Gay Camberwell

Last weekend Layla deserted me for the glories of her homeland, leaving me responsible for screening Transamerica on Sunday.  Which should have been fine: generally her focus is on the free Maltesers rather than the difficult task of putting a DVD on.  But when our lovely creator of the trailers (and technical whizz) informed me that she too would be away, I was more concerned.  And then I discovered Winston (owner of the Castle and enthusiast for Gay Camberwell) was to be away and I must admit I was worried.  And rightly so: I momentarily turned into a girl unable to work a DVD player and felt very bitter indeed. 

Having finally stopped pfaffing and settled into the film, a member of the bar staff came up to whisper in my ear that the police were downstairs.  Quelling my instinct to hide under a chair until they went away, I cautiously went downstairs, to find three tall police officers awaiting me.  However, it turned out that they were there to ask whether there was anything they could do to help Gay Camberwell (one of them, apparently, being our LGBT liaison officer, or some such).  Having resisted the urge to ask them to stay for the film and assist if any further technical emergencies arose with the DVD, I said I couldn’t think of anything.  But it was very sweet of them to ask…

Talking of sweet and enthusiastic people, we made it along to the Cambria for Wicked Wednesday this week.  The pub is owned by the lovely Steve, and the night is hosted by Camberwell’s rising star, Michael Twaits. They had a great gay crowd and the night is apparently increasingly popular. And we have even prevailed upon Steve to start the night at an earlier hour, for those of us who are old ladies and need to go to bed before the clock strikes eleven on a weekday…

But all this enthusiasm from others for Gay Camberwell is not undeserved.  We have been making sacrifices this week. Guilty at the lull in our restaurant reviews, we have been dedicating ourselves to eating out.  And so this week we headed up to Buddha Jazz on Tuesday (bringing two Vietnamese food connoisseurs down from the depths of north London) and to La Luna on Friday.  We absolutely loved La Luna.  But were intrigued by the other diners: half of the other dining couples were males.  Well, I say “couples”.  None looked particularly gay, so it is quite possible that they were all friends.  But in our experience men don’t go out to dinner together.  (Well, an ex-boyfriend of mine did, but that was immediately before we both came out as gay.)  Is this the secret gay restaurant of south London?!  Or are the men in the area simply more focused on food-based friendship?  I feel further visits are required to determine this point.  

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