There might be a Metro, Evening Post, perhaps a Guardian left on the table of your typical Bristol cafe if you’re lucky. Never before until stepping foot inside The Birdcage on Clare Street have I found a Playboy. The edition on my table was from April 1987, featuring playmate of the month Anna Clark.
It’s little and surprising features like this from the fertile mind of 24-year-old owner Giorgina Haslam, that make The Birdcage one of the most significant and best new openings in Bristol city centre this year.
The Birdcage’s offering is described on flyers as “Yesterday’s clothing, today’s coffee, tomorrow’s music”, a triumverate of cool that starts at 10am with a flat white and a pastry, ends at 10pm with the last notes of an acoustic troubadour, and in between can take in browsing of the rails in one corner featuring clothes a good deal older than the magazines dotted around.
When I visited on Thursday afternoon, well-dressed trendy young things were already populating the space that was once a bank and has the gift of a large ceiling and huge windows, flooding the L-shaped room with natural light.
Why hang one lampshade from a light fitting when nine will do? Why put art on the wall when you can put up bicycles? And always match a mural painted on one wall with bespoke wallpaper pasted onto another.
Enjoying my coffee from Bath’s Easy Jose and Bakewell tart from Crumpet Cakes of Southville, I sank into one of the battered leather Chesterfield chairs. Sandwiches come from Soughdough cafe in St Nic’s Market, while the choice of the stronger stuff here includes ale from Cornwall’s Flat Cap Beers.
Populated by the likes of Walkabout, All Bar One and Wetherspoon’s, this area of Bristol is not the obvious place for an offering such as The Birdcage. But it will act as an ideal pitstop for Start The Bus, Mr Wolf’s and the Big Chill, also nearby, or be just as ideal for a trip to soak up its own charming delights, and I’m not just talking about Anna Clark.
The Birdcage, 28 Clare Street, Bristol, BS1 1YE
Telephone: 0117 929 1130
Website: www.birdcagebristol.com
Twitter: @birdcagebristol
Placing old copies of Playboy in a cafe is not something to be celebrated. There are enough images of objectified and overtly sexualised women everywhere as it is.
Do you need to disclose a personal interest in this? Seems a particularly gushing and fawning review for what is just another coffee shop. “one of the most significant and best new openings in Bristol city centre this year” – seriously?
No personal interest. I would say if there is. Just a good feeling that a quirky independent business like The Birdcage can open in an area of Bristol.
Ok, was just you did a similarly positive preview of this place’s opening a while back, so I thought you might know someone involved.
I’ll be interested to see where it is in 18 months time.
A copy of Playboy – fantastic ………
Playboy? Hell yeah! Sounds like our kinda place…Yeehaaaa!!!!
I just read Joanna Papageorgiou article on the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/joanna-papageorgiou/when-did-spreadeagled-nak_b_1909949.html
I’m A Tribute to Playmates webmaster and as she used a link to one of my pages promoting Playboy and that I couldn’t put a comment on her article, I came to your blog to express myself.
First, I just hope the Birdcage is open to adult only as I’m living far away from Bristol I couldn’t verify.
Joanna Papageorgiou : “graphic images of a woman’s body in provocative poses”
I feel like discussing with somebody out from the 1950′s. In the adult entertainment, Playboy is one of the most respectful with women. If nude pictures are “provocative” only because they are nude, what should we think about nude sculptures and paintings that are considered as Art. It looks like Mrs Papageorgiou never open any other adult magazines in her life cause many other magazines are “provocative” in their nude representation of women, using close shots of open pussy, fingers in pussy and even toys. Never did Playboy.
Joanna Papageorgiou : “They are not looking at the woman behind the breasts.”
First look at a woman for some may be the breast, for others it could be the eyes, the hair dress… Adult magazines are unfortunately made for the first look but once again, Playboy, compare to other magazines, provides a bio of its models to its readers and online members to go further than the first look, and many readers and members would be pleased to go further and have a date with the model to better know “the woman behind the breast” but you should agree that models are for modelling not for dating otherwise there’s another name to use and I could follow Mrs Papageorgiou if she wants to argue against call girls.
Joanna Papageorgiou : “There is further research about the effect of pornography on children but maybe this isn’t of interest to the Birdcage either.”
An article starting with nude pictures of Playboy and finishing with pornography looks odd and offending to me. Especially because I have kids and I’m taking care of them. It means the family computer has a “parental control” that avoids them seeing internet pages a lot more harmful than nude women. Obviously with my 13yo boy growing up, I’m not dumb and know he will soon be able to avoid the parental control if he wants. That’s why I will teach him (as my mother taught me) why men are attracted by women and how to be respectful with the girls he will be in love with.
If Mrs Papageorgiou wants to fight against porn on magazines or on the net, I could agree with her but not with using arguments as nude pictures of women, especially Playboy pictures.
When you argue against pornography you should never forget why many men are attracted by porn. If men weren’t sexually attracted by women we won’t be here to discuss it and humankind would have already disappeared. So when you want to fight against pornography you should fight the “how” rather than the “why”. May be that will be another debate with Mrs Papageorgiou.
Hi Smart Fred,
How strange that you could not comment on the Huffington Post site, I don’t know why the comments are closed.
In response to your comments, the point of the article was that the Birdcage is for all ages and that’s why the pornography is inappropriate. I am a parent to a toddler and I do not want her in an establishment that thinks it is fun and witty to present women as sexual objects so explicitly.
I disagree with your comments and thoughts about women’s bodies and how their objectification as sexual for men’s pleasure is a normal and positive thing. However, I did not write about pornography but about this specific cafe. From your first comment I believe we are in agreement about that at least.
For further discussion you are welcome to visit my website and the original post http://www.ephemeraldigest.co.uk/2012/09/when-did-spread-eagled-naked-women-become-a-selling-point-for-a-cafe/.
Thank you for the discussion.