| On a visit
to the East End on a normal night you may be able to observe examples of
the following tribes of punters. Tick them off as you see them, and award
yourself 25 points for each - when you reach 200 pts, award yourself the
title of 'Sad Bastard', or 'King Sad Bastard' at 250 pts, and remind yourself
that you really should be watching the girls! :-)
Jeremy is a young graduate who has the responsible job of fetching the
sandwiches at a major US owned investment bank. His habitat is Browns
in the early evenings where he will try to impress the girls with his
wealth and position by telling them about how he is at the centre of a
"multi billion" corporate finance deal when in fact his only
contribution to date has been in photocopying some accounts. Due to the
image he feels he needs to project he has to run a GTI and have sharp
suits and this keeps him perpetually short of cash. He normally cuts his
stay short ostensibly due to an urgent mobile phone call but in reality
because his money for the night has run out. Any stripper that falls for
his story will find herself having to go Dutch as he coppers up red faced
at the end of their first flash restaurant meal.
Selwyn has hit 40 {several years ago} and made his fortune in the city
by the usual combination of luck, contacts, undeserved bonuses, and insider
trading. He was married 20 odd years ago to Amanda who was at that time
a stunning ex-Roedean secretary in his bank but has now turned into an
unattractive combination of shopaholic and green campaigner who, even
worse, wants him to sell his supercharged Jag and buy a Smart. He has
decided it is time to enjoy life and "live on the edge" which
in Selwyn's case means taking up skiing, forcing his podgy frame into
leathers so he can ride his newly purchased Harley, becoming a regular
at the Metro, and tying what is left of his hair into a pony tail despite
this prompting uncontrolled mirth amongst his children. Selwyn realises
his only chance with the strippers is to "flash the cash " or
in his case black Amex card. Any girl falling for Selwyn will get a trip
to the Monaco Grand Prix where she will act as a trophy on his right arm
as he pretends to be a drug dealer dressed in a white silk Armani suit
which actually makes him look more like Danny DeVito in Twins
Cyril has retired on a not particularly generous pension after a lifetime
as an insurance clerk. He now has a lot of time on his hands and wants
to get out of the house to prevent Gladys his wife of 42 years from nagging
him. He found the strip pub scene by accident after being dragged around
Columbia flower market one Sunday morning. He now goes around the pubs
every time he can think of a good excuse to leave the house {in this instance
at least his prostrate problems have been a godsend!}. His only restriction
is that Gladys allows him just £15 a week spending money, which
makes the jugs a bit of a problem. He found that if he only put in 10p
the girls shouted at him even if he tried to disguise the amount by rattling
the side of the glass with his wedding ring. He now employs a lifetime's
cunning to watch without paying through tactical withdrawal to the toilets,
telling the girls he is just leaving, or that he is the landlord's father
and is thus exempt. If all else fails he pretends to be deaf or suffering
from senile dementure. Cyril particularly likes the Nelson as the rear
toilets increase his escape options.
Ian is 26 and normally found with a group of mates who he constantly tries
to impress with his bird pulling ability. This is based on his mistaken
perception that his dark hair and hod-carrying honed physique make him
look like Beppe from Eastenders. In front of his mates he will be determinedly
unimpressed with the strippers even if Pamela Anderson is on, "Nah,
get much better in Trotters, Romford on a Friday night". He is always
ostentatiously tight fisted with the jugs "Nah, I don't have to pay
for it darlin'…" After a few drinks, though he will proposition
one of the strippers with a sophisticated chat up line like "Got
10 inches darlin' never had no complaints yet". When this romantic
offer is rejected he will storm out saying "Yer all a load of ugly
tarts". Despite this he is a regular visitor to all the strip pubs
though his natural habitat is really the Circus Tavern where he can mix
with like-minded sophisticates.
