I'VE INVITED three women friends out for dinner, so We
can play Sex and the City. I don't know, do Spectator readers watch Sex and the City? I suspect not. I suspect, with Spectator readers, it's World At War or A Secret History (which, if it was that secret, wouldn't make much of a programme, would it?) or anything with Churchill in it. Right, so how best to describe Sex and the City? OK, imagine Churchill, Chamberlain, Eden and, say, Field Marshal Montgomery. Now, imagine they are women called Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha. Now, transport them to Manhattan, put them into Doke & Gabbana spiky-heeled sandals, get them to shag a lot — in between bikini waxes and cellulite-busting, marinealgae body-wraps, both of which Churchill could have done with. frankly — and there you have it. See, it wasn't that hard, was it? Still, I appreciate this is all new to you and, as such, I will do my best to reflect your more entrenched interests. Oh, look, is that a Spitfire I see out the window? Duck, everyone, duck! Phew, it was only a pigeon. Silly, silly me. Panicking everyone like that.
Anyway, I arrange for us to meet at Yo! Below, the bar beneath the restaurant Yo! Sushi in Soho. Yes, it's Japanese. Yes, I know the Japanese were beastly to us during the war and everything — I hope you're appreciating how I'm keeping up with your interests here — but I think they've rather made it up since. For example, look what a brilliant job they've done in promoting feng shui, the ancient art of not putting things where you are bound to fall over them. Where would we be without it? In a field hospital, probably, covered in bandages, while falling in love with Nurse, who is devastated when you have to go back to the front (room), and weeps and weeps, crying: 'For God's sake, darling, be careful and, this time, hang the wind-chimes where you're not going to knock yourself out on them.
Whatever, Yo! Sushi — this country's first conveyor-belt restaurant, with raw fish endlessly going round and round — is very urban, very chic, and Yo! Below is even more so. If you go down to Yo! Below you don't get the conveyor belt — it's table service — but you do get a massage. Yes, you get a massage at the table! How fab is that! How totally and deliciously and perfectly Sex and the City is that! So down I go to Yo! Below, although it's not that far down, just one flight of stairs into a basement, really. But still, I imagine it feels like it did going down into a Tube station during the Blitz, where everyone gathered stoically to sing 'My Old Man' and share Camp coffee, which was actually OK, once you got used to it poncing about with its hand on its hip and sneaking off for late-night walks on Hampstead Heath. Now, as this evening was my idea, and I'm first to arrive, I decide I'm going to be Charlotte. I like Charlotte because she has very swingy, shiny, shampoo-ad hair, and I do fancy myself with very swingy, shiny, shampoo-ad hair. 'I'm Charlotte,' I tell Clare, who is next to arrive.
'That's not fair,' she protests, 'I wanted to be Charlotte."Well, you can't,' I say, 'because I am.' Eventually, she sulkily agrees to be Carrie. Okay, Carrie's not as pretty as Charlotte, and her hair isn't nearly so swingy, and her nose is quite big, but she is a writer and, whenever she's seen in her apartment, banging away at her laptop — or just banging away, come to that — she is always wearing the most seriously gorgeous lingerie, (Now, why does she take her clothes off to type? Buggered if I know. All I can say is that I tried it once, and was immediately marched out of the office by security. I think it might have had something to do with my netball knickers. Plus Churehillian cellulite and pop-socks. One of the three, I might have got away with.) Next to arrive is Emma. Emma is furious that we've bagsied Charlotte and Carrie, but agrees to be Miranda. Lastly, it's Hilly. 'You're Samantha,' we tell her. 'Oh good,' she says. As it turns out, Hilly doesn't watch Sex and the City. Hilly doesn't know that Samantha is a hopelessly sad old slapper. 'Great. I'm Samantha,' she repeats.
'Smashing. And I'm Charlotte,' I tell her, swinging my hair. 'What are you doing?' she asks. 'Swinging my hair,' I say. 'Oh,' she says.
Sometimes it takes Hilly a while to get into the spirit of things. By the way, Clare and Emma and Hilly are Clare and Emma and Hilly. I couldn't be bothered to change their names to protect them. Frankly, what have they ever done for me? Except come round occasionally and eat all my Kettle chips and bore me to death (unmarked grave, Normandy) with their problems. So here we are then, in Yo! Below, which is very, very funky. Perhaps even too funky. For us, at least. The tables are strange sunken booths. There's a couple of buttons on the table, one for summoning the waiter, one for dispensing Kirin beer from a tap. The music is horribly loud. Honestly, it's like sitting in a kettledrum while it's being thrashed. I can hardly hear my hair swinging. Plus, on looking round, I note that everyone else seems to be about 20. And I'm just not 20 any more. I've even started to like Radio Two. Depressing, or what? We talk about many things — the advance of the Allies, crossing the Rhine, ordering more wine — but, mostly, we talk about Emma's new denim jacket from Diesel. It's still in the bag. Oh, try it on for us, Emma. Do, do. Oh, it really suits you! We agree that, yes, it was well worth all her clothing coupons.
We order. I must say, I've never been that keen on sushi. I mean, if God had wanted us to eat raw salmon, he wouldn't have invented the fish kettle, would he? However, down here, there are cooked dishes too.
There's grills and soups and noodles and stuff. I press the little button then ask the waitress to recommend four dishes we can share. We end up with salmon teriyaki, sashimi, seafood hotpot and chicken yakitori. The dishes are most reasonably priced, at between £6 and £8 a go, and very nice and pretty and everything, but not especially memorable. It all seems to have the same kind of taste and texture, apart from the chicken, which is grilled and crunchy and delicious. Our biggest complaint, though? Just not filling enough. We could have done with some chips. The trouble with Japanese food, I can now see, is that it's only truly suitable in Japan, where people do tend to be of below-average size.
Now, on to the best bit. The massage! This comes after the food, if you want it, and we all do. You can have kao (head and neck), kubi kapa (shoulders, back and neck) and te (an aromatic hand massage), at £5 a throw, which isn't bad, considering you get a good 15 minutes. I have kao. It's done at the table. You just kind of flop your head forward. My masseur's a bit bossy, though. 'Would you please stop swinging your hair!' The final bill comes to £80 (minus massage) which is good, considering that ten minutes after we'd eaten, we ordered the food all over again. Oh my God! Is that a Messerschmitt Me-110 on the horizon? It's all right. Don't worry. Just checking you are still with me. You can come out from under the table now. Unless you're Japanese, of course. In which case you probably live there.
Yo! Below, 52 Poland Street, London W.1. Open: noon to midnight, seven days a week.
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