I felt my heartbeat quicken as I lifted the receiver. This was new territory for me. I carefully, hesitantly dialled the number. What if there is someone on the other end? As electronic clicks and beeps signalled my connection I reminded myself that this is England and no way would 38 pence per minute ‘get me live one-to-one sex talk with Mandy who likes it doggy style. And sure enough, I was right. A pre-recorded message ‘kicked in and a breathy accentless Englishwoman’s voice could be heard telling me about the late night cocksuckers’ party. I let out a sigh of relief as the perpetual teenager in me realised I wouldn’t have to make any effort and talk to a real live woman. All I had to do was listen. So I did. And it went .on from there.

Five years later I’m still bemused and intrigued by the whole phone sex phenomenon. Since I started my ‘investigations’ it’s gone through several changes as the ‘service providers’ have faced up to public and political criticism. In each case ‘they’ve adapted accordingly and admirably. floundering industries everywhere should take a page out of their book.; But then again, when you know you’ve got as surefire a product as ‘sex’ to sell, you’ll do anything to get it to the punters and then just sit back and count the money.

And it’s gotta be good money. Back in ’92 it was 38 ppm. cheap rate and 48 ppm at all other times. Now with the various restrictions set in place the calls are charged at a variety of International Rates. Not to mention the genuinely LIVE ‘talkback’ calls that are usually charged to credit cards, though some accept cheques/PO’s or put hugely inflated charges on your phone bill. It’s gotta be good money. However your average user – the dedicated punter – the phone sex ‘addict’ – isn’t worried about cost (as long as it’s ‘discreetly charged’ to their credit card bill). They want to get their rocks off. After a hard day’s toiling as a Captain of Industry or as a Kwik-Fit fitter they want a quick, satisfying and effective release of tension. Bollocks to wasting hours ‘romancing’ wives and girlfriends on the off-chance of getting a dull routine tumble. Your man of the 90’s is used to fast service – shopping, eating out, transport – and sex shouldn’t be any different. So he gets his well-thumbed copy of Men Only, flips to the back pages and browses. Whatever he wants, whatever his fetish or perversion, there is a phone line for him.

You want it, they’ve got it for you. But what are they actually like? Nowadays it’s really down to two different types – ‘Raunch’ and ‘Rip off’. It takes some practice to be able to differentiate between the two but your starter for ten is – the more the advert promises the less you’ll get. And I’m not talking about the specific content of the advert but rather the blurb that comes with it. ‘No long boring intro’s’ actually means five minutes of long drawn out tease as a pre-recorded voice continually promises to connect you to a hot horny girl in ‘just one moment’ whilst advertising other services. ‘Straight into the Action’ means two minutes of shite keyboard music with sampled moans and groans in the background. It’s a bit like buying carpets – the decent shops don’t need ‘Top Quality’ signs written on fluorescent card. And so the real ‘Raunch’ lines just play it straight, tell you what’s on offer and how much it’ll cost you and that’s it.

But what are they actually like? Be it ‘Raunch’ or ‘Rip-off’ you’ll still get two minutes of adverts for other services beforehand. This is to ensure you’re hooked – you’ve listened this far so you might as well hang on for the rest. Unfortunately in many cases the advertised service – eg. French Slut Licks Your Hairy Balls, turns out to be Filthy Lesbian Pisses on You. This can be a severe disappointment to the committed fetishist but if you’re an open minded adventurous kind of guy then you may find yourself sent off down a whole new avenue to explore. However, with the ‘Rip Off’ lines – despite what the advert says – you don’t get much more than the sort of innuendo-loaded banter you get in your average office conversation between frendly colleagues. The girl introduces herself, gives a teasing rundown of vital statistics and then starts on the foreplay. She’ll tell you she’s playing with her nipples (that are always highly sensitive) and running her hand down to her ‘love hole’ and it goes on from there. If she gets herself to ‘climax’ and you’re still on line the message abruptly cuts and another girl comes on and it starts all over again.

At one time there was a service offering a range of about 15 numbers – none of which had adverts or any kind of warning beforehand that this was adult material. You were straight into it. And they were the first I came across in the UK to offer ‘services’ hinting at anal, watersports and girl on guy strap-on action. It wasn’t unusual for there to be two girls on the tape and occasionally a guy which totally blew any chance of a fantasy developing because once he intruded you weren’t there anymore and it became a bit like sitting in a hotel room listening to the couple next door fucking.

