At the launch of Shoreditch club/ bar McQueen, the security guys make this invited guest feel about as welcome as a rag-trade spy caught with a camera at one of the late Lee McQueen’s catwalk shows. My cunning velvet rope trick allows me to outfox one power-crazed charmer - mentored by Himmler, perhaps? But once inside, I meet my Waterloo in Napoleon Door-Whore, the iron-willed arbiter of who can enter his Special Lounge for Special People. I’d persevere, if rubbernecking J-Lo, Lilo, or even Subo, were on the cards, but plead to be allowed to breathe the same VIP air as the likes of Jade Jagger, bussed in as DJ, apparently? Yeh, right! Even PR pretty, tonight, about as useful as a chocolate kettle, can’t swing it. Get over yourselves! You’re a large venue that, as Tabernacle, proved fatally hard to fill; and that was when this ‘hood was still happening. If you’re styling yourself after Steve king-of-cool McQueen, why the deeply uncool ‘greeters’? So you manage to get Jodie Harsh to DJ. Who hasn't? Whistling the theme from The Great Escape, I make a break for Coq d’Argent, its welcoming roof garden, the perfect Chablis chill-out after my red carpet humiliation. I’d be interested to hear how readers rate McQueen. Me? I’m giving it the Bullitt.
McQueen, 55 Tabernacle St EC2
Coq d’Argent, 1 Poultry EC2
