London clubs

[HappyStroller]

What about executive suits? Or will wearing one of the club's ties do the job?

[charles]

you could do worse than the Sloane Club on lower Sloane street www.sloaneclub.co.uk

[Leon]

it is good to have somewhere, from time to time, to escape: everyday cares; Our Dear Wives and the mobile telephone
NJS

The Carlton Club has recently voted to allow women join as full members.

Leon

[El Aristocrata]

I am considering joining a private members club in London. Primarily, I need somewhere to host and entertain clients and other contacts so my preference would be for an establishment with a decent chef, and which is not too pretentious (most of the newer clubs seems to be full of try-hards, intent mainly on throwing money around as ostentatiously as possible).

Suggestions and recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Sartorius

Hi, sartorius,
I do not know if you speak Spanish but if so, please have a look to my article about London clubs in my web (it has a lot information). Names, how to get in, some photos etc

[storeynicholas]

Yes, my wattles reddening, I heard that the Carlton has voted (after a debate in the hallway and on the stairs, in which soppy PCism prevailed), to augment the current full female membership (Lady Thatcher). One wonders whether the Oasis ladies' spa in Covent Garden will now allow mixed bathing and what the policy is of the University Women's Club on mixed membership. The Carlton's decision will mean that David Cameron will no longer have reason to refuse his honorary membership of the Carlton as leader of the Tory party; which until now he has refused because women were denied full membership. This was a public refusal, no doubt like all these hypocrites, he was advised by some creepy PR firm and he took the advice despite his membership of White's which, surely, will remain men only, until the last trump has sounded. Such is the modern world. Goodness knows what WSC would make of it all: a smoking ban and women in the (ex-)smoking room. The rot set in when El Vino's lost its fight to refuse to serve ladies standing at the bar (the owner's best point was that ladies should be be seated in the very comfortable chairs and waited on and not jostled at the bar; the lady challengers' best point was that they demanded the right to be jostled (and to jostle) at the bar). This, was, possibly, the point at which 'modern britain' was born and the centre ceased to hold. Anyone seen the proposed ban on packs of 10 cigarettes (purportedly to prevent children being able to afford to smoke - despite the fact that they have mobile 'phones and computer games and so on - what dictatorial nonsense). Mind you, you will need to wade through the mass reporting of all the teenage stabbings, to find this titbit. Some of us wonder whether Stalin and the USSR really did win WWII on their own and that we have only just noticed.
NJS

[RWS]

. . . . One wonders whether the Oasis ladies' spa in Covent Garden will now allow mixed bathing and what the policy is of the University Women's Club on mixed membership. . . .

There is now no men-only club left in my little, old state, though several exclusively women's clubs remain. Relatedly, almost no men-only university colleges still exist in the United States, though several women-only institutions flourish. The silliness of abolishing preserves of exclusivity extends only just so far . . . .

[pvpatty]

A smoking ban and women in the (ex-)smoking room. The rot set in when El Vino's lost its fight to refuse to serve ladies standing at the bar (the owner's best point was that ladies should be be seated in the very comfortable chairs and waited on and not jostled at the bar; the lady challengers' best point was that they demanded the right to be jostled (and to jostle) at the bar). This, was, possibly, the point at which 'modern britain' was born and the centre ceased to hold.

The whole saga upsets me to no end. Is the same pressure applied to women's organizations as is applied to men's to allow men into those? Do we let girls into the boy scouts? (Nowadays, they probably would) Patriarchy be damned, not everything must be all things to all men (or women) [Even that wonderful expression is likely to land you in a lawsuit].

Anyone seen the proposed ban on packs of 10 cigarettes (purportedly to prevent children being able to afford to smoke - despite the fact that they have mobile 'phones and computer games and so on - what dictatorial nonsense). Mind you, you will need to wade through the mass reporting of all the teenage stabbings, to find this titbit. Some of us wonder whether Stalin and the USSR really did win WWII on their own and that we have only just noticed.
NJS

Well, here in Queensland our wonderful legislators have decided that it will be illegal to smoke in your own car if there is anyone else in it. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but degradation of our everyday liberties and the pursuit of vague, impractical and largely idiotic notions of 'human rights' (whatever that may mean) by our courts and parliaments have meant that the wonderful legacy of Bolshevik Moscow lives on.

[BirdofSydney]

Do we let girls into the boy scouts? (Nowadays, they probably would)

They already had some 15 years ago, when I was young enough to join. Naturally, the boys were too self-conscious to really behave like boys in front of them, and if you can't do that in the scouts, well, where can you do it?

[pvpatty]

Do we let girls into the boy scouts? (Nowadays, they probably would)

They already had some 15 years ago, when I was young enough to join. Naturally, the boys were too self-conscious to really behave like boys in front of them, and if you can't do that in the scouts, well, where can you do it?

The Army?

[storeynicholas]

Women are in the frontline now in the army too - and in fairness were in WWII with the Special Operations Executive - and even dying behind enemy lines for the cause of preserving the very freedoms which our generation have [there is an apt phrase but this is The LL and so I shall be more restrained than I feel like being and just say] squandered - such as the freedom being lost in the increasing encroachment on the right to smoke tobacco. There is a website dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming and I should say that the enjoyment of his 600 Morland cigarettes a week was a significant part of who he was (and of his creation, James Bond). In recognition of this, there is the famous even iconic Horst Tappe photograph of him on the home page - partly in shadow and wreathed in smoke; enigmatic, individual, powerful, influential and elegant - but there is a link on this page which takes you to the British Heart Foundation on a fund-raising campaign and, yes, you guessed it, alerting us to the dangers of smoking......

