The tragic demise of Cafe Cairo

Isn’t the end of the year supposed to be an appropriate time for obituaries? Perhaps not, but I’ll serve one up anyway.

Recently, on my way to a house party I walked past Cafe Cairo on Landor Road, a mere stone's throw from the Clapham North tube. To my great distress it was all boarded up, and on the door was a note explaining that in early November Cafe Cairo had been totally wrecked by a fire. Oh no! I had just been thinking that it was about time to pay it another visit, and indeed get it reviewed on Qype, but alas, Cafe Cairo is no more. As the owners explained on the note, Cafe Cairo is unlikely to rise out of the ashes anytime in the near future, because of their difficult financial situation.

The loss of Cafe Cairo is a sad one. Egyptian sheesha-bars don't grow on trees around here, and it was such a wonderfully refreshing alternative to the polished squeaky-clean facade that is Clapham (for the most part at least). The main room could only be reached through a narrow passage, and was small and tent-like, draped with oriental cloth all around (there was a fire, you say?). The seating consisted mainly of small wooden three-legged stools and soft cushions and of various shapes and sizes strewn all over the floor. Here people would sit and contentedly puff on their sheesha pipes. Downstairs was another somewhat larger and more conventional room, with a dance floor and/or stage, hosting various music events, djs or bands, such as free jazz sessions every Thursday.

A sad loss indeed. We can only hope the owners find the funds to reopen!

A Christmas story

Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? Or are you now poised for the big returning-unwanted-presents rush as soon as shops reopen? I heard this story about a Christmas present mishap that happened about a hundred years ago, and I just can't resist passing it on.

There was a young married couple, a man and a woman. They were poor, but very much in love. It was nearing Christmas, and the woman thought to herself that this year, she really wanted to buy her husband something special. He owned an antique golden watch, passed on from father to son for many generations. But the chain was missing. The woman decided to buy her husband a chain for his heirloom watch. She had very beautiful, thick hair down to her waist, and now she cut it and sold it so that she could buy a chain.

The husband also thought to himself that he really wanted to buy his wife something very special this Christmas. What did he do? He sold his beloved antique golden watch, so he could buy his wife a jeweled hair pin for her beautiful long hair...

The pre-NYE-panic

Ok folks, we are dangerously close to New Year's. Have you finalised your plans for the big night yet? I, of course, have not. Being in this situation brings back memories of a night a few years back, which ought to go down as the saddest, most pathetic new years of all time. I really can’t remember how I came to be in this predicament, but the scenario was this: me and friend, getting drunk on cheap Cava in my living room back in Trondheim. In theory, we could at least have had a great view of all the fireworks from there, but then there was this wild snow storm raging outside. We got drunk very quickly and so didn't even realise we had entered a new year until about an hour after midnight. We had vague plans of going out somewhere but unfortunately I passed out on the sofa. In the meantime, my friend was bent over the toilet bowl puking her guts out, while simultaneously trying to call her parents from her mobile. Well, at least the new year itself stood out as a triumph in comparison to this truly pathetic beginning!

Anyway, I pray I will fare better this year. Would I celebrate new years in Clapham? I'm not sure, to be honest. No venue in particular really stands out as a natural choice - you might want something of a grander scale than what Clapham has to offer. And I'm not about to suggest you should attend the stupid wig party at Inferno’s... I’m also suspicious of the Clapham Grand, with it's seedy semi-striptease shows. There are rumours of a masquerade ball at Lost Society, which would be excellent I’m sure, but their website has no info about it at the moment and I suspect it's sold out a long time ago. There’s a promising-sounding Banana Cabaret or a Gangsters and Molls theme party at the Bedford in Balham, but at 65 or 55 pounds it’s a bit too pricey for me. A cheaper option would be Brixton Jamm, featuring the Bays, Tom Middleton and others, for only 15 quid.

Hmmm. I think I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best, as is my style...

Clapham is gay

I found myself wondering one day what the gay scene in Clapham might be like. Is Clapham gay? For some reason I expected Clapham to be straight as a ruler - but as it turns out, two of the best gay bars south of the river are right on the Clapham High street, Kazbar and the Two Brewers. Behind the modest and unassuming facade of Two Brewers, the only eye-catching decoration being a poster advertising a 2 for 1 lunch deal, you'll find a real cabaret club with drag shows and other happenings on most evenings of the week. The Kazbar is more of a standard bar, but pretty good at that from what I've heard.

The Brixton gay scene is perhaps a little more disappointing (a friend of mine described it as 'a bit dead'). There is Substation, a gay nightclub. Then the Fridge does one-off gay nights every now and then. And last, but not least, SW9 is a charming, fun and quirky cafe/bar.

What's the upshot? Clapham is gayer than Brixton.

Show me the way to the next whisky... off licence

As much as I love to sleep, I am actually a very bad sleeper. Every now and then I go through bouts of insomnia; I just can’t sleep, no matter what I do or don’t do. It can be very frustrating, let me tell you. But recently, I have taken to drinking large glasses of whiskey in my bed to try and knock myself out. It works wonders - it's nothing short of a miracle cure! Well, of course, like many treatments this one too has some unwanted side effects. And I'm not sure whether the half empty whisky bottle on my night table should make me feel really hard core, or maybe rather indicates that I have some sort of alcohol problem. Hmmm...

In any case, the increase in my whisky consumption has forced me to abandon my previous strategy of stocking up on tax free spirits whenever I go home, and instead locate the more upmarket off licences in Clapham. You'll do alright, actually, going to either the big Sainsbury on the High Street, or the Tesco opposite Clapham South tube, which both have a decent selection of whisky. But Clapham has more to offer than that. Here are my top three whisky specialists in Clapham (yes, they are all wine specialists more than anything else, but they also stock whiskys):

1. Wines of the World. With an impressive selection of around 20 different Scotch single malts, they emerge as the clear winner. But they only do Scotch, mind you.

