14 Drummond Street, Edinburgh
0131 556 1961
Style: Boho student bedsit
Price: Pint of Caledonian 80'' £2.70; coffee and cake £2.30
Best for: Skiving off work
Not for: Meeting your bank manager to arrange a student loan or taking your parents
Wheelchair access: No
By rights, some bars should exist only in your imagination. I'm thinking of Mono in Glasgow, a joint that combines a record shop, a library, a vegan cafe, a music stage and a bar all under one roof. So perfectly does it fulfil every boy's dream, you have to pinch yourself to believe it's real. If it could only award degrees, there are students who would live there for four years.
Brass Monkey is another one (can there be more?). You can just imagine the late-night stoner conversation that brought it into being: "Hey man, like, wouldn't it be cool if you had a bar, only as well as a bar, it was, like, a cinema and you could all, like, crash on one giant bed and watch really cool movies. All day long."
In a rational world the idea would last no longer than the next morning's hangover. Luckily, the world is a more interesting place and Brass Monkey is for real.
When you hit the main bar, in a side road off Nicolson Street near the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, you notice nothing more unusual than the image of Jack Nicholson looming out from behind the whisky. The coffee and cake looks to be a nice touch and the wide-screen TV advertising the Oscars reflects the interests of the clientele, but in all other respects it's a conventional city pub.
It's when you get to the side room that things take a turn for the weird. Drop in on a Saturday night and it's like you've crashed the student FilmSoc's annual party. The room really is one great big bed, with people spread all over it in animated conversation. One young woman is reading a book about China; a group of friends are sprawled around a miniature table with holes to support their drinks; someone is holding forth about Johnny Depp's haircut.
All around, the black walls, picked out with red lamps, are plastered with cult film posters: Goodfellas, The Blues Brothers, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret and Sean Connery in Diamonds are Forever. The music is at the psychedelic end of the rock'n'roll spectrum. And on one wall, there is a roll-down screen. To get the benefit of this you have to be a true slacker. Every afternoon at 3pm, it's all down to Brass Monkey for a film showing. Whoever arrives first gets to pick a movie from the bar's DVD collection. The dissertation can wait till tomorrow.
If parents knew this is how their student subsidies were being squandered, they would be up in arms. But only out of jealousy.
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