After Hours: Les
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Your support makes all the difference.I live in Deptford in South East London, so I spend a lot of time in the Dog & Bill on Princes St. They don't have a jukebox and you can always get a seat. There's a garden at the back which had a 200-year-old cherry tree - until the landlord chopped it down. I like the river between Greenwich and Deptford. It has a pebbly beach which on summer evenings is nice to walk on. Me and some friends got some tables down there once and had a dinner party. When the sun set we lit a bonfire and tuned into Melody FM. I suppose Les would like that.
Another Les place I sometimes go is The Grotto Club, a sort of working-men's club for Catholic priests in Golden Square, London W1 (071-734 3343). It's a basement beneath the church. The bar's run by Fr Ivan, and I don't think the place has been decorated since about 1960. There's a tiny stage, with a glittery curtain, on which the only thing they ever have is a priest calling out bingo numbers. Good place for a late drink though - if you know a priest. The place for egg and chips is the New Piccadilly cafe in Soho, Denman St, W1 (071-437 8530) which has pike on the walls.
I'm always on for a cheap film at the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square. Next door I sometimes sit in the French church, which has paintings by Jean Cocteau. It's the sort of place Les would go and eat a cheese and pickle sandwich. The last nightclub I went to regularly was called Smashing, which used to play Seventies music and TV themes like The Persuaders. It was something to see everyone singing along to 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Les's idea of fun would be going to the Greenwich foot tunnel under the Thames, getting in the lift, which is this massive thing like a whole room, and riding up and down.
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