There are some true ‘Raunch’ lines out there. The legendary 0898 numbers (that were obliterated by BT requiring all desirous users to apply for PIN code numbers to allow access) could never have been as hard-core as these lines. The adverts say ‘Our girls use all the filthy sex words’ and they mean it. You still get recorded ads prior to the service but these go on for longer by occasionally tantalizing the listener by dropping on the odd ‘fuck’ or ‘pussy’. To be fair the girls ‘talking’ on these lines really do sound like they’re into it and if they really are breastfeeding their babies or knitting as they record then they are genuinely talented and entirely convincing. Particularly when it’s a one-on-one scenario – ‘I’m going to take hold of your cock and…’ etc. The ‘last night my boyfriend and I tried something we’ve never tried before’ are just not as involving and a bit like reading graffiti on a bog wall.

Seeing as they’ve got you on International Call Rates they try to keep you on as long as possible with a slow steady build up going into great detail. If you’re into it it’s got to have an effect on you and if it doesn’t maybe you should try another line – ‘Gay Builders Gang Bang’ perhaps? All vaginal and oral fantasists are well catered for and at present there seems to be a growing fixation with ‘anal’. As buggery is still illegal in this country they get round it by putting well-placed asterisks where vowels should be or cloak it with the none-too-subtle ‘tight stinging hole’.

But for some that’s just not enough and you can always trust the British to take it one step further. Beneath our facade of respectability and decency we’re all sick fucks – if the ads are anything to go by. Below are some examples: S&M, Sub/Dom, humiliation, piss & shit, whipping, spanking, rubber fetishists, TV’s and everything else. If you can’t find it here babe they ain’t doing it.

Meanwhile the Yanks are having none of this nonsense. All they are interested in is the penetration of orifices and discharge of semen. And yet they’ve managed to make their adverts for this limited repertoire into what is almost an art form. Pick up a copy of Cheri or High Society, turn to the back pages and marvel at the artistry and ingenuity on display. A dazzling rainbow of colours and truly inventive use of graphics. I’m lost in admiration for the guys who do these – I want their jobs. How could you go wrong working on subjects like:

HEY JERKY! DUMP A LOAD IN ME! KENTUCKY GIRL! FINGER-LICKIN’ GOOD! MAYBE I’LL FUCK YOU OR MAYBE I’LL GIVE YOU BLUE BALLS – NO GUTS, NO GLORY! I’M A LESBIAN! I LIVE FOR PUSSY! TRY TO CHANGE MY MIND! 16 WAS SWEET.. BUT 18 IS LEGAL! GIRLS WHO THINK CUM IS A DECONGESTANT! SNAKE MY PIPES! I CAN FIT ANY COCK IN MY ASS WITHOUT KY. THINK ABOUT IT THEN FUCK IT! 1-800-CUNT HUNT. HER PUSSY IS YOURS BUT THE ASS IS MINE and perhaps most perverse of all… BE MY CAPTAIN KIRK!?!

Now when I look at the phone sex industry today I can’t see it developing any further and it may eventually be knocked out of action by developments on the Internet. If you can get it cheaper than Intl. Call Rates with some ‘visual accompaniment’ than who’s going to pay £1.04 per minute for something less? We’ll have to see how things develop. At present there’s a burgeon-ing UK market in ‘Chat-line’ services where you can talk to ‘real live girls’. These have been growing steadily since the death of 0898 and are nothing but pure trace rip off. Unless of course you do want to swap inane chit-chat with an overly bubbly girl. Ads for these lines appear in ‘Loaded’ and other men’s publications – cashing in on the guys who haven’t got the neck to buy a proper skin mag where you get the real deal. There’s also lines that pretend to take a ‘medical’ slant where real girls give ‘frank interviews’ about sex. ‘Jill, 24, talks about masturbation’ etc. In a way you’ve got to admire the way they try to get round the restrictions but you really are pissing about with these and doing nothing but frustrating yourself further.

Most women are appalled and disgusted by the very existence of phone sex lines. The men who use them are considered sad pathet-ic bastards. I personally feel that if there wasn’t a ‘need’ for them they wouldn’t exist. Nature demands that men empty their bollocks on a fairly regular basis. If they don’t they tend to get a bit ratty. So why not phone sex? It’s certainly safe sex. as opposed to the risks prostitutes and their johns expose themselves to. A hundred years ago the North American loggers, out in the woods for months on end with nothing but other guys around, would grease up knotholes in trees and mount up. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

In closing I’d just like to say that I’ve listened in on all sorts of lines and I’d be a liar and possibly not a heterosexual if I said they never stirred the blood. And as I’ve always approached it from an analytical and ‘clinical’ state of mind I’ve never felt like some ‘sad old pervert’. The only time that rush of guilt and shame ever washed over me was listening to a UK service. The line title was fairly innocuous – ‘Bitch wants it deep’ perhaps? But it was immediately apparent that I was listening to what sounded like two girls of about 14 years of age in a phone booth talking about cock sucking. They were putting on fake ‘sexy’ voices and breaking into giggles while the sound of traffic could clearly be heard behind them. The longer they went on the more surreal the whole experience became – particularly as one girl talked like the dream dwarf from the last episode of Twin Peaks. I slammed down the receiver and vowed ‘never again’ but it didn’t take long for me to get curious as to what’s going on ‘out there’. Because I know in my heart that just when you think you’ve heard it all…

Rik Rawling

Somehow, describing Roni Raye as an amateur porn star doesn’t seem appropriate. Perhaps ‘independent’ is closer to the truth, as she has become a veritable cottage industry of adult entertainment, doing everything from phone sex to videos to custom letters to used underwear, plus appearances in Velvet, Cheri and Hustler, all on her own terms and with no ‘exploitation’ apparent. Recently, she recruited sister Tamara into the fold — next stop, the world!?

