An English Strippers guide to Lapdancing Clubs to visit during the 2012 London Olympics

After a day of watching gorgeous honed athletic bodies in lycra why quit?

London is hosting the Olympics this year and has sold 10.8 million tickets to the various Olympic and Paralympic events.

That's a lot of people in London who want to be entertained!

Luckily the city of London has a rich seam of entertainment for tourists to mine, including lap dancing clubs.  The first stripclub in London was the Windmill which opened in the 1930s, although nude girls had to stand completely still in tableau form.  Luckily attitudes have changed since then and gentleman's establishments are now fully nude, with alcohol, and are available to the discerning male or female viewer.  Many also offer food, live stage shows, and the option to buy dance tokens discreetly using your credit or debit cards.  The average price of a dance is £20 per song, the price of VIP varies from £100 to £500 an hour, and some clubs are free, others charge an entrance of up to £20 per person.  If you click on my links below you will be directed to the club's own site and many offer the option to print discount entry vouchers.

If you are visting London for the Olympics I would definitely recommend putting a stripclub visit on your Olympic itinerary.  Here are my top 10 stripclubs to visit during the Olympics 2012.

West End

In the heart of bustling Leicester Square, famous for film premieres and casinos, is the relatively new-comer, Platinum Lace.  Run by the former boss of Spearmint Rhino, it has quickly established a reputation for being able to host glitzy parties and has won serveral industry awards.  It is open from 3pm till 6am every day of the week, (although it shuts at 3am on Sundays)  It has several stages, more women than you could shake a stick at and a separate VIP lounge for large parties.  They will probably be showing some Olympic athletic sport on a big screen for special heats.

The most famous gentleman's club in the West End is undoubtedly Stringfellows - it is run by Peter Stringfellow who has become a celebrity in his own right and is famous for having both a high calibre of girls and clientèle.  It is based in historic Covent Garden, is open till 4:30, although rumour has it that they have an extended licence till 6am for the Olympic summer season, and has a top notch restaurant serving an excellent steak.  However, it is a classy and sophsticated club based on VIP dance packages so smart dress and money to burn are essential.

The original striptease establishment, the Windmill, is based in Soho.  It has a fantastic double height pole on its stage and is open till 5:30am.

Up the road is the infamous Spearmint Rhino, a global chain of decadence which has outposts in the USA and Australia.  It is packed to the rafters with hot women and throws some excellent shows on the weekend, with fire and burlesque dancers adding some excitement.  It seems to be the club which keeps on giving, as it has special drink offers throughout the week and long opening hours from midday till 4am, although on the weekends it opens at 6pm.

With several branches across London, Secrets is definitely good to know.  They even have a branch opposite Euston, so if your train at Euston or nearby Kings Cross/St Pancras is delayed, you know where to wait.  I wager that the transport and traffic in London will not be running 100% smoothly during the London Olympics, so a few dances in the company of beautiful women from all over the world should help ease the annoyance.

East London

The Olympic village itself is based in Stratford, East London, and there are plenty of establishments to choose from.

The biggest is For Your Eyes Only, which has a whopping 40 VIP and champagne lounges, so no matter how many people come to visit, there will always be room for you.  Like Secrets, they are based in the city - London's equivalent of Wall Street.

Can't be bothered to go far? Majingo's - no, I don't know what the name stands for either - is based in the Dockland's, so is a mere mile as the crow flies from the stadium itself.  It's open from 6 till 3.

For those that prefer the traditional route, the East End has a long and fine tradition of 'pound in the pint glass' strip pubs - YES PUBS!  Try Brown's or The Griffin Here you simply sit down on a bar stool, nursing some brown ale in nice cold glass, and watch the excellent stage shows, before tipping the dancer a minimum of a pound afterwards (more if she's rocking the pole).  The dancer's will circulate around the club with a pint glass collecting coins and notes after their stage set, and may also offer private dances for the customary score (£20).  Also in Shoreditch is The White Horse which is open till midnight, 1am on weekends, and has free entry. All three strip pubs mentioned also have big TV screens so you won't miss any sporting highlights.....

