There was a bunch of American guys in the bar earlier; late thirties, obviously pretty well off, over here for some kind of golf tour. We had a pretty good rapport going, I taught them a bit about whisky;
“Right, when you’re in China, what do you call Chinese food? Right, so when you’re in Scotland, what do you call Scotch whisky?”
And… ping! The penny drops. I’m just glad it was me they had that conversation with and not some uber-Scot who would start lecturing them about Culloden and the clearances. An hour or so in, one of them leans over to me, lowers his voice, and asks the question I’ve been waiting for since they got here:
“So. Whereabouts around here would we find a good titty bar?”
That’s how he said it. Titty bar. I’ve never exactly worked out what’s behind it, but it seems any time you put a bunch of American men together all they want to do is go and shove money down some young girls’ pants. Now, I like a nudie lady as much as the next man, but the whole idea of strip clubs has never really appealed. I think that’s probably because my sole experience of them was one of the least erotic (or pleasant, for that matter) moments of my life.
When I was about nineteen, I lived in Edinburgh. It was Christmas time, so I’d come back home for a few days and was sitting in the pub I drank in when I was a school. Nothing had changed in the three years I’d been away. Same seat, same drinks, same people. I ended up talking to a couple of guys I’d been quite friendly with in my early teens, nice lads; not exactly having to keep a backup of their little black books. Somehow the conversation turned to the strip clubs of Edinburgh, of which there are many and varied. They were amazed by how blatant it was and I, full of cheap lager and the bravado of the newly cosmopolitan, promised to take them through and ‘give them a tour’.
I thought no more of it, until a couple of days later when they appeared at my parent’s house, fired up for a day of debauchery.
We got into Edinburgh about One, just in time to hear the cannons go off. I initially tried to steer clear of the whole Lothian Road area, taking them to some nice bars, having some good chat, I had hoped they would get comfortable and forget the whole idea. But no. They were focused. Strip clubs or nothing. So it was about four o’clock I finally acquiesced and, expecting the Bada Bing from the Sopranos, walked into my first ‘titty bar’.
Bada Bing it was not. Bare floorboards and nicotine-stained anaglypta, torn leatherette banquettes, we could have been in any old mans’ pub in the country were it not for the rostra in the centre of the room – which on closer inspection turned out to be a pool table with a slab of MDF over the top. We bought three lager tops and waited with giggly excitement. We were excpecting Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn, or at the very least Princess Jasmine in The Simpsons.
What we got was a bleached-blonde leather-skinned woman in her late thirties. I don’t remember what she wore, but it was dispatched quickly and dispassionately while the few other men in the pub ignored her and played the fruit machine. I was relived when she saw my friends’ open jaws and turned to the opposite corner for the Big Reveal. We left pretty quickly.
This burst of reality did not, however, serve to dampen the spirits of my cohorts who were convinced only that we had found the wrong bar. We moved down the street to what we were assured was a much ‘classier’ place.
We were relieved of a substantial amount of money on the door, converted into ‘Dance Tokens’. If, we were told, we should present these tokens to one of the girs we would get a private dance. My friends were engorged with enthusiasm. Heading up the stairs we found ourselves in what seemed to be a suburban nightclub circa 1987. Sticky carpet, mirrors, faux-art nouveau statues of naked ladies. They had at least made some concession to the season with a few sprigs of tinsel and an optimistic miseltoe. As we sat at our black marble table with ou £10 pints of lager, three of the ‘girls’came to join us. The girl who sat with me was about the same age as me, and started to launch into the ‘I haven’t seen you here before’patter. Unfortunately, my coping strategy for the horrors of the day had been to smoke quite a hefty amount of weed between bars, and it had made me… inquisitive. I talked to the girl for what must have been about an hour about her job, her boyfriend, what she studied, the feeling of power being a dancer, how the management always kept the heating low so their nipples would stand up, how she had to keep he hair long for the girl-on-girl… by the end of it the last thing I wanted was a dance from this poor overworked girl. I felt bad about wasting her time though, so thought the polite thing would be to give her the ‘tokens’. As soon as she started I felt a bit stupid. As soon as we made eye contact the pair of us ended up unable to contain our laughter. We abandoned the dance, chatted a bit more while I waited for the others to run out of money, and left feeling decidedly confused. I’ve not been to another strip club since.
So, it was with a wry smile I sent my American friends off to ‘Seventh Heaven’. I think the reason this flagged up in my mind is that a few days before a bunch of SPL footballers were in. They drank nothing but rose Champagne and talked of nothing but football. I remember commenting at the time that they were; ’so unaware of their own cliches it’s almost endearing.’ I guess I felt the same way about these big American guys, all bad sports clothing and ‘Scotch’ on the hunt for their ‘titty bar’. I wonder how often people look at me and think I’m a typical Glaswegian. Never, I hope.
Later on some Brummies came in. They drank loads of lager, then went for a curry.
