a mate.  I was a good deal older than the norm for the bar and gave the lie to Robbie Williams' lyric "....all the handsome men are gay....", so what little shape I had managed to cultivate during the hours at the gym was my essential qualification for entry to the gay scene; yes, much of the glitzy Soho scene was judgemental, superficial and cynical.

If I was able to sway opinion, we would later decamp to my favourite bar, Rupert Street, a minute's walk from Village; socialising in a compact area has its advantages!  That relocation was not always the easiest sell, though, as Village would wheel out dancing 'go-go boys' later at night.  If we did make the move, my drink would change from bottles of Corona or Bud to large Sapphire and tonics; each seemed suited to venue.  Apart from the more stylish, up market decor, clientele and the fact that men were free to use both men's toilets and the ladies' toilets another difference from straight pubs was that one tipped in a gay bar....and I would always tip big on the first round (maybe 3 to 5 pounds on an order of up to ten pounds) and then use that same barman throughout the night, assured of excellent service; even if my tips then scaled down to two pounds per round.  Rupert Street was a smart bar and, while still sporting a generous array of young cute things, attracted a slightly older and perhaps more sophisticated clientele.  It's bar staff were older than in Village, each showing off gym bunny physiques through tight black T-shirts; some wearing wrists bands that meant things to the initiated.  Rupert Street was the choice of many suited and booted 'City' type gay guys for the week day end of work drink between 17.00-19.30hrs, after which there would be almost a pause before the night time crowd began to gather from 20.30hrs onward.  The bar usually throbbed to the sound of great music mixes, from club dance to proper House genres and I might expect to see guys that would reappear on dance floors in the clubs during the ensuing early morning hours.  It was a great warmer prior to the taxi ride to Vauxhall and the Saturday night/Sunday morning club scene.

I loved the hours on the bar scene with dear friends, chatting, laughing, perusing and judging the human scenery but, as closing time approached, it was hugs and kisses for my mates as the clubs were calling....and I'll take you to the clubs in the next post, at the end of this week.

In closing, and in answer to the question posed of me, how was the night out different from those being enjoyed by straight guys and girls elsewhere in London?   Well, first point to note is that the above was only the start to the night out....and, as I didn't try to pick up in bars, perhaps the elements of greatest difference will be related in the PART 2 to this topic.  That said, were there differences between the gay bar scene and a night on the straight scene....well, to thoroughly misuse the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her Sonnet 43, 'let me count the ways' (sorry!).

Firstly one should acknowledge, up front, that the fine forms my friends and I were perusing (and my mates perhaps seeking to pick up) were male....an obvious but important difference that speaks to the role of 'gay bars' and the 'gay scene' and impacted upon the character and feel of such venues; more than simply in seeing some customers hugging and kissing around the bar.  Following on from that, the go-go boy dancers in the Village was a clear departure from the character of straight venues, as was the (usually total) absence of women.  A minor point is that the attire, and its importance, may have been different from that sported by my straight friends.  The culture of hugs and kisses on greeting and taking one's leave of friends (kisses sometimes on the cheek but also on the lips - as one gay friend put it, "I am not greeting a Frenchman, I'm greeting a fellow homosexual!") was different from the culture of straight mates meeting for a night's drinking, as was the prevalence of such as "dear", "darling", "gay boy" etc in normal conversation....eg, a waiter in Balans, pleasing to the eye and on first name terms, might commence with, "Here again, dear, you scene queen, you.  What may I tickle your fancy with tonight, hun?".  The music is another area of divergence, with the disco sounds, boy bands, Kylie, Cher etc of Village and then the harder sounds of House genres in Rupert Street being different from what was probably being played over the sound systems of the majority of straight London bars that night.  Just a few of the obvious differences from most straight bars and underscoring the relevance and role of the gay bars for us....where our different culture or social norms were safely accommodated.

A huge thanks to you for popping in and joining me on the first part of our night out; I am sending you e-hugs or manly embraces, as appropriate.  I do hope that, in answer to the question posed of me over FB messenger, the post has afforded my straight mates some sense of how a Saturday night would kick off on the scene and how it differed from Saturday nights in straight venues.  I'd love it if you would return for the club portion of the night out in a few days time; from which one would hope to be returning home with company by early to mid morning Sunday - but more of that next week.

Have an absolutely fabulous weekend.  Enjoy.