http://www.no-one.co.uk/

1 Kingsland Road, London E2 8AA
020 7613 5314
Monday – Wednesday, Thursday 11am-8.30pm, Friday – Saturday 11am-7pm Sunday 12am-6pm

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Now Pogo Café is a full on no frills vegan cafe and is where I come when I don’t want to feel like I’m in London. It’s the sort of cafe you’d find somewhere uber-liberal like Eugene, Oregon. On the other hand you could find it extremely irritating if you were the type to take all that anti-establishment crap seriously. They go to town with the shredded carrot, but it’s all so satisfyingly healthy and cheap. You’re unlikely to stumble across it unless of course you are unfortunate enough to live near by or you’re a street level drug dealer or one of 5 kids to a white trash single mom. What I’m saying is, this is a dodgy street, where delinquents walk down the middle of the road refusing to move for cars and where kids half my size look like they’re gonna kill me just because I don’t wear jewellery from Argos.

www.pogocafe.co.uk

76 Clarence Road, London E5 8HB
020 8533 1214
Wednesday – Saturday 12.30pm – 9pm Sunday 11am – 9pm

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On a narrow cobbled street in the heart of Soho lies a row of rickety old Georgian houses, each one a testimony to what Soho once was, ugly, dangerous and debauched, not the shiny glass box it is today. Having walked up and down this street a million times over the past 10 years, it was one house in particular that always caught my attention, the one with the plaque provocatively stating, “this is not a brothel, there are no prostitutes here”. This is the home to Sebastian Horsley. Best described as a modern day Quentin Crisp, a self-proclaimed dandy and the embodiment of decadence and I don’t just say that for poetic effect, he really lives his life like a character in a novel. Or a porn star’s autobiography.

Sebastian has created something of a reputation for himself. An artist, writer, drug addict, sex columnist, pimp, prostitute, national treasure. He has been described as all these things but asks only that we make up our mind so he knows how to dress. His book, ‘Dandy in the Underworld’ made us take notice. An autobiography on someone not yet famous? He was as surprised by its success as he should be, “I didn’t see my little book getting out of Britain, Ok England, Ok London, Ok Soho, Ok Meard Street, Ok 7 Meard Street, Ok my flat, Ok my bedroom, Ok my lavatory.”

He welcomes me at the door dressed in a long velvet dress coat, cravat and black velvet top hat, custom made, extra tall. He’s friendly but a little nervous, strangers walking into his inner sanctum. I feel lucky. When a stylist requested to shoot Kate Moss in his flat, he agreed. However this was before realising by ‘shoot’ they meant photograph. At this point Sebastian merely responded with, “I don’t want f****** Kate Moss in my studio thank you very much, to me her looks and her greed are both ugly. Tell her this pretty boy will allow them for £10,000 and I’ll throw in a ‘good morning’ for that price. I won’t, however, get out of bed”.

He pads around the room for a moment, slightly unsure what to do or really why I’m here. “So when are you going to run this interview? Is it anything to do with the play? Oh it is? I have to change then, I have a different outfit planned for anything to do with the play”. He retreats to his bedroom, “Sorry I can’t offer you a cup of tea, only a cigarette or a glass of milk, would you like a glass of milk? I ordered a glass of milk in a bar the other day, they thought that was strange. People think I’m trying to be like Alex from A Clockwork Orange. What they don’t realise is that it’s because my father was a milkman. Anyway I won’t be a minute”.

I hover, not quite sure if I should sit or look around. His living room, a shrine to ‘His Royal Lowness’ is covered with press clippings, newspaper articles, posters and advertising paraphernalia including a full sized cardboard cut-out of himself, a souvenir from his moment as muse to Rei Kawakubo, designer for Comme des Garçons. Above the fireplace a stunning display of human skulls mounted in a bespoke and finely carved unit, flanked on ether side by shelves of hard back books on many a great author, poet and artist. And the silver nails used for his crucifixion in the Maldives in 2007 (yes, he crucified himself as some kind of extreme publicity stunt, which I don’t ask him about because what would I have to say on that? “Um… that’s a weird thing to do?”), proudly framed on the wall.

