Prohibition

30 May 2008

Transport for London (TfL) is today issuing a reminder to Londoners that alcohol will be banned from the Tube, buses, Docklands Light Railway, tram services and stations across the Capital from 1 June.

Yesterday evening as my man Jeeves was laying out the roaring twenties schmutter I needed for Wilton's immersive version of The Great Gatsby (see Icons Passim) it struck me that we're no strangers to prohibition in London since Mayor Johnson banned the sauce from the Tube, trams and buses a while back. (I should have blackballed him at the Bullingdon Club all that time ago when I had the chance.)

Channeling Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Stanislavski's "An Actor Prepares" I filled a hip flask that I was soon passing round an improvised Northern Line speakeasy carriage.

By the time I got to the venue I was so in character Daniel Day Lewis would have opened the door for me and doffed his cap.

Prodnose: You're the man with a thousand G's, right?
Myself: A thousand what?
Prodnose: Why, G-man, girls, guns, guts...
Myself:: Wrong, baby! I'm an L-man. Strictly liquor, love and laughs.