Banalaties/Frivoloties

POST A SWIRL around Fortnum and Mason, on the advice of the founder of 'Sniff and Spit', I ventured downards into Gordons, a subterrenean establishment off Villers Street, near Charing X station. Inside I found a world deliberately unscathed by the banalaties/frivoloties of modern life. Indeed it was a bit like the Southwark 'Clink' prison museum, but with a licence. And I loved it.

A lunch of plump, succulent Coq au Vin, no doubt made with the dregs from customers glasses, was washed down with a lithe fino, followed by a dry, macademia nutty oloroso from the cask. A pale, pinnied lady in her twilight years - evidently unaccustomed to the relative brutality of daylight - gently veered between the tables whilst incompatably trendy young bar tenders struggled to balance the olde-worlde against the more moderne, keeping credit card tabs safe in loose leaf tea tins.

This is a place to take one's lover - to get drunk on their essence.

Other than the sherry and various other fortifieds from the wood, the wine list seems to be driven by whether a candle can be stuck in the empty.