Moments later he comes back, dressed head to toe in red. It’s even the same shade of red just different textures. I love men who take an unusually close interest in their appearance. Like Sebastian says, men, once they know they are beautiful, are far more besotted with their looks than women ever are. “You’re not taking a full length picture are you? I’m not wearing shoes”, (although his socks are indeed a matching red). When asked to lift his chin as his top hat is casting a shadow over his face he has a momentary reservation, “Do I look fat? At my age, I’m looking for mercy not honesty.”

As he offers me a seat he enquires after the small scar on my top lip, “How did you get that? It’s very glamorous, I love it. We must put our scars to work for us. They are the best things we have because they’re proof of something.” I sit listening to him, trying not to be distracted by the fact I’ve forgotten to hit record on my dictaphone, I can’t bring myself to interrupt him, he doesn’t speak like normal people. He thinks things over. And over some more. Then reduces it down to one succinct and quippy sentence which sums up, albeit totally trivialising the subject. He talks in aphorisms, one strung perfectly after the other, “It’s better to be quotable than honest. I don’t speak I quote. I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet. I am a controversial figure: people either dislike me or hate me.”

So I’m here primarily to ask Sebastian questions about London, where he likes to go, where he eats, drinks, writes, that kind of thing. The questionnaire I submitted to him prior to our meeting was angling for a bit of name-dropping but I got no such thing. When I ask where he is happiest in London, I should have expected the answer I received, “Soho. Soho is a whore with syphilis, her knickers pulled down, her face abandoned; a mess too revolting to complete. Living in Soho is like coming all the time.” Most people just say, “hmm I don’t know, the park?” “So you’re going to ask me a lot of questions I’m not going to answer, what is my fantasy high street? No. Fantasy high street is a contradiction in terms, like witty woman, happy marriage or young poet. These shops all sell the greatest disadvantage of them all: hope.”

I keeping going determined to shed some light on where Sebastian spends his time. There has to be somewhere he goes when he’s not entertaining prostitutes in his flat. “It used to be suicide or the Ritz. I hate private clubs, Blacks is too quaint and the Groucho is just people showing off their cufflinks, I’ve been banned anyway. The Colony was great, full of artists, writers and other losers, I felt at home there. I don’t really like to eat out and I take no pleasure from food. Eating is so undignified, I find watching someone eat utterly disgusting. My perfect place is my flat on Meard Street. It is a lighthouse for losers. They get off at Dover and make their way over. I won’t leave Soho. If I get an invitation from Notting Hill it will go straight in the bin. I like the Stockpot on Old Compton Street, I’ll go there with a good book, and Bruno’s on Wardour Street. I’m there every night, the food looks disgusting, like someone has already eaten it and my favourite The Lorelei on Bateman Street, it’s positively Polish and every dish tastes the same so it doesn’t matter what you order.

“Are we nearly done now my dear? I’m afraid I have an appointment at 3pm.” Off the record Sebastian is running his home as a brothel. Apparently it’s to make the mortgage, however I believe he just likes to be around something depraved, since he has an uncanny knack of making the worst things appear glorious and romantic, just read his book. “I’ve always wanted to be a pimp, but really I’m just a madam, cleaning the sheets and fluffing the pillows.”

