Moneypenny's: Style. Comfort. Exclusivity. Rubble

ON the flight back from Beirut the shocking band seem to have drunk themselves into silence but one of the dancers is still running on sleepless energy. And getting drunk mid-flight doesn't seem to help matters. Neither does discovering Moneypenny's tranny Roberta, who's busy flirting with Moneypenny's dancer Tina. Roberta sucks Tina's toes. Shocking band's dancer joins in, slipping off his loafers and socks to stick his foot in tranny's mouth. The rest of the aeroplane goes into shock. God knows what the hardcore Islamic contingent are thinking. Then tranny Roberta starts to simulate sex with dancer Tina. "You can't do that," screams shocking band dancer, "you're a homosexual." If you could hear a pin drop on an aeroplane...

When things get calmer I try to interview Roberta who sometimes does the door at Moneypenny's. Is that an interesting job, then? "I have such great power," coos Roberta, "saying bugger off, not tonight thank you. You're far too ugly. Go to Wobble. Uch. Vile. Trash." And do you get to travel with Moneypenny's? Is it nice doing tours? "I've been around. It's great. Go to some distant club, get treated like a star, dress-up, dance for 20 minutes, get paid and then get pissed. It's fabulous. Oh yes, I get about. Like herpes, dahling..." There must be some rule about not interviewing transvestites in an aeroplane full of men who could be on route to a Saddam Hussein lookalike contest.

WE touchdown at Heathrow about tea-time on Sunday then drive straight up to Shrewsbury for Chuff Chuff. Despite energy levels drained to ground zero in Beirut everyone is excited. Running since 1990 Chuff Chuff is Miss Moneypenny's sister club, promoted by the same team but as a one-off that prefers hotels and stately homes to mainstream club venues. It's also themed to encourage fancy dress. Not that this crowd need much encouragement to dress up. Just two weeks ago at Moneypenny's we spotted two lads wearing toilet seats around their heads, faces covered in sticky brown gunk. Surely they get paid to do this? "It's chocolate they've got round their mouths," laughs Lee. "They said they were shitfaced." This Chuff Chuff is themed on Animal Magic and set in a posh hotel, although before it even gets darks someone manages to drive their car into the outsize pond in front of the venue. The rest of the car park resembles Beirut's Bar M: an overdose of Mercs and flash motors with one numberplate bearing the legend 'Offiah' - the suave rugby star is a regular visitor. Inside, the party looks like a cross-between a wedding, brothel and fancy-dress bash with endless older men in costly suits offset by countless younger girls in underwear, sheaths of sticky lemon Lycra, fake fur and leather. The lights are bright so everyone can see each other and baby do we flirt, skip, stumble and sashay around that dancefloor. Chuff Chuff veterans reckon the real action takes place in the hotel rooms with talk of shared baths and beds although all Mixmag manage to find is Marie Antoinette in tears outside her room. Well, she looks like Marie Antoinette - teenage, dressed in skimpy lime green and coral lace and sobbing to herself. We rescue her and make her some tea in our room. She's crying because she came here with a bloke she met in Ibiza and a girl she knows from home. The bloke Ibiza wanted to sleep with her and when she said no he went off to find another girl. Her best mate is currently shagging another bloke in their hotel room. She won't go downstairs because she doesn't want to see the Ibizan bloke and she can't go to her room because then she'd have to watch her mate have sex. Mixmag photographer Antonio gives her tea and kind words which seem to cheer her up. Maybe she was too young for Chuff Chuff. The Ryans aren't ashamed of having an 'older crowd' and I don't suppose you can have grown-ups, glamour, flesh, excess and spike heels without a side-order of cruelty. That's clubland, dahlings, and it's something the Ryans know very well ever since they established Birmingham's hip underground clothes shop The Depot (with help from the Enterprise Allowance Scheme) and started dressing up for the city's early 80s New Romantic nights. "For most of our lives," explains Mick, "Birmingham was dominated by clubs run by big leisure clubs and monstrous lads. We've always been interested in different people, wider experiences and had no problems with different sexualities. In many ways all our parties have been creating places where all our friends could go." Many dismiss them as corporate handbaggers but the reality and their history is more complex. They even fought the Government in the golden days of acid house when an injunction was served on The Depot for selling tickets to massive outdoor raves. "But we weren't having it," says Mick. "We went to court, represented ourselves and won. We fought the law and won." And if you glide around Chuff Chuff you'll find a bit of all these histories: new romance, rave culture, chic 90s clubbing and the North's new wealth and confidence rolled into an explosive ball of fantastic glitter. It's quite some party, genuinely unique and not easily forgotten.

THE whole long, lost weekend ends in a regular café where Lee, Antonio and myself order breakfast before saying goodbye. "Oh man that was some few days," laughs Garrick, "that band, Beirut, Chuff Chuff, all that drinking..." Me and Antonio just nod in agreement. We're far too busy stuffing our faces with greasy eggs, toast and beans. Hello real world.

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