A good club is a raffish den of adult fantasy

Once it becomes the kind of place where Tessa Jowell can sip her Perrier, it rather loses the point

There will be those in The Independent's broader constituency who will take the same attitude to the news that a London club is cracking down on drug use as they do towards Ken and his congestion. Interesting if you happen to live in London; it is, to the rest of us, of distinctly marginal relevance.

But as it happens, the decision of Soho House, a club of media types and local celebrities, to campaign actively against the snorting and pill-popping which have allegedly been taking place on its premises, is of broader significance. Until now, a double standard has generally been applied to drug use: it is deplorable and tragic when the users are on a council estate or teenagers at a dance club but rather cool and amusing when ingested by witty, good-looking people who work in post-production, magazines or advertising.

Now Soho House, with the stern encouragement of Westminster Council, has decided to nag and bully its members out of their drug habits. There are to be random handbag searches on the way in. Nannyish notices, warning of a zero-tolerance policy, will be posted on the walls. Flat surfaces will removed from lavatories and, in direct contravention of the Government's Sexual Offences Bill which gives the green light to cubicle-sharing, doubling-up of that kind will be banned. A busybody enforcer will visit the lavatories once every 15 minutes to ensure that nothing untoward is going on.

This all seems likely to make the club a drearier place. I am probably one of the few people in England never to have taken cocaine (it keeps you awake, I gather, and the claim that it makes you want to make love for six hours sounds more like a threat than a promise), but I recognise that, for many people, recreational drugs make them feel more attractive, interesting and alive than they actually are.

Surely that is what a club should do. Once Westminster Council has its way and places like Soho House become the sort of place in which Tessa Jowell or Charles Clarke could comfortably sip their Perrier water, then they rather lose their point.

If it is true that the incident last year, when the two-year-old daughter of Sadie Frost unwittingly dropped an ecstasy tablet that she found lying around, has caused the new policy, then it seems quite obvious that another, simpler solution was available – to ban children. A good club is a place of adult fantasy. It allows its members to enter a fantasy land in which the oppressive realities of family and the kids have no place and where they can be the character they would ideally like to be.

Those who belong to Soho clubs – the Groucho, Blacks, Soho House and the rest – like to think they are at the beating heart of the media world. They feel more alive when Stephen Fry is sitting at the bar or Mariella Frostrup is chatting at a nearby table. They can talk about their latest project rather too loudly, their eyes occasionally raking the room in search of an actress or TV presenter whose name they will later be able to drop as if they were friends. Naturally, to sustain this kind of illusion, the more vulnerable and insecure of them will need the help of artificial stimulants.

Of course, there are other establishments, offering different kinds of fantasy. In direct contrast to the newcomers in Soho, the original gentleman's clubs, like the Garrick, the Reform, White's or the Beefeater, allow their members to be grown-up rather than hedonistic, responsible rather than zany. Here one is a prefect of the establishment, soberly dressed, discussing the events of the day in low, discreet tones with a judge, an MP, one of the more socially accepted actors or even a literary agent.

It is an important moment, and an indicator or true maturity, to discover what kind of club fits your own self-image. When I worked in an office, I briefly entertained the idea of joining the grown-ups in one of the old-fashioned clubs on the Mall, but soon I realised that I would never make the grade. I was simply not grown-up enough; my general attitude was chippy and suspect. Then, on first becoming a freelance and entertaining the idea that I would become a media player, doing meetings over cappuccinos and networking in the bar, I joined a Soho club, but it was like being back at school, with its gangs and competitive factions to which I would never belong. Now, too late, I realise that I was probably the only person there who was not on drugs.

These days, I do belong to a club, but it is raffish sort of place suitable for people who are not by nature clubbable. Here mobile phones are banned, the visits of children fiercely curtailed and smoking actively encouraged. It is a relaxed, pleasurable, bloody-minded sort of place where nobody (or almost nobody) needs to take a pill or hoover powder up their nose to make them interesting.

terblacker@aol.com