Last but certainly not least, Metropolis has three floors with some really unique dance areas including a beach, a car wash and a sultan's harem.  I'm not kidding.

I hope that you find my guide to lapdancing bars and stripclubs to visit during the Olympics useful, although remember I am more used to being a lapdancer than a punter! I'd really love to hear from anybody who visits/works at these clubs whilst visiting London for the Olympics, so please leave your thoughts in the comments box.  Let's get it going for gold!

This article was originally published on my new site http://www.londonlapdancer.com/

Please visit for even more resources on lapdancing in London and all over the world!

Review of 'Stripped; A Life of Strip & Tease in Clubland' by Samantha Bailey

A memoir that runs the full life cycle of lapdancing.  Samantha Bailey began as a champagne hostess and lapdancer in Denmark when she was only a sweetfaced 17 year old from Essex, then returned to the UK and worked in a succession of lapdancing clubs, first as a stripper, then as a house mum.  Unfortunately for the gossip mongerers she doesn't explicitly name any clubs other than Stringfellows, but I reckon I can recognise a few of the places - and people - she mentions.  Keeping my lips sealed for now tho! 

Seeing as we both write about the same territory, I was suprised to see that the experiences which stick out in my mind are completely different.  She talks about money and gangsters on almost every page, which could make some readers lose sympathy for the protagonist.  You see her naievity in the industry gradually dissapate, and replaced by a steely determination to get on top of her game.  However, over the ten year period, the game is changing - more clubs are opening up, stealing business, and a new breed of stripper, who will do anything for money, from dirty dancing to prostitution, emerge.  At first Sam combats this ill tide by switching clubs, but she feels that she cannot cope as the guareenteed money begins to dry up.  And Jesus, did this girl earn some money!!! She had a flotilla of regulars, guareenteeing several grand a week, and commission was so low in the beginning that it was practically non-existent.  Eventually though, the commission and house fees begin to increase, as the clubs realised that they can make money off the dancers as well as the customers.  She thinks she has a fresh start when she becomes a housemother, but the club, codenamed 'Liberty Steel', is taken over by a bunch of Americans who sound like a mealy-mouthed, hard-nosed contingent who make her life difficult.  She eventually quits in glorious fashion, presumably to go off and write this tell-all memoir - Stripped: A Life of Strip and Tease in Clubland

My favourite chapter explored the different types of customers; 'The Virgin', 'Mr Trapped', and hilariously 'The Homosocials'.  All in all, she divided the guys into six different personality and spending types, (see my stripclub stereotypes series for more in a similar vein), and I felt that she summed up the men really well. The Homosocials are described as men who come into impress other men ie: their clients. Or as she brilliantly puts it "It's a bizarre variation of the 'see how big my dick is' contest that men play all the time."

Stripped: A Life of Strip and Tease in Clubland
has only just come out last week, and it's doing really well in the charts, so I encourage you to click on the link and grab a copy before they all sell out.  Perfect holiday reading for when summer arrives!

No confidence today as sex-industry women do it better....