Tell me a little bit about your background — was there anything in your upbringing to suggest you’d become a glamour model?

My father was in the military, so we moved around a lot – we were basically raised on army bases. My high-school years, we lived in a town of 45,000: there was enough going on, we kept ourselves busy. I was raised in a big family, five girls, one boy, therefore I was constantly fighting for attention, and modelling filled that need. I loved being able to show off and getting all the attention, it’s the perfect way for me to get it out of my system! I did some regular modelling with a photographer in the town I was living, put together a portfolio, and had talked to an agency, but nothing had actually progressed with it. He started the idea with me, about doing the posing, and I thought, “Well, I don’t know if I could do that or not”,  so I did some with my husband first, and then went to another town and did some with a lady photographer. After I had become comfortable with it, I went back to him and did some nude stuff with him. I didn’t think I’d like it at first, but when the pictures came back I learned that you can do a lot with photography! Not like on video: the video-camera doesn’t lie. That’s one good thing about amateur — I think I was probably a little bit insecure, because I had all these expectations of what people might think I should look like. Amateur is so different from ‘Playboy’. Guys would much rather speak to somebody like myself who is not ‘perfect’, because I’m more approachable.

When did you first become interested in adult entertainment, and what made you want to get involved?

I lost some weight and thought it would be fun to pose nude in a magazine, so I posed for pics and sent them in, and here we are! After I did that, I thought it would be fun to do some home made amateur vids. I loved it, the feeling of all those men watching me, it really gets me turned on, even to this day. I love that so much, it really is the best part.I do the phone calls from home, right in my bed, and I do have a lover every now and then and we do live sex calls on the phone – whether it’s a blow job or me really being fucked, it’s great!!

How do people react when you tell them what you do? What do your family think? How did your sister get started?

Those that I do tell — very few — think that I don’t look the part and are surprised. It’s not like “Hi, I’m Roni Raye and I do porn movies”. I am a real down to earth person, I do normal things like everyone else, I put my pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. My family thinks that as long as I’m happy, it’s ok. My sister wanted to earn some extra money and likes showing off as much as I do, and started doing phone sex, then tried doing a vid or two and really enjoyed herself. My family doesn’t know that she’s done vids or the phone lines.

Though you did lose your job in a dentist’s, as a result of your first appearance in  a magazine.

I was the only full-time dental assistant in the office and we had just hired a girl to fill in. There was a mutual friend — a bit of a trouble-maker — when I told him I had posed in the magazine, he went and got a copy and thought it would be funny to show it to the boss’s wife, because he didn’t much like her and wanted to make her jealous. When she found out, she wasn’t too happy about me working with her husband. She said, “We don’t have enough hours to support you”, and the part-time girl got my job. That’s when everything started going full-force with me in the business. I’d started doing the posing because I was kinda burned-out with my job. I didn’t want to quit, but thought if I did something else on the side, it would make it a little bit more exciting.

How much control do you exercise over your output? Do you get to choose the specific pictures, etc?

The only actual layout that I’ve posed for somebody else, was the one in ‘Velvet’, where I went to New York. All the other ones, basically I’ve just sent my pictures in, and won different contests. During this whole business, I’ve been in control of everything. It’s full time, because I’m constantly filling orders from the catalogue, and I have a phone sex line, and I set my own hours on that, but it’s how I want to set everything up. I don’t have to go and pose for all these different men, or do talk shows. Since it’s me up there, I have total control over when and how much of me they get to see. If not, then it wouldn’t be me would it? I am the product of their fantasies — and judging by the response to what I’ve done, I can’t imagine how many wet dreams I’ve been part of! I have 3 PO boxes just to keep up with the mail I get, sometimes over 100 pieces a week. I get letters from all over the world and I’ve been featured in many magazines.

