No, not the 'white pinnie and brisk bedside manner' variety, more the 'soiree with John & Hannah Nurse' type of event.
I had to wait 3 days to write this, as that's about how long it's taken me to get over the hangover. It all started so innocently – dinner at Tsunami in Clapham. Yes, bad name but also excellent Japanese food. And cocktails, they may be at the arse end of Clapham High Street (near the hideous Railway Pub where we had an AV Xmas party one of those years when we'd made no money and had to make some redundancies, so the awful venue was our financial and moral penance) but they can still knock out a good list of top notch 'pretty glass' innards.
Hannah and I very glad we chose well, as the boys were being boys and went for the 'very dirty martini' – complete with a bloody oyster. Judging by their faces I think they wished that male bravado and macho cobblers had not outweighed plain common sense. Dis-gust-ing.
All good so far.. then we decided to move to the Breakfast Club on Battersea Rise, which – to my great delight – had a secret bar within it. You walk into the main bar, head for some goldish curtains and then an innocuous bubble-glass door and head through it. Into – a false launderette with several washing machines – suitably 'secret bar-ish'. Walk past those and through another door and like Mr Benn you find yourself in a rather natty secret bar. Also with good cocktails, oh dear oh dear.
And thence onto the Swedish Sauna Bar further down Battersea Rise. I have no idea if this is its actual name or just a slightly inebriated description of its wooden cladding exterior.
Very good barman – if slightly odd appearance. And judging by the photo we were actually somewhere called the Southsider – it's news to me..
Thanks to Clare Greenwood who let me off the gym visit we were meant to be doing the next morning (urrrrggggh) and traded it for a gentle swim, which shook some of the previous night's cobwebs off.
One day, one day – a night with the Nurses will not involve a shocker of a hangover, but that (highly unlikely) day has definitely not yet come x