Although Terry is now 38 he still lives with his parents in a council
house in Upton Park. He has never had a girlfriend but has a number of
hobbies, having progressed from collecting civil war cards through train-spotting
then onto the Campaign for Real Ale. One of the other members tricked
him into going into Browns one afternoon by telling him it was the only
place in London to stock the legendary "Old Blubberguts" beer
brewed by the fine old family firm of Hops, Brew and Lush of Dorset. He
pretended to be disgusted by the sight of Sunny naked but was back the
following afternoon, though he kept the hood of his anorak up just in
case he bumped into any other CAMRA members. That afternoon changed his
life, and beer alone suddenly lost its appeal. Throwing all his considerable
organisational energies into the strip scene, Terry can be seen in his
trusty anorak carrying a backpack within which his various notebooks reside.
In these books he keeps incredibly detailed records of the pubs, girls,
costumes, records played, and the drinks he has had {not having lost an
interest in beer entirely}. He is a regular in all the pubs where his
mode of dress does not bar entry, but in order to maintain his oracle
like status amongst the regulars he will always claim that his favourite
is somewhere in Hertfordshire nobody else has ever been to. His attitude
to the strippers is respectful bordering on the reverential and his low
cost life style enables him to be surprisingly generous with the jug.
Steve is a bricklayer of 34, he was married at 21 to hairdresser Tracy
but they split up 5 years ago when Tracy got fed up of being used as a
punch-bag every weekend. Now Steve mainly goes out with his mates from
the building site to "have a larf". The group of 5 people has
a combined IQ of 61, so this normally involves getting rancidly drunk
down Peckham high street before terrorising the staff at the "Laughing
Poppadum" restaurant where they have their traditional après-pub
supper complete with napkins up the nose and fried rice fights. Once a
month or so on a Friday or Saturday they will venture up to Hackney for
a "real larf ". This will sometimes involve telling the strippers
they are BBC presenters or racing drivers in the forlorn hope of impressing
them and sometimes wittily telling them to "faark off slapper"
when they come around with the jug. If they see most of the other characters
in this list they will refer to them as "nuances" as their behaviour
{lack of shouting, knocking mates off bar stools, beer throwing, or vomiting}
indicates that they are taking things far too seriously. Steve's favourite
pub is the Axe, he prefers the girls at Browns but finds the bouncers
there cramp his unique style of enjoyment.
Peter is short, fat, greasy, and 49. He was originally married but they
split up when his wife Becky refused to join him in the Stratford swinging
scene and screw any husband whose wife Peter happened to fancy. Since
then Peter has pursued his interest in sex via hopeful adverts in contact
magazines and regular involvement in all aspects of the Hackney Rd strip
experience. Peter finds places like Browns and the Metro boring and really
only enjoys the very blue stag scene. When in the regular pubs he spends
most of his time telling the girls about the act with the donkey he saw
last night and how he could get her plenty of work if she joins in. No
matter how gross the act is Peter always claims to have seen one better
before. He bemoans the passing of the Bridge House and his all time favourite
girl is Asha. He is tight on principle with the jug as "they don't
do anything for their money these days".
Richard is 37, slim, and wears a smart suit and well pressed white shirt.
He has been selling plastic guttering to unappreciative Builders Merchants
for 9 years. He is married to Jenny a schoolteacher but bored with his
sex life. He sometimes goes around the East End but he prefers the West
London pubs - officially because it's easier to park his company Vectra
but privately because he always feels an impoverished failure amongst
the city types. He has been passed over for Area Manager twice and has
now given up all thoughts of promotion and therefore lost what little
enthusiasm he ever had. He knows his area well enough though to keep his
head above water with little effort and finds it easy to organise lengthy
lunch breaks which he now fills in with visits to the Woolpack and Halfway
House. When he first got his mobile it made him feel important but now
he curses the fact that his office can get hold of him at any time and
check up on him. He fantasises about having an affair with one of the
strippers but he lacks both the finance and time to turn this into reality.
Girls he likes sometimes get the benefit of any promotions his company
is running though what they do with a Polypipe T shirt or free grouting
tool is anybody's guess. Much to his disappointment these gifts have yet
to turn any strippers head.
Freddie is a qualified solicitor who works for a West End firm specialising
in tax avoidance. He is 55 and since his wife left him for her personal
fitness trainer he has centred his social life on Shoreditch High St.
