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One of the things I think people don't get about a good night out is that it's not about booze. The beer is just a lubricant. It's an excuse to talk. It's a gateway to sharing stories.
That's my world. That's what I'm addicted to. It's knowledge acquired in a different form.
But I also accept it's a dying art. We live in a globalised economy of multinational alcoholic chains. And they frame fun times as socialisation not... Listening.
But for now I have Soho still. Shrinking, but for now.
One of the things they don't tell you that you will get as you age is the weight of memory. It's the memories you have, of people and spaces that you loved.
I find that hard with Soho now. Always. I love Bradley's, I love the old places still, but I also see the ghosts of places and people lost.
I remember being 19 and pissed and seeing Tom Baker hold court at the bar in the House. Or being 35 and buying a quiet pint for McKellen. Or Oliver Reed falling off stools.
All ghosts.
I had a moment a while back. I was drinking here - not in Bradley's, another place - and it was about 2am and McKellen walked in. I think he'd just finished a play at some point.
We had that moment where you recognise someone but don't necessarily want to acknowledge it. But once he realised I was just bar-perching, we chatted. About Soho. About drinking.
"There is a point where everyone who remembers you were human, and you were terrible, is dead" he told me. I feel that shit hard now.
Anyway. Soho ghosts. They haunt me. Always will.
@garius I bet Tom Baker was tremendous. (Suspect he probably still is, TBH.)
@fatboyfat Tom Baker is most incredible raconteur it has ever been my privilege to be in the presence of. Several times paid off my bar tab when I was a young person finding my way in Soho.
I would also not trust him any fucking farther than I could throw him. But he would approve of that. We're not friends, bit he'd recognise me. That's Soho. What more could I ask?
@garius Soho itself is sentient, been in London for decades and I swear the roads move around every time I visit.
@garius the worst is when the people you share the memories with die…., then you realise you are the sole repository of those memories at which point you understand how fragile memory and history really is…