Monday 22 April 2013

Sketchy


It was things lavatorial that lured me to Sketch, ten years late. I’d heard you could wee in a giant egg which, as regular readers will surely know, has always been an ambition of mine.

First impressions were good. A wonderful Georgian exterior and two resplendent people on the door. The man - bowler hatted. The lady - dark hair and brows, the delicacy of her sylph like frame belied by strength of her cool, blue, appraising gaze. I suspect she writes when she has the time. Which is neither here nor there, that isn’t what we’re here to talk about.

My friends and I had planned this wrong: The Gallery was booked out for people we were not, and we had not reserved a spot in the (by all reports delightful) Lecture Room restaurant. Thus, in being restricted to the ground floor bar, I concede that my experiences are not wholly, or even slightly, representative.

The bar had enough fruit on it to supply all the fondue parties in Thatcherian England. Doubtful Louis Quinze chairs were strewn about the place. A straw pole of the clientele revealed they worked in Oil, or Gas, or possibly both. And it was very loud indeed.

WHAT?

I SAID IT WAS VERY LOUD INDEED.

I wasn’t convinced by the DJ at first, but then he seemed to mix (technical term) Michael Jackson and Rhianna which brought the room to shuddering eargasm.

I ordered an Old Fashioned because it seemed appropriate. To his credit, the barman ran the bourbon he was going to use past me, though moved about a lot as he made the drink. I’m not sure why.

Visiting the bathroom was similar to taking a light hallucinogenic. Mirrors, blue lights, nursery rhyme music. There was a water feature that, looking back, might have been a urinal. Also, the stairs were melting.