Nightclubs

jmjhb · Post by **jmjhb** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:46 pm

Nightclubs are hell. What's cool or fun about a thumping, sweaty dungeon full of posing idiots?

Charlie Brooker
Monday August 13, 2007
The Guardian

I went to a fashionable London nightclub on Saturday. Not the sort of sentence I get to write very often, because I enjoy nightclubs less than I enjoy eating wool. But a glamorous friend of mine was there to "do a PA", and she'd invited me and some curious friends along because we wanted to see precisely what "doing a PA" consists of. Turns out doing a public appearance largely entails sitting around drinking free champagne and generally just "being there".

Obviously, at 36, I was more than a decade older than almost everyone else, and subsequently may as well have been smeared head to toe with pus. People regarded me with a combination of pity and disgust. To complete the circuit, I spent the night wearing the expression of a man waking up to Christmas in a prison cell.
"I'm too old to enjoy this," I thought. And then remembered I've always felt this way about clubs. And I mean all clubs - from the cheesiest downmarket sickbucket to the coolest cutting-edge hark-at-us poncehole. I hated them when I was 19 and I hate them today. I just don't have to pretend any more.

I'm convinced no one actually likes clubs. It's a conspiracy. We've been told they're cool and fun; that only "saddoes" dislike them. And no one in our pathetic little pre-apocalyptic timebubble wants to be labelled "sad" - it's like being officially declared worthless by the state. So we muster a grin and go out on the town in our millions.

Clubs are despicable. Cramped, overpriced furnaces with sticky walls and the latest idiot theme tunes thumping through the humid air so loud you can't hold a conversation, just bellow inanities at megaphone-level. And since the smoking ban, the masking aroma of cigarette smoke has been replaced by the overbearing stench of crotch sweat and hair wax.

Clubs are such insufferable dungeons of misery, the inmates have to take mood-altering substances to make their ordeal seem halfway tolerable. This leads them to believe they "enjoy" clubbing. They don't. No one does. They just enjoy drugs.

Drugs render location meaningless. Neck enough ketamine and you could have the best night of your life squatting in a shed rolling corks across the floor. And no one's going to search you on the way in. Why bother with clubs?

"Because you might get a shag," is the usual response. Really? If that's the only way you can find a partner - preening and jigging about like a desperate animal - you shouldn't be attempting to breed in the first place. What's your next trick? Inventing fire? People like you are going to spin civilisation into reverse. You're a moron, and so is that haircut you're trying to impress. Any offspring you eventually blast out should be drowned in a pan before they can do any harm. Or open any more nightclubs.

Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn't it a lot of hard work for very little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of it. It'll be more fun than a club.

Anyway, back to Saturday night, and apart from the age gap, two other things stuck me. Firstly, everyone had clearly spent far too long perfecting their appearance. I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgment of others, trapped within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety. I'd still secretly like to be them, of course, but at least these days I can temporarily erect a veneer of defensive, sneering superiority. I've progressed that far.

The second thing that struck me was frightening. They were all photographing themselves. In fact, that's all they seemed to be doing. Standing around in expensive clothes, snapping away with phones and cameras. One pose after another, as though they needed to prove their own existence, right there, in the moment. Crucially, this seemed to be the reason they were there in the first place. There was very little dancing. Just pouting and flashbulbs.

Surely this is a new development. Clubs have always been vapid and awful and boring and blah - but I can't remember clubbers documenting their every moment before. Not to this demented extent. It's not enough to pretend you're having fun in the club any more - you've got to pretend you're having fun in your Flickr gallery, and your friends' Flickr galleries. An unending exhibition in which a million terrified, try-too-hard imbeciles attempt to out-cool each other.

Mind you, since in about 20 years' time these same people will be standing waist-deep in skeletons, in an arid post-nuclear wasteland, clubbing each other to death in a fight for the last remaining glass of water, perhaps they're wise to enjoy these carefree moments while they last. Even if they're only pretending.

· This week Charlie shook his head in tearful dismay at Sally Morgan: Star Psychic on ITV1: "If the TV networks want to 'regain trust with the viewer', why gleefully promote the kind of bogus supernatural bullshit a stunned foetus could see through?" He watched the preview trailer for the second part of R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet: "I'm impatiently counting the seconds."

So, so true, but although I agree with the sentiments of the article, not all nightclubs are awful.

fatshaft · Post by **fatshaft** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:53 pm

A very true little piece.

