Paperjam

Going to see some strippers at The Griffin

Sex // Jim // 22nd November 2006

Tom, James and I hop off the tube at Chancery Lane, a short stroll up the road, stopping off at a newsagents in order to get plenty of change, one pound coins are particularly necessary, James explains.

We walk into The Griffin unchallenged into what looks like a normal pub, albeit with the windows blacked out and a small stage with a big pole on it.

There are a bunch of ladies in various states of undress sitting around a table at the back and a small crowd consisting of:
- City types on their lunch break
- A couple of old boys
- Some blokes who look like they have been let out for the day

A screen is showing Sky Sports, as I sidle up to the bar and decide that this is definitely not the place to try and chat up the barmaid, she looks fairly jaded anyhow. Get some beer and return to the lads, a fairly stunning girl in a fluorescent bikini strolls up with a pint mug and asks if we would all give her a pound as she is about to go on stage. Fore-warned by James we have coins at the ready, possibly looking a little too eager really.

After she has done the rounds, the Sky Sports screen goes off and she gets up on stage. After a bit of pole molesting she whips off her top, caught mid-sip I cough a bit into my beer. It seems James wasn’t exaggerating about this place.

Then she reaches down, slips off her fluorescent pants and spreads her legs wide open. Crikey. James turns to us and sagely states: “Now that represents excellent value,” he pauses, then adds, “For a pound”. You can take the man out of Manchester, but you can’t take Manchester out of the man.

I am laughing quite a lot which is probably not what the lady on stage is expecting, fortunately the rest of the sparse crowd of punters are staring at her menacingly, nodding a bit and drooling a touch which is probably a little more de rigour in The Griffin.

Next up is this completely gorgeous girl who is surprising friendly as she comes round to collect the pounds. Tom and me are both a bit dumbstruck, not James though; “Big arse”, he says dismissively, like an especially picky farmer at a cattle market. She gets her kit off to “More Than A Woman” by Aaliyah, complete with a blank, thousand-yard stare past the gradually diminishing crowd. Can’t say I blame her.

At the end of the dance she just picks up her clothes at the side of the stage and puts them back on like someone leaving quickly after a terrible shag (I imagine), she stumbles a bit while putting her pants on. The weird thing is that now that she is putting her clothes back on, no one is paying her any attention at all, even though she is standing half naked right in front of them.

Perplexed and a bit dry throated, I go to the bar for another drink, the sight of banknotes in hand entices one of the ladies over. “Vould you lick a privet dunce?” she huskily intones. “No thanks, I’m fine”, I say as nicely as I can. “No tanks, I’m vine”, she repeats, frowning. We are both confused. After the longest ten seconds of my life she mutters something in a language I don’t recognise, which probably involves the words “Fucking” and “Loser”. Fair enough I suppose.

Trail back over with pints, a girl in a sort of corset and nothing else is bending over on the stage, clasping a bum cheek in each hand. I make a remark about almost being able to see her lunch, Tom laughs, James raises an eyebrow and shakes his head at me.

The corset bird is finishing off, “oooohhhh yeeeaaaaahhhhhh”, announces the DJ bloke in a near subsonic fashion and Sky Sports comes back on.

The drink is starting to work its way around my nervous system and my guilt/excitement ratio is getting very, very confused as a girl with blonde curly hair and lacy knickers takes to the stage. She starts spinning round the pole like crazy and looks like she is going to fall off, thankfully not, although I reckon every man in the place would have claimed to be some kind of medical professional if she had.

Off comes her top and oh god, I feel like I am regressing back to adolescence. There is a certain err, tightness in the trouser area and I am probably blushing a bit, I can almost feel the acne breaking out on my face and I have a sudden yearning to go home and paint my bedroom black.

Back here in reality, she is getting her knickers off and then, well you get the idea. I feel a bit bad about staring, but I do anyway. It is a bit much for Tom and he is carefully reading a framed reproduction of a Guardian article on the nearest wall.

The next performer is collecting her dosh, my fingers fumble awkwardly in my pocket and I toss a quid in the pint glass. “Err, that was only fifty pence,” she says. We both know that I’m not going to argue, I give her another quid. “Do you want your fifty pee back then?” she says. I tell her to keep it and hope that I’m not going to get my head kicked in. Especially not by a bunch of girls in their underwear. Again.

It’s all getting a bit much for me too so we decide to do one. James is not happy that we have wasted all of a pound on a girl we are not going to see. I offer to buy him a pint in compensation and he cheers up, a bit.
Outside, Tom is on the blower talking about “cost centres” and “millions of pounds”, while I am still making a case to James for the girl whose arse was too big for his tastes. I’m feeling vaguely horny and the early stages of drunk, and as usual I’m finding it hard to tell them apart.

Tom decides to go home, James and I go to badly chat up the ladies in Molton Brown on Regent Street (yes, really, oh the shame), before a long afternoon/evening of drinking and nagging feelings of inadequacy.

Thank you, ladies of The Griffin.

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The Griffin

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