How to Achieve Greatness on a Night Out in Notting Hill

Some of my friends live in west London and last weekend they staged a mutiny.

“NO, JHC” they said, “WE WILL NOT COME TO EAST LONDON AGAIN. YOU MUST COME TO THE OPPOSITE END OF THE CENTRAL LINE AND HAVE FUN HERE INSTEAD.”

I put up a good fight to begin with, showed ’em my best Dalston sunset, sent them the poo Emoji, basically did everything in my power to try and lure them to my beautiful east London lair.

Just look at it. It’s basically like the Grand Canyon:

Unfortunately, they weren’t having it.

So I picked up my Oyster card, got on the tube to Ladbroke Grove and joined them in Mau Mau.

Mau Mau is one of those bars on Portobello Road which has probably been the same since about 1992. This is a good thing. 

Well, it’s a good thing as long as you’ve got cash because they don’t take card – or if they do, they’re cleverly avoiding it for tax purposes – but that just adds to the charm.

They also had Your Mum on the menu which, if your humour is as juvenile as mine, will make you point, cackle and take a photo while yelling “LOOK, YOUR MUM! YOUR MUM!” while your friends just shake their heads and sigh and order more mojitos.

Your Mum aside, hahahahaha, it soon became clear that their cocktails put the “oh!” in potent, something I feel was instrumental in the crafty escape of a group member, who “went out for a fag” later in the night, never to return.

Where she goes, nobody knows (usually home to bed).

Another good thing about this night was that we got seats at the bar – which in my eyes is a massively underrated place to sit.

Forget booking tables at the back or loitering round the sides, the prime placement in any London cocktail establishment has got to be right smack bang in front of the person making the drinks.

It is in this spot, my friends, that you will achieve greatness.

Whether we achieved greatness that night is anyone’s guess. After a few more drinks we moved onto the Notting Hill Arts Club, where we all achieved getting ID’d (high five, club 29-30), I achieved a cheap cab home and the others achieved fried chicken.

And on a night out in west London, that’s probably as close to greatness as you’re going to get.