This article is an opinion piece that reminisces about the vibrant club culture in London during the 1990s, arguing it was better than today's scene due to its spontaneity and freedom from social media distractions. The author describes a weekly rotation of clubs with no concern for health trends or routines prevalent now, highlighting activities like frequent drinking, smoking, and dancing without modern-day anxieties about wellness.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-10,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
‘We danced every night and hydrated with vodka’: Why 1990s London club culture was better than today’s
Like every 20-year-old in the 1990s, my schedule was as predictable as it was immutable — I went to a different club every night of the week.
asserted
I → dance → week
Sundays were not so much sacrosanct as a thrillingly vacant possibility which meant if there was a sudden secret pop-up somewhere, off I ran.
asserted
I → mean → possibility
The fact I had a regular job (I worked on the dealing floor of a Japanese investment bank in the City with a daily 7.30am sharp start time) rarely encroached on my vastly more rewarding nightly activities.
asserted
I → work → activities
Oddly, I never thought of myself as a clubber.
asserted
I → think → clubber
None of us did — it was simply part of the collective tapestry that dictated our lives.
asserted
that → do → lives
The idea that anyone would sit at home watching hours of TV feels so hilariously puzzling it wasn’t even a consideration.
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it → sit → TV
That was what losers did.
asserted
losers → do → what
To understand the lifestyle I’ve just described, you need to see it in the context of what London was like in the 1990s: a magnetic cauldron of energy and experimentation, of label-free individualism and freedom, a place imbued with the thrill of never knowing where or with whom you might end up.
uncertain
you → understand → whom
Since time immemorial people of a certain age have harped on about how much better the good old days were.
asserted
days → harp → age
My weekly club diary read like this: Mondays: 151; Tuesdays: Crazy Larry’s or the Ministry of Sound; Wednesdays: Café de Paris or Subterania; Thursdays: Tramp, only Tramp; Fridays: L’Equipe Anglaise, Iceni or Titanic; Saturdays: Browns or Chinawhite.
asserted
diary → read → Sound
For clarity, the nights where an “or” is mentioned meant attendance at all venues listed.
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or → mention → venues
We gorged on Big Macs and KFC dippers, we hydrated with vodka, we chain-smoked Marlboro Reds
How the hell did we survive, because by today’s standards we were en route to armageddon: we gorged on Big Macs and KFC dippers, we hydrated with vodka, we chain-smoked Marlboro Reds, we might have occasionally taken Scarface-amounts of drugs, we hardly slept and we never exercised.
uncertain
we → gorge → drugs
I say that but we danced every night.
asserted
we → say → that
We were ecstatically happy, injected with something more elemental than narcotics — a lust for life, an enjoyment of the moment, of the possibilities, of the encounters.
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We → inject → encounters
I realise I am massively romanticising those years
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I → realise → years
I apologise to those reading this who were taken down by any of the above.
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who → apologise → above
Sadly, I know a few who were.
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who → know → few
The point I am trying to make is there were no distractions, no hours spent lying forlornly in bed on our own scrolling through a phone.
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I → try → phone
Curiosity — not dictated or tainted by social media algorithms but instead born from instinct, word of mouth and happenstance — is what drove us.
asserted
what → dictate → us
I met a panoply of human curiosities on my club adventures: artists, designers, footballers, musicians, princes (yes, that one), actors, chefs, drug dealers, seedy club promoters, dumbstruck blazer-wearing sons of multi-millionaire Greek shipping magnates, as well as hilariously pompous Italian, French and German aristocrats (all investment bankers), flower stall sellers, It Girls (the late, great Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, below) and nepo babies before they had a name.
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they → meet → name
Memorable moments include the night
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moments → include → night
*** INXS frontman Michael Hutchence pushed me and a friend to the floor as he dived to punch a Danish man he thought was flirting with his on-off girlfriend Helena Christensen.
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he → push → girlfriend
He later sent the Dane some flowers to apologise.
asserted
He → send → flowers
On another night, this time at Iceni just off Piccadilly, a friend and I caught sight of Brad Pitt, his long blond hair cascading over his shoulders (he was filming Interview with the Vampire at the time), as he leant against a wall observing the crowd on his own.
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he → catch → own
We invited him to a pretend party we were supposedly throwing the following night — my friend, who worked at Vogue, scrawled her address on the back of her business card and handed it to him.
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who → invite → him
Of course he would come, he replied.
asserted
he → come → ?
He never showed up, I say never but we were out clubbing, so who knows.
asserted
who → show → ?
Mind you we all were, so recollections may vary.
uncertain
recollections → mind → you
We were committed to the moment, not lost in it
But mostly I met people who became friends.
asserted
who → commit → people
Today, we endlessly discuss how sorry we feel for our children living in this strange world, while sentimentally regaling them with our stories (minus the Scarface moments).
asserted
we → discuss → moments
Somehow their friend and romantic-possibility pool feels so much more restricted than ours was for several reasons, the most glaring of which is the lack of random but nearly always joyful encounters that clubs afforded us back then.
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clubs → feel → us
I bore my daughter rigid about how all it took was picking up our landlines, ringing friends, making plans and sticking to them.
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it → bear → them
We were committed to the moment, I tell her, not lost in it.
asserted
I → commit → it
The Aporia
