An evening at The Porcupine gentlemen's club with Lumpy Pete, Esq.

Ladies and gentlemen, I must recount to you the curious events that took place between the hours of nine pm and five am on Friday. As I have previously recounted, I had planned to meet with my favourite traveling companion, Sir Lumpy Pete esq.

I arranged to meet him at my favourite gentlemen's establishment, "The Porcupine", managed and owned by Lord Derby - an errant man with an eye for the ladies... and rather more, I wager! With my moustache firmly waxed, I glanced around me then gave the correct combination of knocks to the door on ----- Street, thus affording my entry.

I was awarded a knowing squint from the cloakroom attendent, who pointed me bar-wards with his porcelain beak.

It was, as always, a place of violent extremes. It is the noise that hits you first: a raucous din of feverish chattering beasts struggling to be heard over strange repetitive music, perhaps the work of some Krautrock band.

The visual side of the whole affair is equally hard to digest. The room, barely thirty feet square is covered on all surfaces with a thick woolen rug. It hangs down in vast rouge clumps from the ceiling, swirling in obscene masses around our feet and cascading over Regency tables and sideboards in manner that suggests the imbibement of psychedelic drugs.

One can only presume that Lord Derby picked up such peculiar ideas about interior decoration from his travels in the Orient.

"The Porcupine"'s members take many forms, but all have one thing in common - they have, as I have heard said, something of the night about them. Members of Parliament go there to spend their publicly-funded expenses on absinthe and large-breasted girls; chinese slave importers go to cut deals; slight-bodied uranians go to meet like-minded gentlemen within the denser outcrops of rug.

I have seen villains of all hues threaten each other with dismemberment, only minutes later to be cheering each other's health over a flagon of horse-cider.

Some people may question why a gentleman such as I would frequent such a place. Well, it beats Soho House.

I spotted the speckled features of Lumpy ensconsed in a corner, staring with avid intent at a loose-breasted bar girl, and broke his spell with a clap to the forehead. The startled oaf jumped skyward and spilled gin fizz down his plus fours. I scoffed and forced a packet of "wizard powder" into his claw, at which his eyes lit up.

After we had indulged, Lumpy explained to me his current situation.

"Augustus, old friend," he began in his familiar gruff tone. "What a year... my wife left me after catching me with the maid. I gambled away my house in a poker game in the Ukraine, and had to move in with my sister in her house in Stepney. But she kicked me out after I messed the bed one night."

"Well, I fell in with a rough lot after that, and have been running the streets of Bromley-by-Bow, fighting for scraps handed out by nurses and such. Oh, what a year indeed!" As he spoke, he dipped into his pocket and drew a few live worms to his mouth - a distasteful habit that he succumbed to while down in that pit.

"Lumpy, Lumpy," I muttered. "Think nothing of it - you shall move in with me at once! When you are my housemate, we shall plan together our next great journey into the unknown lands. Once more, Lumpy and Augustus shall sally forth!"

And with that my pal wept tears of gratitude, clutching his pustulous face so close to my neck that I had to demand he desist forthwith.

From there the evening descended into the usual bad craziness. We finished the "Wizard" and were taught some fascinating traditional dances by a pair of Greek boys. At one point there was a small explosion in the bar and the MPs ran around screaming. However, this settled down, and after playing bridge for an hour while drinking some form of vinegar, the log fire was lit and the wrestling began.

Got home at five, a tad scorched. Hope I'm not going have any trouble from my new house guest - he bites like a wounded wolverine.