REMEMBER THE DAYS WHEN WAITERS DIDN'T LEAVE YOUR FOOD TO GO COLD ON THE BAR?

Yes, it was a hot day. Yes, I was in need of a drink. But it wasn’t so hot and I wasn’t so much in need of a drink that I should be halucinating. This was Soho, not the Gobi Desert. You don’t see mirages in Dean Street. Or at least you don’t any more.

In the days when Soho was a place where a young man might lose his mind and an old man his fortune, the most lurid phantasms of enchantment were commonplace. You didn’t even need to climb up a rickety staircase to find the room where a naked red light burned. Apparitions of beauty and seduction awaited you at every corner. A spare five minutes and ten shillings in loose change were all you needed to be transported where you’d always dreamed of going. Make that five pounds and you might never return. Then the burghers cleaned up Soho and now there are only chocolate and cake shops in which to blow your inheritance. Where Lola had her club, a store selling skateboards now stands. Where there was once a peep-show you didn’t dare be seen entering, you can now buy t-shirts and trainers. How disappointed in their children the modern parent must be.

I was not in Soho to search out infernal pleasures of the old sort. An empty table at which I might rest my legs, order a chilled bottle of Viognier, and maybe snooze a bit was all I was after. And then I saw him - more distinct than any mirage - a wing-heeled. wild-haired waiter I had no memory of having summoned, running towards me with a bottle of champagne on a silver tray. I didn’t fancy champagne in the middle of the afternoon but I wasn’t going to argue. I wasn’t even prepared to complain that he had forgotten the nuts and olives I always order with a drink. It was more than enough that he was running to serve me, not allowing the champagne to get warm. Just don’t fall over, I thought. Not before you’ve delivered me my wine.

I raised my arm so that he should see me. The fact that I couldn’t recall ordering anything from him didn’t bother me overmuch. Soho has a long history of intuiting cravings. In Soho, longing alone is often prelude to satisfaction. But I didn’t want him confusing my unspoken desires with someone else’s.

‘Here, waiter,’ I cried.

But he didn’t look as though he intended to stop.

‘Me. Mine,’ I shouted, half rising from the table, but he didn’t look at me or reduce his pace.

Ten seconds later, another waiter carrying champagne on a silver tray came hurtling past. Then another. And then a dozen more.

‘They must have someone pretty important to attend to,’ I said to a person at a nearby table. ‘I’m envious.’

He laughed and then checked himself. ‘You do know it’s race,’ he said.

‘A race to what? A race to where?’

‘Just a race. Around the block. Up Dean, across Soho Square and back. It’s an annual event. People travel from all over the world to see it. The Soho Waiters’ Race.’

‘So no one ordered that champagne? What a waste.’

He shook his head. ‘Most of the bottles get broken anyway,’ he told me. ‘The cats love it. But if you dash over to the finishing line you might just catch some of the spray.’

So that was what I did. And there, faint with exhaustion, heat and thirst, I waited with my mouth open as first the winner and then the other competitors shook the bottles like Formula 1 drivers and popped their corks until droplets of fizzing champagne fell down like stars from a reeling sky.

Anyone watching would have seen a mad man, gulping air and alcohol as though life had no further food or drink to offer. I choked, I spluttered, I pushed small children out of the way so I could gobble up the bubbles they thought were theirs.

I was wrong about Soho. If you happen to be in the right place at the right time, you can still live a life of degeneracy there.

popped their champagne cork and filled the air with bubbles. Anyone seeing me pushing other people aside to get