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:54 pm

TANGO DID NOT WRITE OR HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ABOVE.

boltonboris · Post by **boltonboris** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:59 pm

Superb article, but I must admit to enjoying some clubs (Venue in Manchester being my favourite) although 90% of clubs in Manchester, I would never venture in...

Daxter · Post by **Daxter** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:10 pm

Great article. Any time I've been, it's been horrendous and I've wondered just what the whole point of the places are. Horrible environment to be in too.

malcd1 · Post by **malcd1** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:47 pm

Count me in on this thread. From the very 1st club I went to 20 years ago to the last one I can't remember when I have hated everyone of them.

Just don't see the point.

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:48 pm

I ended up in Ikon a few weeks ago. Surrounded by imbeciles, I found myself drinking room-temperature Stella at £3.00 a bottle whilst getting more and more annoyed by a DJ that loved the sound of his own pseudo-accented voice. I wasn't there for long and I won't be there again.

Oh, and how come all young girls these days come replete with a bot belly and a set of those arse-antlers tattooed onto their backs?

malcd1 · Post by **malcd1** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:50 pm

In fact the last club I did go to was somewhere in Manchester. Everyone to a man was walking round as though they were 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Look at me I'm dead hard me.

boltonboris · Post by **boltonboris** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:50 pm

Bruce Rioja wrote:I ended up in Ikon a few weeks ago. Surrounded by imbeciles, I found myself drinking room-temperature Stella at £3.00 a bottle whilst getting more and more annoyed by a DJ that loved the sound of his own pseudo-accented voice. I wasn't there for long and I won't be there again.
Oh, and how come all young girls these days come replete with a bot belly and a set of those arse-antlers tattooed onto their backs?

Ah the infamous Tramp-stamp, I dumped a girl on purely because she was hell-bent on getting one

blurred · Post by **blurred** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:57 pm

What's this arse tramp stamp antler thing?

communistworkethic · Post by **communistworkethic** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:00 pm

went in new york new york in town on saturday, the average age dropped 10 years on me entering.

Gertie · Post by **Gertie** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:10 pm

blurred wrote:What's this arse tramp stamp antler thing?

My friend said she got one to give her boyfriend something to look at during their erm, bedroom activities.

boltonboris · Post by **boltonboris** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:16 pm

Gertie wrote:
blurred wrote:What's this arse tramp stamp antler thing?
My friend said she got one to give her boyfriend something to look at during their erm, bedroom activities.

Stick a flatscreen at the back of her head then!

Verbal · Post by **Verbal** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:21 pm

boltonboris wrote:Superb article, but I must admit to enjoying some clubs (Venue in Manchester being my favourite) although 90% of clubs in Manchester, I would never venture in...

Venue is a great club - cheap drinks and great music. Certainly makes a change from the usual 5th Ave/42nd Street routine.

CrazyHorse · Post by **CrazyHorse** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:43 pm

Gertie wrote:
blurred wrote:What's this arse tramp stamp antler thing?
My friend said she got one to give her boyfriend something to look at during their erm, bedroom activities.

What's wrong with watching match of the day like everybody else does?

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:49 pm

boltonboris wrote:Ah the infamous Tramp-stamp, I dumped a girl on purely because she was hell-bent on getting one

And you have right on your side, Borris!

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:53 pm

Verbal wrote:
boltonboris wrote:Superb article, but I must admit to enjoying some clubs (Venue in Manchester being my favourite) although 90% of clubs in Manchester, I would never venture in...
Venue is a great club - cheap drinks and great music. Certainly makes a change from the usual 5th Ave/42nd Street routine.

Where've they moved it to? I always used to enjoy going to The Venue after watching a band at The Academy/University.

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:45 pm

Bruce Rioja wrote:
Oh, and how come all young girls these days come replete with a bot belly and a set of those arse-antlers tattooed onto their backs?

True tale:
Watched a TV programme some while ago about teenage girls and tattoos. One ( looked like Jane Crouch on a bad day)had the same sort of thing; like a badly drawn mad moose head on her upper arm. On completion she turned to her mate (on TV this) and said: "Oooh, good innit, everybody'll want to shxg me now!".

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

chris · Post by **chris** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:48 pm

I've never been to a nightclub - and that article describes actually why I feel no need to do so.

communistworkethic · Post by **communistworkethic** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:54 pm

aye well in exeter, why bother with a nightclub to get a shag when your sister is in the next bedroom?

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