A First

Life is all about first times. Your first kiss. Your first great beer. (For me they we were the other way around). I had an admittedly rather odd first today. I took photos of a pub that I won't publish on the web.

Why? I'll explain. I have kids. They never look at my website, because kids wouldn't, would they? But if they by any weird chance did, there are some things I wouldn't want them to stumble across (like the contents of my wardrobe - clothes no-one with a fixed address would wear). A Kama Sutra bar back is a bridge too far for me, as a parent. But don't let my bourgeois hangups hold you back. Ogle away.

It's a shame, because Diva's is a cracking pub with some wonderful - if risque - artwork. All the better because I chanced upon it totally by accident. I was following the shortest route from Maasstraat to Stalinlaan and suddenly, there it was. A hippy pub. Just what I'd been looking for.

I've always claimed the photograph in my first passport was a fake, but now I confess - it's true: I did used to be a . . . hippy. Or pretended, very badly, to be one. Punk gave me a good excuse to make a radical break with my hirsute past. I would provide photographic evidence, but, true to my Stalinist beliefs, I eschew personal idolatry.

As usual, I digress. I would ramble further on but I'm trying to prove a point about Mongolian mounted archers to my son. That I lack time to wander aimlessly around the wasteland of unfinished metaphors on this blog, highlights the deficencies of my tactics. Alexander the Great I am not. I was aiming to be Genghis Kahn, but I've ended up Frank Spencer. Oh er, Betty.

Back to Diva's They sell Chouffe at a pretty decent price. Quite friendly, too. Oh and the gents are a scream, with the dartboard target in the urinal - I got all bullseyes, honest.

Thank you serendipity.

I used to live this way. Never used to drink in any of the pubs, mind. My loss.

Diva's
Waalstraat 48,
Amsterdam.
tel: 020 - 662 70 56
http://www.move.to/diva/

Opening times: Mon -Sat 11:00 - 01:00, Sun 13:00 - 01:00