www.theguardian.com Open in urlscan Pro
2a04:4e42::367  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

https://www.google.co.uk/search

<form action="https://www.google.co.uk/search" class="dcr-g8v7m4"><label for="gu-search-mobile" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">Search input </div>
  </label><input type="text" id="gu-search-mobile" aria-required="true" aria-invalid="false" aria-describedby="" required="" name="q" placeholder="Search" data-link-name="nav2 : search" tabindex="-1" class="selectableMenuItem dcr-1inekgs"><label
    for="gu-search-mobile" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">google-search </div>
    <div class="dcr-190ztmi"><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
        <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd"
          d="M9.273 2c4.023 0 7.25 3.295 7.25 7.273a7.226 7.226 0 0 1-7.25 7.25C5.25 16.523 2 13.296 2 9.273 2 5.295 5.25 2 9.273 2Zm0 1.84A5.403 5.403 0 0 0 3.84 9.274c0 3 2.409 5.454 5.432 5.454 3 0 5.454-2.454 5.454-5.454 0-3.023-2.454-5.432-5.454-5.432Zm7.295 10.887L22 20.16 20.16 22l-5.433-5.432v-.932l.91-.909h.931Z">
        </path>
      </svg><span class="dcr-1p0hins">Search</span></div>
  </label><button type="submit" aria-live="polite" aria-label="Search with Google" data-link-name="nav2 : search : submit" tabindex="-1" class="dcr-7lzcei">
    <div class="src-button-space"></div><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
      <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M1 12.956h18.274l-7.167 8.575.932.932L23 12.478v-.956l-9.96-9.985-.932.932 7.166 8.575H1v1.912Z"></path>
    </svg>
  </button><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="www.theguardian.com"></form>

Text Content

Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Print subscriptions
Sign in
Search jobs
Search
Europe edition
 * Europe edition
 * UK edition
 * US edition
 * Australia edition
 * International edition

The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian


SUPPORT THE GUARDIAN

Fund independent journalism with €10 per month
Support us

Support us
 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

ShowMoreShow More
 * News
   * View all News
   * World news
   * UK news
   * Climate crisis
   * Ukraine
   * Environment
   * Science
   * Global development
   * Football
   * Tech
   * Business
   * Obituaries
   
 * Opinion
   * View all Opinion
   * The Guardian view
   * Columnists
   * Cartoons
   * Opinion videos
   * Letters
   
 * Sport
   * View all Sport
   * football/euro-2024
   * Football
   * Cricket
   * Rugby union
   * Tennis
   * Cycling
   * F1
   * Golf
   * US sports
   
 * Culture
   * View all Culture
   * Books
   * Music
   * TV & radio
   * Art & design
   * Film
   * Games
   * Classical
   * Stage
   
 * Lifestyle
   * View all Lifestyle
   * Fashion
   * Food
   * Recipes
   * Love & sex
   * Health & fitness
   * Home & garden
   * Women
   * Men
   * Family
   * Travel
   * Money
 * Search input
   google-search
   Search
   
   
    * Support us
    * Print subscriptions

   Europe edition
   * UK edition
   * US edition
   * Australia edition
   * International edition
   
 * * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Licensing
   * About Us
   * The Guardian app
   * Video
   * Podcasts
   * Pictures
   * Newsletters
   * Today's paper
   * Inside the Guardian
   * The Observer
   * Guardian Weekly
   * Crosswords
   * Wordiply
   * Corrections
 * * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Licensing
   * About Us

 * The Guardian view
 * Columnists
 * Cartoons
 * Opinion videos
 * Letters


OpinionFashion

This article is more than 16 years old


NIGHTCLUBS ARE HELL. WHAT'S COOL OR FUN ABOUT A THUMPING, SWEATY DUNGEON FULL OF
POSING IDIOTS?

This article is more than 16 years old
Charlie Brooker



Mon 13 Aug 2007 01.06 CEST
Share

228
228

I went to a fashionable London nightclub on Saturday. Not the sort of sentence I
get to write very often, because I enjoy nightclubs less than I enjoy eating
wool. But a glamorous friend of mine was there to "do a PA", and she'd invited
me and some curious friends along because we wanted to see precisely what "doing
a PA" consists of. Turns out doing a public appearance largely entails sitting
around drinking free champagne and generally just "being there".

Obviously, at 36, I was more than a decade older than almost everyone else, and
subsequently may as well have been smeared head to toe with pus. People regarded
me with a combination of pity and disgust. To complete the circuit, I spent the
night wearing the expression of a man waking up to Christmas in a prison cell.



"I'm too old to enjoy this," I thought. And then remembered I've always felt
this way about clubs. And I mean all clubs - from the cheesiest downmarket
sickbucket to the coolest cutting-edge hark-at-us poncehole. I hated them when I
was 19 and I hate them today. I just don't have to pretend any more.