2. Nicolas. Quality stuff.

3. Majestic. They have a broad range of whiskys, but nothing unusual. But at least they stock my current favourite, Dalwhinnie!

So, what are you waiting for?!

Yes sir I can boogie

Finally, my gay ballet-dancing friend has returned from his tour around the country and is now back in London. It's time to lindy-hop!

Lindy-hop is an African American tongue-in-cheek variant of swing that developed in New York in the late 1920s and 30s. Racial segregation was still a fact of life in those days, and African Americans who were excluded from dancing venues for whites developed the lindy-hop in part as a mockery or parody of white ballroom dancing. Thus it is a fusion of many dances, but with added playfulness and mischief and sexual undertones. The moves are often really impressive, including daring throws and jumps – it looks absolutely amazing (check out a fantastic video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAAAV7BB1HU).

There are tons of places you can go to in London, every day of the week if you should so desire, but what does it look like on the southside? So far, I’ve only found three places for the south londoner:

52^nd Street Jump do classes every Thursday in the Royston Club on Royston Road in Penge (a bit of a trek, innit...)

Swingland have classes and freestyle dancing every Tuesday at the great South London instution the Bedford in Balham

Hula Boogie hold five week courses and drop-classes in the South London Tiki Pacific on Kennington Road.

Well, not a great selection. But that's no excuse!

Boogie

Boogie-woogie

All night long

Freewheeling

One of the best decisions I ever made while living in London was starting cycling. I admit that it might seem a bit mad, getting on your bike and steering it into the frenzy of London traffic. And yes, for sure the first time you’re wedged in between two double decker buses it feels a bit unsettling. But hey, what is it they say about human nature? We can adapt to almost any situation!

Once you stop having visions of yourself splattered all over the road, cycling becomes extremely enjoyable. It’s got reams of benefits. Of course, you’ll get quite fit, but that’s not even the half of it. You’ll get to know London really well. You'll also be able to always feel really smug. And hard core. Being a fanatic cyclist will also sometimes get you out of trouble. If you find yourself in a threatening situation, just start talking about how great cycling is. Chances are your attackers will think you are mad and will start to back away, slowly, so as not to agitate you further. (You might think you could pull this one off without being a cyclist, but I’d imagine it’d be difficult to fake that zeal unless you really are a fanatic cyclist.)

As it happens, there’s a wonderful little cycling community in South London. The Lambeth cyclists meet every third Tuesday of the month upstairs in Bread and Roses on Clapham Manor Street to talk about how great cycling is (actually I’m just guessing that; I haven’t been yet, so it is possible that they meet for other purposes, such as planning events...). They do a bit of lobbying for improving cycling conditions in Lambeth, organise rides and maintenance classes and so on. Useful stuff. On December 18 they’re having a little Christmas party in Bread and Roses. You can join by sending a blank e-mail to Lambeth_cyclists-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Since they are a subgroup of the London Cycling Campaign you might also have to join them.

Vermin

No, I’m not thinking of the people in charge of a certain bank that I love to hate. We’re talking about actual vermin here – and our house is full of them! It could be that it is their appreciation of Prince, which is often on full blast in our kitchen, that draws them to our house in particular, but I suspect that it is rather a general problem in Clapham. Most likely they have built an elaborate tunnel system connecting all the basements on our road, if not all of residential Clapham!

We've been under siege by the mice for a while now, and the rat poison we have been leaving out for them just made them stronger. No wonder, their likely being the descendants of a particularly bold and heroic mouse, which god knows how made it all the way from the kitchen on the ground floor to my unsuspecting flatmate's room on the third floor, into said flatmate’s bed and finally into her (very curly) hair, where it tried to make a little nest. We have tried letting the neighbour’s cat in, a mean-looking son of a bitch, but it quickly ran back out into the garden when the mice pulled out their very own catapult and started to bombard it with dried chick peas. They have started leaving out threatening notes for us - 'All humans out now!' – I fear that their next step will be leaving rat poison in our coffee. Now I don’t like the prospect of that at all, for unlike the mice, I don’t think I’m immune to it! This clearly cannot go on any longer.

Apart from catching the mice ourselves and chopping their heads off to put them on little cocktail sticks around the house, it seems we have two options: get a cat (an even meaner one than the neighbour’s) or call vermin control. I’ve done some research to see what’s available on the Southside and here’s an exclusive selection what I came up with:

Blue Cross homeless cats – 02079322370

Battersea homeless cats – 02076223626

Celie Hammond Cat Rescue in Lewisham – 0208 694 6545

Lambeth Pest Control Department – 020 79268860

Pest Control Services – 07957 222315

Express Exterminations (love their name!) – 0800 321 3217

Christmas drinks in Clapham

I can't wait to get back to Clapham for Christmas. Germany is brilliant during the festive season - xmas markets, gluhwein, festivals and fairs, but sometimes you just can't beat a tipple down the local with your mates. Man, I miss British pubs. Now, you may think Clapham is all overpriced cocktails and yuppy bread shops, but i've actually discovered quite a few hidden gems over the years. Here's my list of the top 5 christmas pubs in and around Clapham

1. The Coach & Horses - Brilliant local pub. They get the fire going in the winter and they do a fantastic christmas dinner. Lots of wintery ales on tap.

2. The Frog and Forget me Not - If you can brave the roof terrace, this is a great spot for a mulled wine or two!

3. The Royal Oak - Candle lit, snug and brilliant for a sunday afternoon

4. The Canton Arms - It's not really in Clapham, but it's a great pub. Lots of xmas games in here!

5. The Rose & Crown - Very cute little pub. Great selection of dark beers for those cold winter nights