None of the gents' arguments about clubland are about a comparison between the different qualities of the sexes and so called 'equality' - it's just about ordinary human inclinations. Many societies have situations where the sexes are sometimes divided into groups. Nowadays of course, the third sex is increasingly boisterous in the promotion of their 'rights'. Just as many men would not want to join the University Women's Club, why do women want to join the Carlton or White's - I am quite sure that they don't want to join at all - they just want to make a point and to cock a snook. This is what makes me maddest of all.
NJS

[RWS]

The arguments on this side of the Atlantic for sexual integration generally take two forms: that the centers of power lie in traditionally male-dominated institutions, so that women's admission to men's clubs will increase opportunity for a group historically hindered if not excluded from the acquisition and exercise of power; and that exclusion of women from any institution is no less egregious than the exclusion of blacks (and racism does seem to be the great besetting sin in the United States, so that by mere hint of the word a reformer can accomplish much simply through shaming his auditors -- even to the benefit not of American blacks, the group actually harmed long ago, but of African, East Indian, and Oriental immigrants and their offspring). I leave to my doubtless well-educated readers the discovery of numerous flaws in these arguments; but all, of course, flow ultimately from a desire to aggregate power to oneself, with scant regard for the expense to others.

[storeynicholas]

Yes, RWS, as usual spot on and well put (if I may say so). The thing is that, certainly in London, the memberships of these clubs - even the originally political ones have little power and are generally just sociable old coves who want to have a conversation, maybe a decent lunch, a few glasses of something worth drinking , a cigar, 'one for the road' - and a cab ride home to their Dear Wives.
NJS

[Costi]

None of the gents' arguments about clubland are about a comparison between the different qualities of the sexes and so called 'equality' - it's just about ordinary human inclinations. Many societies have situations where the sexes are sometimes divided into groups. Nowadays of course, the third sex is increasingly boisterous in the promotion of their 'rights'. Just as many men would not want to join the University Women's Club, why do women want to join the Carlton or White's - I am quite sure that they don't want to join at all - they just want to make a point and to cock a snook. This is what makes me maddest of all.
NJS

I must agree we probabily would not have “The Ballad of the Reading Gaol” and “De Profundis” today but for the denial of those “rights”, but I am not sure the human ordeal Wilde went through is justified even by such outstanding consequences. I agree “political correctness” has gone (and keeps going) too far in many respects, especially those concerning form; however, I dare say that a total relapse to Victorian moral values is not only improbable, but perhaps undesirable, too.

[RWS]

. . . . I agree “political correctness” has gone (and keeps going) too far in many respects, especially those concerning form; however, I dare say that a total relapse to Victorian moral values is not only improbable, but perhaps undesirable, too.

If people wish to form exclusive groups, limited either by others' interests or their own requirements for admission, they should be permitted to do so. Whether I wish even to apply to such groups is up to me, but I should not be heard to complain if I'm rebuffed.

[storeynicholas]

I think that Costi has misconstrued my last post: I am not trying to suggest that any group should be oppressed in, or excluded from, society in a Victorian - or any other way. Oscar Wilde's sexual preferences (which seem to have wavered since he sired two sons and the syphilis that carried him off was probably contracted from a female prostitiute) or his undoubted wonderful literary ability aren't even near my point. Maybe, I should have included a list of all the groups within society which club together to promote their rights at the expense of other people's. Just like the leaders of Christian Churches run for cover when vociferous and passionate leaders of other religions vocalize their demands for - let's face this - actual supremacy - in their adopted and adoptive Christian countries, members of St James's clubs (where you're more likely to hear an enthusiastic anecdote about a shoot than find promotion in politics or industry) are also bending in the wind to accommodate prospective 'members' whose main concern is to destroy the purpose and atmosphere of these havens of peace from all kinds of stress - including that sometimes induced by the gentler sex. Moreover, I am sure that the wives of these members are: 1. glad of some peace and quiet at home and 2. unwiling to go near these establishments, except on very special occasions. If the reader of this is under 25 years of age, then without specifying all of my exact experience, just take this bit from me. However, generally to ilustrate my point - I do recall once, at the age of 20, smooching my way up Camden High Street, entwined in student embrace, with the girl who would shortly marry me, and we passed a supermarket near Mornington Crescent. Outside was standing a bedraggled looking young man. Yes, it was drizzling. Yes, his hair was dripping. In his custody he had a toddler beside him on the pavement and another in a pushchair which, itself was laden with bags of heavy shopping, all of which he was plainly trying to move along in equal step in a vague direction of home, which may well have been up a few flights of steps. As he caught sight of us he smiled wryly and called out after us, quite humorously: "Just you wait - O! Just you wait!"

Finally, I certainly did not mean, above, to insult any particular groups but we all have a right to defend our friends and ourselves from the sort of intrusion which previously oppressed groups have complained about - sometimes, it just seems to me, that they believe that it is 'their turn now' and that 'The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on'.
NJS