Pussycats in Wellington is the most tragic club in the UK

No one knows why they went, no one knows how they got there, no one wants to say they’ve been, but Cats in Wellington has somehow managed to suck everyone from the surrounding area in at least once. Perhaps it’s the light up floor tiles, perhaps it’s the friendly bouncers, maybe you just really like listening to The Time (Dirty Bit), but either way we have all paid a fiver not to remember how many times we slut dropped until 3am.

But then, what do you really want from a club? It serves drinks, there’s space to dance, they have sofas and some toilets, it plays club bangers. Love it or hate it, it doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not and if you’re drunk enough to go then it’s probably not going to matter anyway.

Ineveitable pre-drinks in a random pub

It’s too costly to buy drinks in Cats, and when you want to get in before 11pm so you don’t have to pay for entry then you have to drink a lot beforehand, and in a fairly short amount of time. Spoons is reliable to build up the pitcher resistance and for the younger Cats frequenters there is always nicking vodka from your mum’s cabinet and replacing it with water.

Cats is full of either 18 year olds or thirty year old men

There isn’t much in between. Cats is where a lot of people lose their clubbing virginity, stumble in in heels clutching a provisional license even though you’re in Wellington and you’re freezing because you haven’t got a jacket on, and then dance around with college mates while being watched by older men holding Calsbergs and swaying at the edge.

Then you have the Ayia Napa boys who grab girls by their hips from behind and hope for a pull. Try enough times and they usually get what they want.

There are two rooms but you don’t want to be in either

So the choice is between Pitbull’s Give Me Everything or shit RnB. Give Me Everything is basically played on repeat in the first room, so much so that you leave with the word “Kodak” swimming around your head like a sugar rush from all the doubles.

Sometimes the second room isn’t even open, and then you have no option but to dance between the guys in jeans and v-necks on a Thursday and the older men in 70s collar shirts on a Saturday.

DJ Wanker

That was his actual stage name.

They have their own burger van outside

It’s in their own smoking area so they can cash in on the number of customers leaving disappointed. It gets so hot inside that you have to come out pretty often even if you don’t smoke, and then the temptation for cheesy chips is just too much. It’s not uncommon to have a break from dancing, eat a burger, and then go back inside and get off with someone you never want to see in the daylight.

Sometimes there are dancers around the top

Why? Honestly, why? It just made it feel even more seedy than the old men around the edge already did. Cats isn’t a strip club, it isn’t even a classy club, so getting some girl from Donnington to dance around the top in her underwear just made it so much worse.

Plus when the dancer isn’t there, it acts as a massive temptation to climb up drunk.

Drinks aren’t cheap after 11pm – and who goes before?

The deals on the posters might seem great but they’re never exactly what you want. They know once you’re in there it’s too far of a walk to go anywhere else so you may as well spend an extortionate amount on Jagerbombs that you can’t even take on the dance floor.

It still has a special place in our hearts

We might think of it as a fairly grim place, but it’s difficult to hate somewhere where you’ve had so much fun. So what if most people grow out of it, or realise that it’s a shithole? It’s a learning curve for everyone who walks through the double doors from the bar next door and gets frowned at by the bouncers.

It’s the place you’re sick outside for the first time, it’s the place you got to use your ID for the first time, it’s the place you saw your first fight. The dodgy human experience flashes before you in a sweat box of Lynx aftershave and Impulse spray-on and you thank god that you get to leave in a silent taxi. It makes you appreciate life more, because if you’ve never been to Cats then how can you know how good it is to not be in Cats?