Writing about security at the Paradise bar on Friday reminded me of a night at Sin of Charring Cross Road a few months back. I can only assume that the bouncers there are friends of those at Paradise.
Sin isn’t somewhere I’d go to through choice, but some friends and I were invited to an aftershow for a band whose name I’ve forgotten (might have been CSS, but don’t quote me!). I was there with some friends from Sweden whom I hardly see and who were flying off in the morning, so this was my last chance.
I was tired and desperate to leave for about 30 minutes before I fell asleep on the bench seat I was sitting on. I woke up to a tap on the shoulder from a bouncer who said “Time to leave mate!”, which I thought was fair enough in all honesty, it’s not a good look for a bar to have people sleeping in it. I said “Sure, I’ll just say bye to my wife”, which he was fine with, then I gave one of my Swedish friends a hug and on the way out, stopped to kiss another one good bye.
What I couldn’t see was that in addition to the bouncer leading me out, quite peacefully, 5 others had amassed behind me. They pulled my friend away very roughly and frog marched me down the stairs. At one point one of the shouted at me “Stop struggling!”. I wasn’t, it’s just that with 6 gorillas carrying and pushing me down the stairs I was having trouble finding my footing. When we got to the bottom they literally threw me out into Charring Cross Road to stumble in front of a queue of people waiting to get in. Kind of humiliating! Well it would have been if I didn’t have a better sense of humour.
As they were dragging me downstairs, my friend, a rather slight girl, asked why they were being so rough with both of us and, as one, they told her to “Fuck off!”. She left it at that, but shortly afterwards they threw her out and a little later on they pushed the guy that had invited us in the first place down the stairs so hard that he had to go to hospital the next days because he had a suspected fracture of the arm. It turned out to be a badly pulled tendon.
Yes I know this has nothing to do with Notting Hill, but sometimes I just write about what’s on my mind.
Loading ...