Sal(i)vation
Salvation is a gay club that takes place at Café de Paris on the first Sunday of each month, from late afternoon until about midnight.
What most people I spoke to had to say about it was mainly stuff like 'Café de Paris is a fantastic venue', and 'Salvation is full of impossibly handsome men, possibly on steroids'.
I went there for the first time the other day, the occasion being Salvation's 7th birthday (and a friend visiting from Paris wanting to go there), and I can tell you that both the above statements are true. Think 'Moulin Rouge' starring Nicholas Beefman and Ewan McGropable.
Strangely enough, though, my reaction to the wall-to-wall display of pumped-up pneumatic pecs was not at all the frustrated retirement I had expected. Instead I relaxed, enjoyed the sights and music and had a hell of a good time. So what if my older, wrinklier and naturally endomorphic body stood out for all the wrong reasons in that sea of perfection? So what if a single vodka and Red Bull (can shared with a friend's drink) was a very unreasonable £6.50? So what if my ex-flatmate ex-boyfriend, who had not seen me in a while, felt obliged to say 'Oh, but you are so skinny now, no?' Bitch.
Luckily my mantra these days is 'I look great for thirty-eight'. Snappy, rhyming, and can conveniently be sung over most club anthems too to fend off BDD attacks. Will hopefully be replaced next February by 'I look fine for thirty-nine'.
Still, something must have seeped through, and I found myself switching to reduced-calories garlic bread at the ritual grocery shop carb raid on the way home. Yeah, as if.