As if to prove that erotica is back (see below) in London’s formerly in-yer-face sleazy Soho an underground Mexican restaurant and bar has appeared, hidden behind the facade of a defunct sex shop, so all that lairy neon is now post-modern irony. La Bodega Negra is *reads press release, stifles yawn* a ‘hip new hotspot and favourite of A-listers Kate, Keira and Jude’.
I do like the idea of being too embarrassed to go into a bar/restaurant when the area is still seething with sploshers (most of whom inhabit first-floor flats run by bulldog-faced madams). What next – a tea shop disguised as a whorehouse?
There you go, you see, roughly twenty years (or forty years) out and you have a new musical: “The Best Little Tea Shop in Texas.”
When I lived in London many years ago, I worked in the theatres in Soho which of coursed backed onto what was fondly known as ‘orgasm alley’. For the life of me, I could never understand what was so exciting about a ‘live nude bed show’. What is the thrill of a live, nude bed??
It wasn’t that long ago that I was accosted in Soho by the words of a very buxom young lady along the lines of, ‘Hello love, would you like some company?’ Despite appearances, I’m very easily embarrassed by that kind of thing so I just mumbled ‘No thank you, ma’am.’ and quickened my step! It did feel a bit like being in a penny dreadful although she was more Goth than Victorian.