Freddie has a foot fetish and uses his handsome salary to pay the girls
to let him lick their feet. In most places this behaviour would get him
chucked out but at the Sports Bar he has found a social group within which
he can fit into well. These include Nigel the knicker sniffer, Sid the
shoe licker, and Mark the masochist who likes being spanked with rulers.
The group has progressed from nodding to each other to buying each other
Perriers and comparing notes on the girls with the smelliest feet. The
group sit happily at the front of the stage most nights though they occasionally
have to endure some abuse from Steve and his Sarf London mates when they
are in town.
Reg is 47 and has been coming in the pubs for almost 25 years. In that
time he has seen a lot of changes and he does not like any of them. In
his youth he found the scene once when working in London and through it
developed a satisfying social life in that unfriendly city. He developed
a range of friends amongst the punters and for a time had a reasonable
degree of success in dating several strippers. These were by far the best
looking and most interesting girls he had ever been with and he looks
back on this period in a way that colours his opinions of what goes on
now. These days he hardly knows any of the girls and has given up all
hope of another sun kissed holiday with a nubile Browns star but is still
a regular visitor. He hates table dances, thinking it puts the punter/stripper
relationship on too much of a mercenary basis - to the advantage of the
city types he despises. He thinks the Metro has been going steadily down
hill since the days of the Arabian Arms and hates the music used these
days, longing for the Bad Company and Police of old. He makes a point
of never going into a pub that charges admission though he sometimes feels
he is swimming against the tide. He views the growth in table dance clubs
with disdain {" just for rich idiots"} and hates the gentrification
of Hoxton {" we will get trendy wine bars replacing Browns next "}.
You can still see him often in the White Horse where after a few drinks
he will regale you with stories of the great days of Solly's and Limes.
Len was born in Glasgow sometime in the late 40s, he can no longer remember
exactly when. He was made redundant by Camden council in the 1990s and
from a combination of social security, redundancy, and a house sale he
has been able to finance a solid drinking binge ever since. He now has
a small bedsit in Kings Cross and his chosen local is the Flying Scot
where he goes to rant and rave at strangers every night. Nobody can actually
understand what he says except that it always ends in Jimmy. Despite this
fearsome sound he actually never attacks anybody and so is hardly noticed
amongst the other weirdos in that venerable establishment. He has never
been known to put in the jug though he sometimes staggers into the bar
with the stage by mistake when trying to find the exit. The girls and
all the regulars treat him as though he does not exist.
Chris is 27 and works within the back office areas of various city institutions.
He was originally employed by Nat West but he went freelance in the run
up to the year 2000 when even the most incompetent IT man could earn good
money sorting out non existent bugs. He found out about the strip pub
scene on one of his late night searches for porn on the Internet. After
a few goggle-eyed sessions at Browns which gave him an understanding of
live female anatomy previously denied him, has become a regular. He fantasises
about dating one of the blonde Amazons in Browns and has adopted the strategy
of using his skill with Java to ingratiate himself with the girls by offering
to help them set up their own web pages. To date this has only netted
him a couple of free table dances but he lives in hope
[Tyke, 19th March 2001]
Phil is tall, slim, and although past 40 long haired. He has worked as
a motorcycle courier for the past 15 years and for part of that time he
did a lot of deliveries for the advertising industry which involved visiting
many professional photographers. This seemed considerably more glamorous
than delivering packages so Phil bought an SLR and started describing
his job as “in the photographic and media industry “. He started
changing his conventional motorcycling garb by adding studs to his leather
jacket, wearing a scarf in the manner of a Pamplonan bull runner, and
fingerless gloves to make his look more rock and roll. He stopped drinking
pints of beer and now instead has Red Bull, though the price of this in
Browns makes him wince. In the strip pub scene he has put this new image
to the test by casually asking the girls if they want to get on “in
the business" and mentioning contacts he only actually knows as signatures
on a delivery note. His strategy to get the more gullible girls to his
bed sit “for a few publicity snaps“ and hope things will develop
from there.
