Current mood: A clubbing guide to...
Category: A clubbing guide to... News and Politics
'The Millionaire Club introduced me to another very different clientele. They were a mixture of Jews, Iranian, Lebanese and Turks. The Middle eastern crowd were mainly students at the engineering college in Manchester. They weren't your archetypal impecunious undergraduates; they were sons of oil sheiks and rich businessmen. At the other extreme was the rich Jewish set, who were dominated by incredibly powerful ladies. In mt typically Libran way, I loved both communities, and became friends with them all. I wasn't aware of any racial tension until one of the Jewish group called me over one night and told me I was letting in too many Iranian. I said, 'Where are they? I don't know what you mean.' He pointed to a group of good looking guys sitting in a corner. Up until then I'd thought they were French. To me, they were just smart, sophisticated young men with a slight accent. I'd never encountered racism before I went to Manchester. the closest I'd got to tribal tension was the rivalry between the miners and the steelworkers back in Sheffield.
The nationality of my customers was immaterial to me. I'd never seen spending power like it. I became surrounded by people who had money to burn - when they weren't drinking it away in champagne, that is. One week I'd be invited to an Israeli Independence Day party by my Jewish friends and the next I'd be having dinner with Amer Medani, a relation of the Saudi royal family, whose father owned a big construction company in Manchester. Amer and his brother, Imad, were both honorary princes and incredibly generous people. In Manchester my affection for middle eastern people developed. In my experience, they are generous to a fult and have imecable manners.
Of course, this view wasn't shared by everyone at the Millionaire, and I began to notice a strain building up between the Jewish set and the Middle Eastern crowd. Not only that, there was political tension between different Middle eastern factions. One evening a group of them started telling me about the impending revolution in Iran. The struggles in the Middle east had not become headline news around the world in the late 1970's so I'd no idea what they were talking about. Not long afterwards a few cars belonging to one group were vandalised by extremist students. There was nothing I could do about fighting in the Middle East, but I did try my best to create racial harmony in Manchester. I decided to have special nights for each of the different countries. I knew I couldn't start off with an Israeli night, because this would upset the Iranians, and vice versa, I decided to introduce the idea slowly and to start off with a Gypsy night. There was a small problem in that I didn't know any Gypsies, except for a car dealer called Tom Hartley. He was a multi -millionaire because he only ever dealt in top of the range cars, like Rolls-Royces and Ferraris. Despite his wealth, he was proud that he came from a Gypsy background. Tom was our token Gypsy and king for a night. I booked a Gypsy dancing team and we had a fabulous evening.
The next 'theme' night was for the French, even though once again I didn't know any French people. We had traditional French music, which went down well. Now it was time for the serious stuff. When I organised our first Israeli night, the whole of the Middle eastern lot turned up. I got the turks, Lebanese, Iranians and Jews all dancing to 'Hava Naglia' by thee Spotnicks. From where I was standing on the decks, it looked like the United Nations. When it came to Turkish night, the Turks had to outdo the Israelis. They ordered sheep's heads for the restaurant; the Iranians followed this by ordering a whole sheep with couscous. The only failure was English night. I booked some good morris dancers, but the club was half empty and nobody liked them.'
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