I ended up in Trader Vic’s last night, along with a suited and booted 30milesormore. I reviewed it for Time Out last year, and I said something along the lines of: This chain of bars extends from Atlanta to Taiwan, and makes its London home in the basement of the Hilton. If you haven’t been, you should go, if only to tick it off your list of preposterous sights in the capital. It’s an absurd Polynesian theme bar, framed by bamboo trellis-work from which dangle large glass baubles and, er, a canoe. Rum-drenched cocktails with names like “Suffering Bastard” come at around £7 each, while bar snacks consist of such unlikely dishes as morel mushrooms en croute, a snip at £8.50. So, it’s a challenge to get drunk here, but there are lots of laughs: the background music playing 80s classics slightly too fast, the Hawaiian entertainer and his preposterous banter, and wealthy businessmen attempting to impress their pouting girlfriends with a faceful of smoke from a fat cigar. Warning: attempting to access the comedy after 11pm will incur a £7 cover charge.

It hasn’t changed one bit, obviously, although there were probably a few more high class prostitutes around this time, but hey, live and let live and then pay someone £1000 for sex, that’s what I say. I actually ordered a Suffering Bastard this time, although I rather pathetically said “I hate to say it, but could I possibly have a Suffering Bastard,” rather than slamming my hand on the table and shouting “Suffering Bastard!” My Suffering Bastard had half a cucumber stuck in it.

“Suffering Bastard” is also a song by a band called Burn The Priest, which gives full details of their own visit to Trader Vic’s at the Hilton Hotel:

Shorn of apocryphal pride,
the locks falls predicting strife.
Cranium exposed, denial of aesthetic.
Push it a little farther.
All of this burnt to ashes,
all of this torn to rags.

Well, absolutely, the toilets are a bitch to find. They go on:

Transgression mythologized, indiscretions immortalized

And try saying that after a couple of Suffering Bastards, or rather don’t bother, because it can’t be done. I’ll give you one more image from Trader Vic’s, it doesn’t really require any explanation, the image does all the talking:

Earlier in the evening, we witnessed Rod Liddle being a bit pissed-up in a back-street boozer, along with Francis Wheen, who seemed less pissed, but he was sitting down rather than staggering around, so who can tell without taking blood samples, eh. I heartily recommend Francis Wheen’s biography of Tom Driberg; I also recommend a bloke called Norman if you need a plumber in South London – seriously, he rushed around this morning and sorted out a bathroom catastrophe for not much money. His number is 07956 273432. Place him carefully in your address books.

Oh, on the way home we saw this preposterous motor, but surprisingly the Pink Panther didn’t get out, rather a permatanned businessman with a compliant, grateful Asian girl approximately 1/3 of his age. Rinky-dink.