Taj came to this country as a boy when his parents were expelled from
Kenya after independence for being too successful. By dint of pure hard
work they have built up a small chain of shops one of which Taj runs {he
calls it a supermarket}. Although not particularly profitable, by dint
of low spending Taj and Benazir his arranged bride have a nice house and
a C180 Mercedes. His marriage to Benazir, though outwardly a success,
has left him sexually unsatisfied especially since she started to put
on weight and develop a moustache. Taj found The Woolpack on his way back
from the cash and carry one day and now makes as many short furtive visits
there as he can manage. He tried drinking beer the first couple of times
he went there but found that it made him too sleepy for 9pm closing nights
and so now he has the cheapest non alcoholic drink the pub sells. At first
he hoped the Mercedes would attract some of the girls especially if he
pretended to be the boss of Joe Bloggs Jeans but he was very disappointed
to learn that, in order to impress them with his wealth, he needed to
put more than 4p in the jug at once. For a man who makes his spending
money from fiddling returnable bottles this came as a bit of a shock.
He now puts the fact that both the landlord and the girls treat him with
ill disguised contempt down to racism - though this has not stopped him
attending the place whenever he can.
Greg is 58 with overlong grey hair, and a complexion leathery from an
unhealthy combination of drunken Spanish holidays and sun beds. He always
wears a dark suit and tie and is a regular at the Axe where he likes the
“old style east end“ atmosphere. He talks a lot about the good
old days of “Ronnie and Reggie“ and how “they used to control
this manor properly“ and “there were no Paedophiles around“
{an interesting view, this, given the activities of Ronnie Kray and Tom
Driberg}. He gives the impression of having been in “the Firm“
when, in fact, he was still working on his father’s whelk stall in
Southend when they went to jail. He actually moved into Bethnal Green
in the mid 70s when he got a job running one of the all day drinking clubs
off Finsbury square. This got closed by the liberalisation of licensing
laws and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at running strip pubs
he has subsequently made his living from a variety of small time insurance
frauds. His current funds come from a bogus whiplash injury suffered in
a car accident. He thinks that a large chested, peroxide blonde would
go well with his self image and offers any girl who fits that description
the option of retirement in his non existent villa near Malaga.
Winston was born in Haringey 29 years ago and, despite his Ali G style
accent, he has never actually been to Jamaica. He is of medium height
and very image conscious always wearing dark glasses day or night and
having his hair cut to match whatever is currently trendy in black culture.
In the past, role models have included Denzil Washington as Malcolm X
and Nigel Benn - currently it’s Puff Daddy. He has never actually
had an official job and, despite the image he likes to cultivate, even
his efforts at crime have been sporadic, normally concentrating on robbing
people too drunk to fight back. In order to survive he has therefore adopted
the strategy of living off his girlfriend, and in this respect the London
strip circuit has proved very fertile ground. He has found that young
girls new to the circuit are particularly susceptible to his charms, partly
because they have heard the stories about size {not actually true in Winston’s
case}, partly because they are keen to show how open minded they are,
but mainly because his lack of normal commitments means that he can keep
the same clubbing hours as them. Initially Winston is generous in supplying
them drugs but once he has moved in they rapidly find their handbag becomes
his cashpoint. Once entangled with Winston they will find him a very difficult
man to get rid of until he has found a new better looking or better still
better earning victim.
Adam is 34 and single. He works in the ticket office at Liverpool Street
station though his ambitions are for something creative in the media.
His sole GCSE in art has confirmed his self belief in his talent and originality
but so far his drawings of baked bean tins and swimming pools have failed
to get the response he feels he deserves. He demonstrates his non conformity
by dressing exactly like the media types he sees in Islington {i.e. all
in black, goatee beard , and hair in a pony tail}. He is relatively new
to the strip scene having found Browns by accident when looking for a
new Tracy Emin exhibition of her domestic cleaning equipment {a empty
white room with a bottle of Domestos in 1 corner} at the Cube. While his
interest in naked women is the same as that of every other punter he makes
a point of pretending to be interested in nudes as an art form. While
other punters congratulate the girls on the size of their tits, Adam talks
about “exciting, bold shapes". He is very keen to take the girls
to art exhibitions, and tells them that a collection of their G strings
if properly presented might get a Turner prize. His dream is to present
an exhibition of his own paintings of strippers in Hoxton but to date
his Lowery-esque efforts have not generated much interest.
[Tyke, 21st December 2001]
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