I've been having a low day, a bad Friday.  Nothing in paticular has happened, I just feel awful.  I laid in bed and read a book or two, but the words just seem to wash over me.  I'm working tonight, and guess that I am going to have to buck up and get my head out of the sand.  I can't say that I am paticuarly looking forward to it, but I also know from experience that once I get into the club my smile will switch on and I will become a happy, flirty little automaton.
Working nights can be fun, hilarious even, and gives you the day to yourself.  I'm free to do whatever I want.  But sometimes those long hours seem to stretch out.  You wake up in your empty bed, sometimes in the morning, more usually around lunchtime, occassionally in the afternoon. You stare at the ceiling, perhaps open the curtains, look at the weather outside.  You know that there is no reason to venture outside the house right away, so you putter downstairs and make yourself a cup of tea.  Wipe smears of encrusted eyelash glue and sleepy eye from your puffy lids, and think about what you are going to have for breakfast.  Pick my nose. Scratch your bum.  Look at any fresh blisters on your toes and press them against the cold linoleum.  Then you check how many hours you have till your shift that evening and wonder what you are going to do with all that time.
If I'm feeling sprightly, I might go for a jog.  Hit the gym.  Do a few cat-like stretches and some yoga in the living room.
If I'm feeling numb and bored, I'll just slump back to bed.  Read a book. Open up the papers.  Jump on Twitter and see what the rest of the world is doing. Log on facebook.
Someone sent me a message today, that a new book on stripping was out.  I looked on Amazon.  There it was. A memoir of lapdancing in London.  "Stripped; A Life of Strip and Tease in Clubland" by Samantha Bailey. I recognised the author.  She looked happy and smiling in her promotional photo.  I felt a pang of jealousy, followed by a huge feeling of inadequacy.  Why wasn't it me in print? I've been faffing around with a novel for the best part of two years now, starting and stopping, changing the format. I started work on a memoir, but that seemed dull and formulaic, so I began on a novel.  A girl at university that becomes a stripper in London.  But that didn't seem to work, not properly, so I began again - condensing time, trying to fit an average night, an unusual week, the run-up to Christmas, into 20 chapters. I'm still fiddling, but the fiddling is going well. I feel like I am actually getting somewhere. Perhaps eventually I will see the publication of another girls memoirs as something exciting, and inspirational.  It certainly bodes well if there is a publishing precedent. 
I googled around a bit more, to see what other women in the sex industry were publishing.  Most interesting was Lorelei Lee, who has screenwritten a movie called 'Cherry', starrring the ridiculously gorgeous and talanted James Franco.  I felt a pang of jealousy at this too.  Here was a porn star whose writing prowess had landed her the opportunity to work with Hollywood's hottest talent.  The movie is still in post-production, and is on my must-see wish list.
Then there are the big-hitters - Diablo Cody, another stripper, this time American, who wrote the screenplay for Juno following the success of her stripping memoirs 'Candy Girl'.  Another girl who made it to Hollywood.  Belle de Jour, or Dr. Brooke Magnanti, is another British sex-industry worker done good, who is on her 3rd or 4th book already and had ITV turn her vice-girl memoirs into an awesome TV series.  Starring Billie Piper.  I remember Billie from when I was growing up, she was a teeny bopper pop music firehouse who was around my age and had grown up in London.  We were all jealous at my school and longed, secretly, that we were also prancing around with a record contract and the catchphrase 'coz we want too'!
I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that aspiring to be like others who have had success in a field similar to yours is a good thing.  But it is still dispiriting sometimes, especially when you wake up with bruised toes, in a hot bedroom, alone, with nothing but a few cups of tea and a computer screen to fill up the hours of a grey London day.  Sometimes I can't wait for dusk to fall.....

Fantasies of a stripper

My imagination has taken to wandering after three days of being locked up inside my house whilst the violence rages on outside on the streets of London.  Denied the ability to work, fantasies of being a stripper fill my mind.  Well, I am one already, so really it's the fantasies of a stripper - lapdancing fantasies that have already happened, that I want to happen, how I wished they had happened.  I've danced for years, so have a lot, some are cookie-cutter fantasy, some are strange and esoteric, but I'll list a few of my favourite stripping fantasies;