I'm convinced no one actually likes clubs. It's a conspiracy. We've been told
they're cool and fun; that only "saddoes" dislike them. And no one in our
pathetic little pre-apocalyptic timebubble wants to be labelled "sad" - it's
like being officially declared worthless by the state. So we muster a grin and
go out on the town in our millions.

Clubs are despicable. Cramped, overpriced furnaces with sticky walls and the
latest idiot theme tunes thumping through the humid air so loud you can't hold a
conversation, just bellow inanities at megaphone-level. And since the smoking
ban, the masking aroma of cigarette smoke has been replaced by the overbearing
stench of crotch sweat and hair wax.

Clubs are such insufferable dungeons of misery, the inmates have to take
mood-altering substances to make their ordeal seem halfway tolerable. This leads
them to believe they "enjoy" clubbing. They don't. No one does. They just enjoy
drugs.

Drugs render location meaningless. Neck enough ketamine and you could have the
best night of your life squatting in a shed rolling corks across the floor. And
no one's going to search you on the way in. Why bother with clubs?

"Because you might get a shag," is the usual response. Really? If that's the
only way you can find a partner - preening and jigging about like a desperate
animal - you shouldn't be attempting to breed in the first place. What's your
next trick? Inventing fire? People like you are going to spin civilisation into
reverse. You're a moron, and so is that haircut you're trying to impress. Any
offspring you eventually blast out should be drowned in a pan before they can do
any harm. Or open any more nightclubs.

Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn't it a lot of hard work for very
little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in
exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll
snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking
up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling
vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home
punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of
it. It'll be more fun than a club.

Anyway, back to Saturday night, and apart from the age gap, two other things
stuck me. Firstly, everyone had clearly spent far too long perfecting their
appearance. I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as
walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgment of others, trapped
within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety. I'd still
secretly like to be them, of course, but at least these days I can temporarily
erect a veneer of defensive, sneering superiority. I've progressed that far.

The second thing that struck me was frightening. They were all photographing
themselves. In fact, that's all they seemed to be doing. Standing around in
expensive clothes, snapping away with phones and cameras. One pose after
another, as though they needed to prove their own existence, right there, in the
moment. Crucially, this seemed to be the reason they were there in the first
place. There was very little dancing. Just pouting and flashbulbs.

Surely this is a new development. Clubs have always been vapid and awful and
boring and blah - but I can't remember clubbers documenting their every moment
before. Not to this demented extent. It's not enough to pretend you're having
fun in the club any more - you've got to pretend you're having fun in your
Flickr gallery, and your friends' Flickr galleries. An unending exhibition in
which a million terrified, try-too-hard imbeciles attempt to out-cool each
other.

Mind you, since in about 20 years' time these same people will be standing
waist-deep in skeletons, in an arid post-nuclear wasteland, clubbing each other
to death in a fight for the last remaining glass of water, perhaps they're wise
to enjoy these carefree moments while they last. Even if they're only
pretending.

· This week Charlie shook his head in tearful dismay at Sally Morgan: Star
Psychic on ITV1: "If the TV networks want to 'regain trust with the viewer', why
gleefully promote the kind of bogus supernatural bullshit a stunned foetus could
see through?" He watched the preview trailer for the second part of R Kelly's
Trapped in the Closet: "I'm impatiently counting the seconds."

Explore more on these topics
 * Fashion
 * Opinion
 * comment

Share

Reuse this content


MOST VIEWED

 * TRUMP GETS NAME OF HIS DOCTOR WRONG AS HE CHALLENGES BIDEN TO COGNITIVE TEST
   
   

 * ISRAEL HAS FALLEN INTO HAMAS TRAP IN GAZA WAR, SAYS GIORGIA MELONI AT G7
   
   

 * ISRAELI MILITARY ANNOUNCES DAILY ‘TACTICAL PAUSE’ IN SOUTHERN GAZA TO ALLOW
   IN AID
   
   

 * RARE PHOTOGRAPHS BY DORA MAAR CAST PICASSO’S TORMENTED MUSE IN A NEW LIGHT
   
   

 * THE WORLD’S TALLEST DOG IS AN ADORABLE SCAREDY CAT, HIS OWNERS SAY
   
   





COMMENTS (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion



MOST VIEWED


MOST VIEWED



 * The Guardian view
 * Columnists
 * Cartoons
 * Opinion videos
 * Letters

 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
Sign up for our email

 * Help
 * Complaints & corrections
 * SecureDrop
 * Work for us
 *  
 * Privacy policy
 * Cookie policy
 * Terms & conditions
 * Contact us

 * All topics
 * All writers
 * Digital newspaper archive
 * Facebook
 * YouTube
 * Instagram
 * LinkedIn
 * X
 * Newsletters

 * Advertise with us
 * Search UK jobs


Back to top
© 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights
reserved. (dcr)