I arrived at Watershed at perhaps 6.30pm and was surprised to see security staff on the door this early. The place was empty, and I had some time to kill before the CurryRunners turned up for one of our regular meetings, so I sat down with a beer and a book and took in the place.
It's a bar, basically, and as such has the usual, slightly sanitised bar feeling to it. Chrome tables and bar stools dominate the main section of the bar, which at the fringe are some slightly uncomfortable stools and benches - in the finest tradition of stylish bars everywhere you're not meant to be comfortable.
Of course, as time ticked on I came to a realisation. I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the prowling security staff. At first I put it down to good healthy paranoia brought on by an earlier game of Quake II, but no, there it was, that feeling that you're being assessed and weighed up, and if you're found wanting you're
out on the street, buddy. After all, some guy sitting on his own and reading a book with a beer? Obviously some sort of terrorist, right?
The bouncer was clearly bored to tears just standing on the door, and over the next hour or so he prowled past me about twenty or thirty times, each time sizing everyone up as he went, like a health inspector checking carcasses - and it wasn't nice. It's this behaviour that inspired
something of a rant in the forums. He was still doing it even when the rest of our party arrived, it's just when the bar filled up he had more meat to inspect. It was, well, not nice.
The place itself is fine - I can't really find a way to fault it, but the fact is I found it hard to be comfortable here. I can picture it being quite nice on, say, a saturday or sunday afternoon - couple of beers in the sun, chilling out - but I've decided I can live without this place at night. And for further tales of security staff follow the link above - it didn't end here.
review by: Jason