Born: July 3, 1967 – Elkhart, Indiana. Stats: 5’11”, 150 lbs, 38D-26-36. Hair: Brunette (originally a blonde!). Eyes: Brown. Turn-ons: Long, slow sensual massages, oral sex, role-playing, being dominant,  hugs and kisses! Lots of attention! Turn-offs: Close-minded hypocrites who try to force their beliefs on you, egotistical males. Favourite Movies: Rainman, Terms Of Endearment, any comedy. Favourite Tunes: Anything alternative, any dance tunes. Age When I “Lost” My Virginity: Age 16 (and I haven’t gone looking for it since!). Favourite Sex Position: Doggy-style. Favourite Sexual Act: Giving blow jobs and finishing it to completion by swallowing every drop. What One Word Best Describes You: Exhibitionist – I love to show off, and to have sex in a public place. Favorite Clothes: Sexy, provocative, lingerie such as garterbelt with stockings, teddies, matching bra and panty sets. Hobbies: Lifting Weights, Aerobics, Dancing, Writing and Traveling.

Do you see what you do as business, pleasure, public service or what?

All of the above, a little bit of everything combined. Doing the vids has nothing to do with profit, and selling them has nothing to do with sex — unless you’re being fucked out of some money! And I do like pleasing men, so there’s the public service part.

What part of work do you enjoy most?

Number one, I enjoy the phone calls. I get to talk to so many different guys, in so many different lifestyles, and they don’t always talk to me about sex, they talk to me about their families and their life, and their problems. Things that they need a second opinion about, that they can’t talk to their friends or wives about. I’m kind of a sounding board, this phone friend — a little bit mysterious because they’ve never met me — but that’s my favourite part. The second part, I enjoy any writing that I do, immensely, I’ve started writing columns for different publications and eventually, I’d like to write some short stories and books. But I like the photos and videos as well, especially when I get feedback; “this turns me on”, “I like this”, that makes it all worthwhile.

On your phone line, do you get many repeat callers?

I got a lot of regular callers, some guys call me eight times a night! Very few call once and then never call again. I have a clientele, basically. It’s just like they’re talking to a doctor about therapy; I hear all kinds of stories!

What’s the weirdest request you’ve ever had?

When I first started this, everything to me was, like, “Whoa!” because I’d never heard of it before — I was raised in a strict Baptist family, we went to church twice a week, so when I first started to hear guys wanting pictures of me going to the bathroom… Or I have this one particular customer that likes me to fart, on audio-cassette, and now he wants me to do it on video. I have one guy that has a fetish for women who are missing toes, he sends me money and has me tape my big toe back and take pictures of it. A lot of them on the phone lines have their different fantasies. some of them like the little cheerleader, or nurse. There are some that are kind of risqué: I’ve had guys call me and talk about wanting to rape little girls. And I’m like “I don’t want you to do this in real life”. Should you analyse this? I’m not a doctor, but if I think somebody is a little bit bizarre, I’m going to tell them, “call someone else, you sicko”!

In some ways, you could say it’s better for them to get it out over a phone line than to go out and do it, but are they getting rid of the feeling or are you just building it up?

And I’m the one that has to draw the line there. I have guys that have specific fantasies about younger girls, which they would never go out and do, and they always specify that. I feel in my heart that it’s just a fantasy, it’s nothing they’d ever do, but they get turned on by it. I can handle doing a call with someone like that. One never can tell, but I imagine I have a little bit of experience under my belt, I’ve done it for three years, so I think by talking to someone for a while, you can get a feel for what kind of person they are.

What do you say to people who claim pornography is a bad thing, or is degrading to women?

That’s usually said by men who don’t get enough at home from their wives, or women who are anal retentive, or by your local congressman! Anyway, I look at it this way: I’m not forcing any one to watch my vids, so don’t bother me. I mean, there are a lot worse things going on in this world than sex vids, don’t you think?

You’re planning to retire and write a book – have you a fixed time scale for that?

I always say this; I’m probably going to do the phone lines till I die. There’s gonna be a certain point in life where my body doesn’t hold up — photos and videos aren’t going to go on forever. I’m going to take time out to have children, but as far as the phone lines do, I can’t see why I can’t go on doing that forever. I really don’t want to write a book right away because I feel I should get a couple of years more experience under my belt before I go and try to be an expert on anything. It would probably be ‘fiction-based-on-true-stories’, because I know a lot of people won’t want their names mentioned. Every day is a new chapter! Just the letters that I have, that guys write to me, would be a book in themselves. We’re all to a certain extent voyeurs. If people could read through a book of these letters, they would just be amazed.

How would you like to be remembered? What epitaph would you like to see carved onto the Roni Raye monument?

I came…we fucked…and you came first! Really? That I’m an honest Midwest girl, who had some fun while she was here — and left no dick dry before it’s time!