• Giving Johnny Knoxville a lapdance whilst wearing his cowboy hat - it felt so rock and roll.
• Giving a sci-fi actor a lapdance - I can't remember whether it was Star Trek or Star Gate but our eyes locked throughout and we had a connection that was out of this world!
• Doing tequila shots with my Pammy lookalike friend Grace in a dingy little Tokyo bar after work in the Roppongi district. She had nipples like pistons, and would wipe a slice of lime on one big, pneumatic nipple, sprinkle salt on the other, then balance the shot glass inbetween her ginormous surgically enhanced tits and approach my face with her ample creamy cleavage.  I was in tequila heaven. Yum.
• Several VIP moments with several hot hot HOT girls - it's a shame that I'm not in contact with so many of these wonderful women any more, but thats the nature of the stripping industry beast - we move on and disappear.  If I ever have trouble getting off, its these lesbian twosomes and threesomes (with the guy customer watching with a massive grin on his face) that I remember.  
• Dancing for a dwarf.  This hasn't happened yet, and it's pissing me off.  It's number one in my stripping 'To-Do' checklist - if there is a dwarf in my club, which seems to happen on an annual basis, I'll make a beeline for him as soon as possible. But I miss every motherfucking time! I've danced for guys half paralysed in wheelchairs, a blind man (that was really fun - I had to dirtytalk a lot), plenty of hobbling broken legs, carefully shimmied round broken arms, I've had stroke victims, Downs syndrome - the lot.  But not a dwarf - although I did dance for a guy who had no hands and his legs amputated at the knee, so I've danced for someone of similar height.  (As a disclaimer, I'm not doing this because I feel sorry for them.  They are in the club to party with beautiful women, and I am happy to provide that service.  If I've given him something for his wank-bank, all the better! However, to keep me inspired, I do have a 'To-Do' checklist of bizarre stripper-related aspirations) 
• Getting rained on.  This is an American term which means that a guy stands at the tipping rail (side of stage) and throws notes on a stripper whilst she dances - but throws so many that it looks like rain.  I've had it happen to me with fivers in London a few times, single dollar bills plenty of times, but the best was by a music producer who rained on me with $100 & $20 bills when I was dancing abroad.  Wow. My garter was certainly packing that night, I tell ya!
• Getting praised by the management for doing a good job.  This NEVER fucking happens, as even if the burly blokes do give you a compliment, it's always followed by a sarcastic rebuff/insult.     ie: ME; "I did really well tonight, here's a tip for you"  BOSS; "Thanks, I knew you would do well tonight in that outfit, it looks good on you. Makes you look like a right slag."
• I'd love to give a rockstar a lapdance.
• Ditto a pornstar - male or female, or a burlesque star.  Might be a bit intimidating, deffo lotsa fun.
• I'd love to work in Vegas. It's like the stripper Mecca.  I've been, and loved it, and wish I could click me heels and go to where the sun always shines, the high rollers are always rolling in, and the lights are bright.  I'm sure they would love me over there - in my fantasies all these American guys go "Jeez, I lurve ur pritty inglish accent, lets go to V.I.P right now" and shower me with casino winnings. Sigh. Unfortunately, as I don't have a USA visa, Vegas business licence or sheriff's card, it ain't gonna happen, as the clubs in Vegas are SUPER strict on hiring. Meh.

Well, there are my favourite stripping fantasies right there. If I remember any more naughty times, or simply think of another lapdancing fantasy I'll let you guys know.  Especially as it's great fun to sit in the sun and fantasise about strippers, punters and stripclubs that I've met. 

Ciao! 

London Riots - Bad news for London strippers!

I'm flabbergasted to note that this is my umpteenth post about riots and protests in London.  It seems that every other month there is a protest - the Slut Walk was a very positive empowering experience for me, the student protests in the West End were not as they shut down half the neighbourhood and turned it into a quiet night at work.
But this weekend we saw the start of riots across London. The full shocking extent can be found on this map here  but basically they started in Tottenham, North London, and further riots sprang up in several places, including Brixton and Oxford Circus.

I woke up hungover and at home today, looking forward to starting the working week with a nice, slow Monday night shift at the club.  But once again I'm apprehensive as;
a) nobody is going to visit a stripclub when riots happened across London yesterday.
b) especially when the riots included Oxford Circus and the West End.
c) getting a taxi home after work will be a nightmare.

I thought that I would take me mind off my hangover and the worrying events by taking a walk in the park, but the first thing I saw was this

The only reason why you would EVER find an empty box in a park for chrissakes for a top of the range 42" Plasma TV is because last night this happened;

(from the West Londoner blog, thanks)

I'm glad to say that I still enjoyed the walk in the park, but will just have to eat beans on toast until it calms down and people start partying in London again, as it's a gamble otherwise.  As a lapdancer, I have to pay a 'house fee' every night I work there, so if it's a quiet night, I may not make my money back.  I lose out twofold, my time and my money.  Riots in London are bad news for strippers as the club will be deserted, still at least its not happening during the busy Christmas season...