Nothing prompts a universal sad-face response like the closure of a ‘Soho institution’. You know the routine. A venerable café or club is brutally euthanised by a cabal of landlords, corporations and other miscellaneous bastards intent on transforming Soho into the kind of dystopic, eerily anodyne leisure precinct that features so prominently in the (massively underrated) Sylvester Stallone film Demolition Man. Or at least, that’s the broad narrative.
First it was Kettner’s, now, even as we speak, the site of The Stockpot — for years Old Compton Street’s one-stop shop for liver and onions and competitively priced sponge puddings — is being refitted as a branch of Patty & Bun, a small London chain selling sexy hamburgers. And the Twitter tears duly flow.
But we’ve got to be careful. Because what is it we’re claiming to be so upset about? Some of us may genuinely be losing sleep over the changing face of Soho, but for the most part it’s just the sheepish guilt of knowing that we’d opt for an effortlessly Instagrammable burger over liver and onions every time. Which is no crime. But every time you loudly bemoan the closure of a ‘great little old-school boozer’ you went to just once, remember that cherishing these places in theory and cherishing them in practice are two very different things.
Meet the parents
Pushing a pram round Hackney on a Sunday morning allows me regular exposure to one of my favourite sights, which is to say, embarrassed hipsters being treated to brunch by their cheerful, tweedy parents. If I could be arsed, I’m pretty sure I could start a wildly popular Tumblr dedicated to photographs of them. I mean, the hipsters always look so bloody shifty — probably because they told their mates that their mum and dad disowned them after a violent argument about their chosen career as a #content provider — while the parents, bless ’em, always seem so happy to be seeing their kids and learning how to pronounce ‘macchiato’.
But even though it would spoil my fun, I always want to tell the skinny young boys and girls to lighten up a bit. I’d explain that even Rimbaud probably wasn’t above letting his folks treat him to some huevos rancheros with smashed avocado every now and then. In fact, isn’t that the ultimate act of rebellion?
Follow Ben on Twitter @ben_machell