For more information on the wonderful world of Roni, send $10 for her illustrated catalogue to:
Roni Raye,
P.O. BOX 502210,
Indianapolis, IN 46250,
USA

[The editors of this magazine accept absolutely no resposibility for any resulting hassle from HM Customs, which is strictly, absolutely and completely your own problem! Though I guess you should probably be okay if all you’ve done is send off for some of Roni’s underwear. But with these Customs geezers, who can say? Anyway, you’re on your own…]

2021 update. Roni is still going strong, more than twenty years after the above was written, in an industry notorious for chewing up and spitting out its participants. She’s now in the MILF business. 🙂

Roni-ography

Title	Distributor	Year	Notes
1-900-RONI	Roni Raye Productions	93	s
Balcony Bliss	Roni Raye Productions	95	s
Bedroom Window 51	Homegrown Video	93	q [1]
Bush League Volume 20	Pearl Necklace Video	93	f
Bush League Volume 22	Pearl Necklace Video	93	f [1]
Bush League Volume 23	Pearl Necklace Video	93	f [1]
Cousin Bubba’s Country Corn Porn	Visual Images	93	q
Gorilla-Gram	Video Alternatives	93	f [2]
Homegrown Video Volume 402	Homegrown Video	93	q [1]
Honeymoon Hottub	Roni Raye Productions	95	s
Images Of Roni	Roni Raye Productions	95	s
Looking At You	Video Alternatives	93	f
Mistress Roni Reigns	Roni Raye Productions	95	s
Nurse Roni: Nasty Fuckin Movies	Rumpus Video	93	s [1]
Oral Cum Fun	Roni Raye Productions	94	s
Peek-A-Boo	Roni Raye Productions	93	s
Roni and Private Parts	LBO Entertainment	..	q [1]
Roni and the Peeping Tom	SVE	93	s
Roni At Play: Up the Skirt	Roni Raye Productions	93	s
Roni Blind Date	Rumpus Video	93	s
Roni Cooks	Samuel’s Company	93	s
Roni Does It Good	Samuel’s Company	93	s
Roni Flashes	Roni Raye Productions	93	s
Roni Gets Wet	Roni Raye Productions	94	s
Roni’s Treasure Hunt	Roni Raye Productions	93	s
Slippery Sex 1	Roni Raye Productions	94	s
Slippery Sex 2	Roni Raye Productions	94	s
Voodoo Doll	Video Alternatives	93	f

Key: s-Starring role, f-Featured (more than 1 scene but didn’t star) q-Quickie: compilation in which she appears in one scene, [1]-Pictured on the Box [2]-Nominated for award

Magazine	Month/Year	Notes
Velvet	May 1993	P
Gallery	Jul 1993	P
Amateuir Hours	Aug 1993	P
Cheri	Sep 1993	P
Hustler’s Busty Beauties	Dec 1993	P
Amateur Adult Videos	May 1994	P
Naughty Amateurs	Jul 1994	P
Adams Amateur Porn	v1#4 1994	P
Adult Video News Directory	1994
Amateur Hours	Jan 1995	P
Rocky Mountain Oyster #958	Mar 1995	I page 5
Amateur Hours	Jul 1995	P
Homefront, The	v1#4	IC

Key: A – Article, B – Back Cover, C – Cover, F – Centerfold, I – Interview, P – Pictorial, R – Movie Review

Our esteemed editor’s article last TC performed a valuable service in praising the merits of Brown’s, a pub which holds a special, warm, slightly moist place in my heart. But it only scratched the surface, both in terms of venues and philosophy: this sequel attempts to expand further on the topic which, after all, is one of almost unlimited interest.

Firstly, venues. While I can’t argue that Brown’s is to London strip-pubs what the San Siro is to football, there are other places which offer similar entertainment and are not quite so well known. For my first example, take the Lord Nelson. Situated down a side road just north of Old Street, from the outside it looks absolutely normal; the first time we visited it, my friends insisted I go in alone and check whether we had the right place! We did, and it has now become a regular stop on the circuit, thanks mostly to the relaxed and laid-back atmosphere. While Brown’s is very new and modern, with a lot of chrome and glass, in the Lord Nelson the pub grub is limited to dodgy-looking rolls and positively lethal pork pies, the toilets resemble a swamp, and the bar staff are surly and uncommunicative. In other words, it’s a traditional British pub, and as such, can only be loved. The most novel feature is a “wall of business cards”, which shows that the place is a favourite of people from companies as diverse as Harrods’, the Bank of England and Italian ‘Vogue’.

The stage is low, perhaps knee height, with mirrored backdrops and a few chairs for favoured punters. On the plus side, there are none of the topless-only “dance” routines, every act delivers the full bacon sandwich. On the other hand, they are spaced further apart, which can make it slightly tedious, but this depends on the company you keep, just as in any pub! At least some of the girls also appear at Brown’s, and generally they’re entirely acceptable, with one or two stunners randomly present (Anastasia will ensure that Pulp’s ‘Common People’ never sounds quite the same again).  It’s usually a lot less crowded  than the Big  B. On occasion the audience has been single figures, and that was before we left. You tend to find one girl on early evening, with two alternating from about 8:30.  For some reason or other, this place appears to be mostly staffed by Brazilian girls. Not that I’m complaining, as they are utterly wonderful, but the question does arise; if these are the ones that are deemed worthy of exporti, what are the ones they keep in Brazil like?

