As We Search For A New Drinking Hole

Planet Bar At The Mount Nelson

After a few weeks of pacing up and down at The HQ, the time had come to find me a local watering hole. I had fond memories of my previous “local”, Mambo’s in Plumstead, which served as the starting point for many a wild and crazy adventure, like the time I broke the nose of an obnoxious African Elephant, who came down all the way from the Addo in the Eastern Cape to pick a fight with me. Then there was the time I threw my drink at Kirsten Dunst, who would regularly fly down to South Africa incognito, to have some of Mambo’s famous Long Islands. As usual, she got drunk and started mouthing off about how there are no real men in South Africa, so I stepped in and poured my Kiwi Brutal Fruit down her cashmere sweater, which settled that little argument once and for all.

Anyhoo, I’m totally digressing here, I had decided I needed to find a new place to get horribly drunk and be anti social. Naturally I decided to check out Planet Bar at the Mount Nelson Hotel, which for those of you who don’t know, is a bar at the Mount Nelson Hotel.

Finding the place turned into a bit of a logistical nightmare. Once inside the grounds I mistakenly ended up at a St Patrick’s Day Ball, thrown by a large group of jolly Irishmen in celebration of their countrymen not losing to Zimbabwe in the Cricket World Cup. Guinness was in abundance, people were literally swimming in it, but eventually I managed to backstroke my way through the beer and out the exit door, where I found a yellow brick road.

There, I met up with a Scarecrow, a Lion and a Tin Man who were also walking along, completely and utterly lost. The Lion could amazingly walk upright and could speak, although he had quite a dirty mouth. (He called the Scarecrow an “obnoxious prick” and a “slut”) The Tin Man didn’t seem too phased by his mates bickering though and asked me for a light, which I duly gave him even though I don’t smoke. Why was there a lighter in my pocket? Anyhoo, they all stopped for a smoke break while I carried on and eventually ended up at Planet Bar.

The place wasn’t really what I expected. The plasma screen TV’s were lacking, there were no rugby jerseys and photos of Francois Pienaar hanging anywhere, and - most shockingly of all - there were no bowls of peanuts to be seen for miles. The place was filled to the brim, but I eventually found a spot underneath a double seated couch which I crawled under and settled down. I ordered a double whiskey, downed it in 3 seconds and then attempted to start up a pub song. “Olé olé olé olé” I began, but this didn’t appear to go down well.

The decor isn’t what you would expect from your typical bar, everything looks very clean and smart. There are carpets and rugs and walls bedecked with paintings of old white men (Not Francois Pienaar though). The music mostly consisted of Death Metal and EMO with a sprinkling of avant garde jazz or classical music.

Everything is neat, tidy, in it’s place. People are well behaved, no raucous patrons appear to frequent Planet Bar. In short, Planet Bar is a classy, trendy upmarket type of establishment but it’s certainly not the place to watch rugby or cricket on a Saturday afternoon. And so, with a heavy heart, my search continues.