Before I leave I ask to look around. In his bedroom I find an ornately carved wooden bed, next to it a loaded gun sitting atop an elaborate wooden box. He explains that before his last STD test the nurse asked him if he had had unprotected sex, “Never. There is always a gun by my bedside”. He shows me the spot a crazed prostitute took a shot at him and where the bullet hit the wall. The room is bathed in a soft orange glow with large gilt framed pieces of red velvet on the walls. His closet is full to bursting with his tailor made suits, top hats and adornments. S H is the real thing, a genuine dandy, charming and humble and impeccably presented, “a respectable appearance makes people more interested in your soul”. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t agree. The kitchen looks more or less as you would expect a kitchen to look, although there are a set of human bones on the counter and the shelves are filled with books. There’s not a saucepan or plate in sight, only a mug with the handle broken off saying ‘world’s greatest dad’, unlikely as Sebastian has openly stated in the past that “The worst sexually transmitted disease of them all is children. The only place a dandy would push a pram is into the Thames.” The bathroom is immaculate with nothing but Chanel products. I can’t imagine Sebastian taking part in something as mundane and everyday as taking a shower. It’s more likely he has kittens lick him clean with milk.

As he shows me out, I enquire how far through his next book he is, “well I’ve written the opening sentence” and to his art, “I’m working on abstract pieces right now, no paintbrushes, no paint, no canvas, I’m just thinking about it”. Someone shouts up at the window where Sebastian is sitting with his fluffy white lapdog, Tampon. The man is holding a sign saying “Horsley’s Air Sickness Bags” it appears random but I get the feeling this sort of thing happens all the time. It starts raining outside. “Is it raining?” he asks, “I thought it was applause…”

Thank you Tom Medwell for the lovely photographs.

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Now here is a collection of weird shit. So taxidermy and monkey skulls I get, but Labrador’s testicles in jars? It’s hard not to like it here, I mean there aren’t many places where you hear the staff shout, “the ocelot fur coats are in the kid’s coffin under the mortuary table in the back room with Aleister Crowley’s skull and the Vagina grafts” now are there? The stream of people asking what is and what isn’t real must do their head in though. Upstairs there is a conventional gallery but downstairs is Viktor Wynds wet dream, the extensive overspill of his house of madness. With dark red walls and cabinets full of his collection of classical ivory figurines randomly (?) placed next to a key chain of a teddy bear blowing his brains out and a set of goliwogs mixed with shrunken heads and prosthetic limbs. The Last Tuesday Society additionally hold a series of talks on subjects ranging from Hypochondria to Syphilis to bed bugs by renowned speakers who although have a list of great credentials on paper often have a tendency to waffle. I think half the time they are just people Mr. Wynd wants to meet. The shop is a ‘window display’ so to speak for the Last Tuesday Society which hosts debauched and fabulous fancy dress and masquerade balls at different locations throughout the city.

http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org

11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP
07947 049814
Wednesday – Sunday 12pm – 6pm

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Le Grenier appears to be the official retailer of 70’s Crockery. Full sets of brown and orange tea cups, sugar pots and tea jars interspersed with eclectic jewellery, retro furniture, exciting knick knacks and old record players in suitcases which are so pretentious it makes me want to throw up. This shop probably survives in large part to people thinking that they will start their own collection of vintage clutter inspired by the immaculate style of this shop, so they start by purchasing one of the gaudy tea sets, but once they get it home and realise how badly it goes with dated Ikea furniture it gets stuck in a cupboard and never sees the light of day. Two years later said tea set ends up in a charity shop where it is bought by a similar posh second hand shop and the price put up by 1000% where it is then purchased by a younger generation of same people. It’s all part of the upper middle class circle of stuff.

ps. re-reading this it sounds like I don’t like it, I do, I love it, it’s without a doubt the best vintage shop selling household wares in London, there is so much stuff I want and pretty much everything is a collectible, ignore my sarcasm I just couldn’t sleep as the person living above me was bouncing a tennis ball all night, which is really strange as I live on the top floor and there is no one who lives above me.

www.le-grenier.com

146 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 6DG
07720 890 393
Monday-Saturday 12pm-7:30pm; Sunday 10am-7:30pm

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http://www.favelachic.com/london/

91-93 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A3HZ
020 7613 4228
Tuesday – Thursday 6pm-10pm Friday – Saturday 6pm-11.30pm