Continuing our descent down the quality scale, we come to the Flying Scotsman, which is conveniently located two minutes walk from King’s Cross — though maybe the best way to describe its location to TC readers is to reveal that it’s virtually opposite the legendary Scala!

This place is the McDonald’s of stripping: fast, cheap, and with the quality you’d expect at the price (I mean, have you tried those 49p hamburgers? Does anyone know what they taste of? It certainly isn’t ham — or indeed any animal native to this planet). Perfect for a half-an-hour visit while waiting for your train home, but not the sort of place you’d want to spend an entire evening. It would in any case be damn expensive — not because this is a clip joint, but just down to the sheer pace of the action. At the Nelson, it’s maybe one girl in 15-20 minutes. In the Flying Scotsman, you’ll see four or more in that time, which of course means the same number of pint jugs circulating, though 50p is acceptable here when it would get you a Hard Stare at Brown’s (and not a hard anything else). You leave, feeling like a horse that’s just been lowered into the Amazon.

These little piranhas obviously rate a little lower on the lust scale: you won’t find many supermodels in this venue, but if you like the slightly sleazy type — tattoos and piercing are common — you’ll have no complaints. With its sawdust on the floor, and generally questionable location, it’s not for the faint-hearted (while I may have criticised the Nelson for its toilets, the ones in the Scotsman simply defy description — I’m sure they inspired ‘Trainspotting’), but the clientele is varied enough: dodgy blokes with mobile phones and half of South Africa’s annual gold output round their neck, mix with suited commuters. Amazing what a common interest will do, though for the former group of customers, it’s more likely a financial interest in the girls than an aesthetic one!

And then there’s the Nag’s Head, at Aldgate East — coincidentally, near KVJ Fairdeal, probably the cheapest place in Britain to buy video tapes. Not technically as sordid as the Flying Scotsman, it could probably stand accused of “moral turpitude”, since the audience there consists almost solely of  people pretending to read newspapers. Between acts, with none of the buzz of conversation you find in a normal pub — or even in the ones reviewed previously — the atmosphere is that of a public library. Gentlemen sit at rows of tables, studiously ignoring each other, pretending to be there for a quiet pint, nothing to do with the imminent spreadeagled pussy, good heavens, no. The stage is hardly six foot square, and the girls deserve better, as they have included some of the best seen. However, the morgue-like atmosphere means this is only really interesting as an example of how sad things can get. It does have a place in my heart, as it was the first I ever found, but after discovering Brown’s, you, like I, will probably be less keen to return. Not even a ‘News of the World’ expose could save this place….

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Right at the other end of the spectrum is Metropolis, at the opposite end of Hackney Road to Brown’s. This place seems to have been custom built as an exotic dancing venue. with a circular, central stage upon which there are two vertical poles for feats of gymnastic excellence. There’s a little roped-off area where the dancers relax between sets, and video monitors scattered around which show soft-porn at these times. They switch to showing the dancers themselves when they’re performing, which is very convenient, as the odds favour a basketball player standing in front of you.

Or maybe it just seems that way, the ‘seeing’ is perhaps the worst in all of these places, thanks to the low stage, the flashing disco lights, and the gushes of dry ice sprayed in at intervals, all of which combine to make a pair of sniper’s night-sight goggles almost an essential. Personally, I find there to be something far sleazier about staring down at a girl with no clothes on, rather than gazing up at her. There’s perhaps a psychological reason for this, some kind of pedestal effect, but it is part of the reason why I don’t rate Metropolis as highly as many of my colleagues; it’s just a bit too artificial, glossy and superficial. However, I certainly can’t argue that the girls are of uniformly good quality.

Enough of the travelogue — a few thoughts on the logistics of these places. They all seem to operate almost entirely by word of mouth. Metropolis is the only one I’ve seen advertised anywhere, in ‘What’s On in London’, and many don’t even seem to be in the phone book, a discretion which may be related to licensing laws. Brown’s now has a little gilded sign claiming to be London’s #1 strip pub, a title which I can’t dispute, the Flying Scotsman has a hand lettered sheet in a window saying “Exotic Dancers 1-11pm”, and the Griffon (a rather disappointing Brown’s offshoot near Chancery Lane) has a notice warning people about the strippers, asking them not to enter if they’ll be offended. Chance would be a fine thing, but it’s a nice example of negative advertising, as if Tennant’s Super Strength had the slogan “Don’t drink this unless you want to get pissed”. The Lord Nelson is even more subdued, and positioned down a side-street, isn’t the sort of place you’d stumble across accidentally. Still, it seems to survive.

