I offer to cat-sit for a hospitalised friend, only to discover I’m allergic to feline fur. Eyes smarting, I abandon the moggies. Shoving a shed load of Sheba at them by way of hush money, I set off to prowl Fulham by night, hoping to find some liquid relief. Presently, I stumble across a new cocktail opportunity where once stood Leopard Lounge before lack of custom rendered that particular beast extinct. At Coalition, not a single kat in sight. As Milliband Jnr. might say, ‘This Coalition clearly isn’t working and there's a whiff of desperation about it.’ On a Saturday at 10pm, it’s just me, a saturnine chap I take to be the bar's owner, a Zimbabwean waitress and, on an overhead screen, chipmunk chops, Allan Carr, hosting Celebrity Ding Dong...because a martini works better with a bit of twisted fruit on the side? Relieved to see me/ anyone, Zimbabwe offers a ‘local’s discount’ on a Dark and Stormy, reducing her OK effort to Primark price levels; from memory, £4.78. But as discounted hooch isn’t exactly pulling ‘em in, I suggest they ditch a red and black interior that looks like somewhere I’d have been thrilled to find on a troll around Truro, Trowbridge or some other tragic cocktail-free desert, circa shoulder pads and Dynasty. The ’80s may be back... but Sheena Easton’s sitting room? ‘Last night, we tripled our takings,’ claims Zimbabwe. That’s £14.34, then? ‘Come back and try our Thai food or pop in for free salsa lessons any Wednesday’ she adds, more out of politeness than in hope. I rejoin the cats. Fickle creatures haven’t even registered I’ve abandoned them for all of twenty minutes.
660 Fulham Rd SW6 7731 2009 www.coalitionfulham.com
