In praise of members’ clubs
From our UK edition
I live in Mayfair these days. I wander through expensive streets, past costly boutiques, exclusive restaurants, and grand houses where chandeliers glitter behind the windows. I walk past private members’ clubs, through elegant squares and along hidden mews. There are embassies, temples, schools and churches; casinos, cinemas, bookshops, tiny cafes and pubs thronging with white-collar workers. It’s elegantly Georgian here, but there’s also plenty of that red-brick ebullient Dutch – and French – inspired architecture of the monied Edwardians. That’s what my house is like – flamboyant, with curlicues on the crimson brick, ornate windows and original Regency railings.