The girls appear to operate on circuits: you may see the same babe in the Lord Nelson and Browns, or the Nag’s Head and the Flying Scotsman, but there seems to be limited overlap. Maybe there’s promotion and relegation instead, with the best from Circuit B getting promoted to Circuit A. The turnover can be quite high, any outing is likely to spot at least one newcomer, though you will find yourself recognising, ah, faces if you return on any basis. And babes such as Jennifer are difficult to forget — not that you’d want to, anyway. My personal bête noire is Rebecca, whom at one point I was fated to see on  every strip-pub­crawl I attended. She’s not bad, but after seeing her do the same moves thirty, forty or fifty times, I get the feeling I know her better than her gynaecologist.

Another intriguing factor is the occasional presence of women in the audience, albeit inevitably accompanied by men. I personally find it a slightly disturbing exercise, possibly because while the woman on stage is acting as the focus for a great deal of lust, there is inevitably some seepage. Witness the tube journey home, when thoughts drift onto what that pretty girl opposite would look like up on stage. It also restricts the candid expression of opinion somewhat, but perhaps most importantly, the presence of “normal” woman hinders the suspension of disbelief, by reminding you that (sadly?), it’s still a world where not every girl is a sex-kitten. Reality is something best kept as far away as possible from strip-clubs.

• Flying Scotsman – Caledonian Road (King’s Cross)
• Lord Nelson – 17 Mora Street, City Road (Old Street)
• Metropolis – 234 Cambridge Heath Rd. (Beth. Green)
• Nag’s Head – 17/19 Whitechapel Road (Aldgate East)

It’s been a while since a movie has run into such a wave of consistently poor reviews as ‘Showgirls’. These things tend to be self-­perpetuating. One bad critique leads to another, and after half a dozen turn up, it’d take someone very brave — or very stupid -­- to put their head above the parapet and write something like:

‘Showgirls’ isn’t actually that bad.

There, I’ve said it. Governments have not collapsed. The Earth still rotates around the sun. And Paul Verhoeven has probably just fallen off his wife in surprise.

The problem is, a lot of reviewers seem to have totally missed the film’s point. To illustrate this, let’s take one specific review, from ’Time Out’, in which the appropriately-named Wally Hammond goes off at the deep end, starting on the wrong foot by describing it as a “sexploitation movie“. Nope. Exploitation, yes, but it can hardly be about bonking, when there is precisely one sex scene in the whole 135 minutes. Nipples abound, for sure, but it’s all incredibly casual nudity, clearly not even trying to be erotic. Now, I can understand people being peeved about this, given advertising which promised an awful lot more than the film delivered, but ‘Showgirls’ simply didn’t deserve to be an NC-17 film, banned in Ireland, and cut in Britain, I think the French got it about right: uncut, and with a ’12’ rating.

For this is unquestionably a moral tale, illustrated by the fate of the heroine’s friend Molly, who spends the whole movie gagging to meet a rock star. When she does, she is gang-raped by him and his entourage. That’s a miniature version of Nomi’s rise and fall: sometimes, when you get what you want, the price is just too high. It’s all about power, not sex.

Wally’s next complaint is that the film is “completely free of sympathetic characters“. I guess he hasn’t been paying attention to Verhoeven’s career, or he’d have realised that the director of ‘Basic Instinct’, ‘Flesh + Blood’ and ‘The Fourth Man’ doesn’t exactly tend towards standard, rubber-stamped heroics beloved in Hollywood. Even in ‘Robocop’ and ‘Total Recall’, he warped things significantly from the norm. If you want a sugar-coated, fluffy-pink view of America, do not watch a Paul Verhoeven film. Hammond indeed appears not to have watched this one, judging by his inability to tell the difference between “hot-pants” and “jeans”. That kind of dumb error does lend credence to any suggestion that some reviewers wrote their pieces before, or even instead of, seeing the movie!

Sure, ‘Showgirls’ is tacky and sleazy — with some of the most startlingly vapid dialogue I’ve ever heard. But it’s about Las Vegas, f’heaven’s sake, possibly the leading place in our Solar System as far as tack, sleaze and vapidity goes. Whaddya you expect, Noel Coward? That even discounts the irony obviously present behind comments like “if you want to last longer than a week, you give me a blowjob”, which went well over the heads of many writers. Bearing this in mind, there was hardly a false note in the movie. Every incident on its own was eminently plausible, all ‘Showgirls’ does is condense them in time & space, standard TV soap technique.

Wally bemoans: “the ample opportunities for camp excess are stringently avoided“. But if he’d take the whole movie as an exercise in serious, rather than camp, excess — after all, Verhoeven is probably the least “camp” director in Hollywood — he would probably have had a far better time. Note that I mean serious, and not serious. Taken on that level, it’s two hours of solidly melodramatic entertainment, like a Busby Berkeley musical with tits. With MGM one of the co-producers, Verhoeven is undoubtedly aware of the historical precedents.