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80 Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, London WC2H 0BF
020 7240 8190

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It was after talking to his Royal Lowness, King of Soho, Sebastian Horsley that I decided to try out the Lorelei as it’s one of Sebastian’s favourites. I’d walked past it countless times without it registering, mainly because it always looked closed and I never trust places in Soho that aren’t widely known. Well the Lorelei as it turns out is widely known (I’m just clueless, but not as clueless as you) and what a place it is. You couldn’t squeeze more character into it if you tried. Tiny with little Formica tables (since well before they were fashionable) and an epic mural of a mermaid on the wall it’s one of my greatest finds, let alone the fact it’s in Soho. It’s nice to be able to recommend somewhere that isn’t Busaba Eathai. The Lorelei hasn’t changed a stitch since it opened back in the 1940s (or thereabouts) and feels like walking into a back alley restaurant in Naples. It’s Italian with pretty much 2 things on the menu, omelettes and pizza. Both are good and cost about £6. My Greek company for the evening sums up the menu “I haven’t seen a dessert menu like this since I used to go on holiday to Cyprus as a kid, the only difference is this one is spelt correctly”. They appear to have various flavours of ice cream and sorbet but when we enquire as to what flavours the tiny little waitress just stabs her finger at the menu squawking “vanilla”, hmm anything else? Any sorbet? “VANILLA” ok ok we’ll take vanilla. Our smirk as she pulls a giant budget sized carton out the freezer quickly disappears as we soon realise the ice cream tastes wonderfully homemade. It’s the small things like the fact that there appears to only be one bottle of ketchup, one set of salt and pepper and one jar of sugar for the whole place so the tiny little Asian lady is constantly grabbing them for whoever asks, not to be returned so make sure you take as much as you need.

21 Bateman Street, London, W1D 3AL
020 7734 0954

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Hackney Wick is clearly on the up and the Hackney Pearl is definitely a symbol of that. Oh don’t worry the area still looks like a deserted wasteland only fit for amateur fashion shoots, but salvaged Formica tables, school chairs and copies of the observer are a slap across the face reminder of where we’re at now over in the Wick. For quite a while people seemed reluctant to open any kind of business as the area was rife with gypsies who’d been kicked out of (sorry re-housed), Stratford. However so far so good as the Hackney Pearl looks to be attracting all the RIGHT KINDS of people. The staff here look like extras from (all and any) music video but are really friendly all the same. The food here is great and the carrot cake is off-the-scale delicious. It’s the kind of place where they cook muffins there and then and leave them on the counter as if your mum just made them, awww sweet, that just tickles me. The spacious interior is styled so perfectly it rivals any established café in London.  I’m so proud of it being in my very own Hackney Wick.

http://thehackneypearl.com/

Hackney Pearl, 11 Prince Edward Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5LX
0208 510 3605
Tuesday – Saturday: 10am until 11pm Sunday: 10am until 6pm

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The reason I’m here is by pure chance. I’m looking for a church and it’s supposed to be on this street. I’m already late but I pass by this little café/restaurant, which immediately grabs my attention. I take a quick peak inside and realise I’ve found a hidden gem. It’s a bit medieval, a bit Austrian ski village, a bit Italian and a bit grannies living room. And it’s in Mayfair of all places, minutes from Selfridges and the American Embassy. It’s opposite Starbucks which sadly has many more customers (that is of course why I write this blog, to highlight child poverty, the war in Darfur and the growth of chain coffee shops)* . It’s the fact Lucky Spot is so out of place that makes it so special. I just don’t give Mayfair enough credit. There is only one other person here, a young man who’s staring at me, he must think I’m attractive, on the other hand I’ve just noticed I’ve got crumbs and raspberry jam on my face from breakfast. Seriously how long has that been there?

*sorry this sentence is so try-hard and not funny.

14 North Audley Street, London W1K 6WE
020 7493 0277

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