Ladies and Gentlemen, Kentish Town

In the grim, grey, not-so-gay days of the 1970s, any unfortunate bent gent caught hanging out in the gents risked being felt up...only, not in the way he'd hoped for. For Lily Law, loitering lads were an all-too-easy cop. Nowadays, 'cottaging' (ask your grandpa') has been rendered redundant by Gaydar, Grindr and, if you like it rough, Recon. As for those caught short, after the old public conveniences became an inconvenient drain on councils' resources and shut, McDonalds finally had a purpose. Squatting every high street in the land, the ubiquitous Yankee burger chain is a blessing to bladders about to burst (Purchase, neither necessary nor advised). Lately, however, London's long-abandoned privvies are being snapped up by shrewd bar owners. Where once randy buggers' cocks cruised tail, cocktails are now being served. Bermondsey Arts http://tinyurl.com/oq4akhd; The Convenience in Homerton http://tinyurl.com/o57bjtd; WC at Clapham Common: the latest reconfigured loos to add to a growing list are in Kentish Town where William Borrell, owner of Vestal Vodka, has done a decent job (enough with the puny puns!) with his own khazi conversion. A mix of original Edwardian gubbins, jumble store jollies and paperbacks by the yard (something to read on the throne?) set the scene for a short list that will be regularly refreshed. Spend a penny (800 pennies, to be precise) on china teacup serve El Dorado 12 hot buttered rum; Portobello Road gin sour, Rhubarb and Custard, served in a Bird’s tin; or a Bulleit-based Gentlemen’s Old-Fashioned that bungs butterscotch and Werther’s Originals into the mix. Launched in December 2014, a steady trickle through Borrell's bogs' doors suggests this will be no flash in the pan. I arrived late, so I can't report whether they do 2-4-1 happy hour cocktails, known in such establishments as a BOGOF deal, natch.
2 Highgate Road NW5 1JY @ladyandgentsbar 

Vestal Voyages, King's Cross

"Fancy a cruise around King's Cross?' asks nice PR lady. Cruising for what, I wonder? Dodgy weed? Skunk? Smack? A five-bob-a-nob-job aff some gummy auld granny? An accountant from PricewaterhouseCoopers, pretending to be a scally, on-the-pull at Central Station, in full footie kit - one of that establishment's special interest nights, Im told? Negative. It transpires I am invited on the maiden voyage of 50ft Gdansk-built, Liverpool stern, classic canal cruiser, Disco Volante. The imaginatively refurbished craft is owner/ captain/ ex-Storm model turned purveyor of premium Polish potato vodka, William Borrell's pride and joy/ big boy toy. All summer long, twice daily (four times at weekends), you and up to nine others can also join William and his cool and slightly kooky crew in the shadow of St. Pancras International for Vestal Voyages - a Regent's Canal booze cruise that's a lot more entertaining than watching a pair of gannets from Thanet on a day-trip to Calais trying to cram more lager than Lidl will shift in a month into the back of an old Ford Focus. Glasses charged with Nautical Nonsense - one of various  themed 'tails that also include dangerously guzzlable vodka, white wine and green tea-based breezer, Sips Ahoy - we cast off. £8 each, two ship-shape cocktails are included in the £25pp cost of a 90-minute trip along what I'm assured is one of the more picturesque sections of Regent's Canal. Although, given the amount of crap floating in the water - chucked in by the kind of slacker that will happily donate to Friends of the Earth - I'll not bother with the grittier stretches, thank you, Captain William. It's all great fun and the sense of canal-life camaraderie is palpable. Ducks swim up to say hello, towpath strollers wave, and one grumpy dude on a bike shouts out "middle-class wankers!" Our floating gin palace, or vodka palace to be precise - although other spirits are available -  progresses serenely towards a long, long tunnel ahead. This is my favourite part of the trip. Clammy; claustrophobic; silent; Stygian: it's fabulously eery. Ere long, a golden light at the tunnel's end can be glimpsed. "This is what dying must feel like" muses one jolly Roger aboard. As we emerge into a sun-dappled, bucolic, watery idyll as imagined by Raoul Dufy, I can see what he means. Who knew the arse end of Islington could be heaven on earth?

Granary Square, Camley Street NC 4AA bookings 07941 117 553 www.facebook.com/VestalVaults?fref=ts