Certainly,  Eszterhas’s script is not worth the alleged $3m+ fee, being little more than a tarted up Harold Robbins novel. And while we’re complaining, it’s at least half an hour and two minor characters too long, the Princ…er, Mr.Symbol songs grate horribly, and I don’t know where the $40m budget went. But the director plays with the audience more than it seems at first sight; even in something as carnal as the lap-dance sequence, there are interesting questions raised about precisely who’s screwing who. I do think history will be kind to it, and it will be better remembered than, say,  Oscar-nominated movies about talking livestock. Already, it’s done a lot better on video than at the cinema, which isn’t too surprising since it’s hardly a date movie, is it?

Here’s one final quote, from ‘What’s On in London’:

“An impressive, wide-ranging cast in what is, at twisted heart, a decadent morality…not one of the characters commands our sympathy or affection …Betrayal, double-dealing, alarms and skirmishes follow each other in florid succession against suitably impressive – yet crumbling backgrounds.”

Oh, this didn’t relate to ‘Showgirls’, but to ‘Flesh and Blood’, Verhoeven’s 1985 period piece. Despite being set several hundred years and the odd continent apart, the two movies seem to have generated similar critical reaction, and met with equal financial failure, ‘Flesh and Blood’ being described as “Too politically incorrect and morally dark for the American market“. And there are distinct parallels with ‘Keetje Tippel’, another decade further back, in which Paul Verhoeven previously told the story of a young girl trying to make her fortune in the city (see TC16/17). Although in that movie, the heroine never looks back once she sets out on her career path, it is definitely a pointer towards ‘Showgirls’.

One note for optimism is that he bounced back after ‘Flesh and Blood’ with ‘Robocop’. It’ll be interesting to see what he makes of ‘Starship Troopers’, the Heinlein adaptation which is his next project. It’d certainly be a shame if one of the few true maverick directors in Hollywood was driven out because of misconceived and ill-considered reviews.

Smuggler Morteza Farakesh was convicted of possessing $2m worth of morphine during a layover at Kennedy Airport. According to the prosecutor Farakesh was on his way to California and could have picked a less Customs-intense airport but chose to make his connection there in order to take advantage of an Alitalia super-saver fare. [New York Daily News, 26-5-95]

At a September hearing for Charles Hocq, accused of battery in Springfield, Illinois, Judge Roger Holmes asked Hocq the standard questions to determine how much his bail should be (e.g., do you have any family in the community?). Hocq said he didn’t understand the question. Holmes then asked the direct question: “If I made the bail amount lower, would you flee the area and not come back for trial?“ According to the Springfield Journal, Hocq replied, “I would.” Holmes then doubled the proposed bail, to $250,000. [Springfield Journal, 22-9-95]

Johnny Lee Nichols, 25, was arrested in Rogers, Arkansas, and accused of knocking on doors of several homes around 3 a.m. and asking if anyone was interested in exchanging drugs or sex for some dynamite he had in his car. [Northwest Arkansas Times-AP, 10-8-95]

Police in Ft. Worth, Texas arrested a man just after he robbed a Nations Bank branch. Cops were waiting because a bank customer had walked next door to police headquarters to summon them after becoming suspicious that a man was waiting in a bank line wearing a ski mask. [St. Petersburg Times, 14-12-95]

Juan Morales, 18, and Juan Mendoza, 18, were arrested as they robbed a Coastal Mart convenience store in Weslaco, Texas. Police had been tipped off to the crime because the cashier on duty the day before reported that the two men had threatened to “come back and rob you” the next day. [Valley Morning Star, 30-11-95]

Pittsburgh – MacArthur Wheeler, 46, received 24 years in prison, a conviction made possible by clear photography from the bank’s surveillance video. Wheeler and his partner did not wear masks, and in fact were not concerned about the camera at all, because they had rubbed lemon juice over their faces beforehand believing this would blur their images. [USA Today, 8-1-96]

Dallas, Texas – an 18-year-old dockworker at Roadway Express was arrested at a local Western Union and charged with forgery after improperly trying to cash a check made out to his employer. The man produced a photo ID that gave his name as Mr. “Roadway V. Express.”  After questioning him, the Western Union manager said, “Okay, Mr. Express, I’ll be right back [with the money],” but went into another room and called police. [Houston Chronicle, 31-3-96]

Little Rock, Arkansas – Donterio Beasley, 19, called a police station to say that he was stranded and needed a ride downtown, but the dispatcher told him that was against policy. A few minutes later, Beasley called back to report a suspicious person loitering around a phone booth and gave a description of himself, believing that police would come, give him a ride downtown for questioning, then release him. He was charged with making a false alarm. [Dallas Morning News-AP, 7-8-95]