Camden has got to be one of the best places for a night out in London. There great thing about Camden is that in the main it lacks the pretentiousness of other places like Shoreditch or Upper Street. The men and women are generally less well dressed, unshaven, slightly less glamorous; which means you can spend less time preening yourself and more time having a laugh.

Whilst its probably true to say that there’s something for everyone in Camden, it’s a great place for fans of rock music, indie and its derivatives. Mind you if you’re looking for a good old fat tarts, in skimpy dress, loosing her balance on her high heels and sending her pint of snakebite flying, whilst ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ plays in the background there’s always the Electric Ballroom – Camden’s answer to your provincial tacky pop megaclub.

Apparently, twenty to thirty years ago, it would be full of Irish and other ethnic minority labourers, most of who would be rootless, and have been drinking since six o'clock in the evening. These days there are less labourers around, and its more middle class, but Camden seems quite unique in the fact that it seems and I’ve got no hard evidence to back this up, but seems to have a strong local scene. There’s also a real age range and some real characters. One of my best memories was seeing this sixty or seventy year old guy, dressed up dapper, caning the beers in the Enterprise. Four hours later I saw him in the Marathon Bar playing saxophone to a packed house.

Probably the best pub to try out is the Elephants Head on Chalk Farm Road which has a rockabilly night on a Saturday. The pubs full of thirty to fifty year old, many of them dressed up for the occasion, looking stunning.

The Enterprise which is a little bit further up the road has got slightly less character but is full of a similar clientele. A number of user reviews on 'Beer in the evening' suggest that there a few hard nuts in the pub, who like to needlessly assert themselves from time to time. I've certain seen a few cases in the Enterprise. I remember one guy, who wasn't that tall, but was three men in one, stumbling aroun. Although he was fucked out of his mind, he seemed to have this little glint in his eye, like the drunkardness was an act just so he could bump into someone to start a fight. A real loose cannon.

Once the pubs have closed you can go on to a club and there’s plenty of action. The Barfly is always a good bet – usually has a rocking disco downstairs – playing a variety of music – Stones, James Brown for example – and hosting various crappy bands upstairs.

Wherever you are in Camden if the nights not going brilliantly, or you just need to extend it by an hour, get yourself down to the Marathon Bar; a stone’s throw from Chalk Farm tube station and open until three. On a weekday it is a quiet fast food outlet. On a Saturday evening it comes alive. Strange you might think for a fast food outlet, but the Marathon Bar has two rooms, and on a Saturday night the dining room in the back, is cleared of its tables as the night beckons, and a couple of saxophone players start playing over records. Soon the backroom is packed, people dancing on the spot, and in groups, there’s no space for anything more vigorous. The magic of the Marathon Bar is its mixed clientele, which one person on the next has quite rightly called ‘mentalist’. There’s such a random assortment of off the wall people. One night, on this occasion outside of the bar on the street, I found myself in a group which included a forty year old woman on crack and a sixty year old velvet wearing Ethiopian tailor. At the same time the crack head was rubbing her body up against mine flirting with me in the most embarrassingly overstate way I have ever seen, the tailor was telling us about how he had the power to cause tsunamis whilst offering bits of weed to people for free. Even the shyest will find it difficult not getting into a chat with someone.

But sometimes the night only really begins when all the clubs shut you out. Next on the agenda is milling outside the club, and walking back home, often in the company of some stranger. Whether you get befriended by a blood stained psycho who wants to know the way back to Peckham and then threatens to kill you once you've told him, or a nineteen year old whose family disowned him after he spent his inheritance on the woman he loved (who then later chucked him), there’s always more fun to be had.

And then finally on to the night bus, which can be a hit and miss affair. If you’re lucky, you’ll get chatting to someone, have a laugh, a bit of a flit, or you might see a bit of aggravation. If you’re not so lucky, or you’re not in the mood, it’s a weary, silent, downtrodden face all the way back home.

But night buses usually have a bit of atmosphere and each one has its own character. Take the N29 for example, which given its general direction, Wood Green, is usually full of rowdy working class immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants. Invariably there’s some kind of aggravation as blokes who haven’t pulled, keep a stiff upper lip, forget about their failures, and try to get their kicks through acting hard. Just the slightest touch can sometimes provoke. I remember once seeing a huge black lad, not very tall but massive in size, start kicking off with three smaller Asian lads. Together the whole group fell off the bus in a collapsed rugby scrum style. And as the bus left you could see the three Asian lads kicking the big guy and then scarpering as the Black lad got to his feet and went in pursuit. I don’t know if the Black lad was quick enough to grab hold of any of them but I wouldn’t have liked to have been at the end of whatever he had in mind on dishing out.

The N43 in contrast, heading towards the wealthier and whiter Highgate, Muswell Hill and Friern Barnet, is usually full of comedian wanabee white guys, who buoyed by alcoholic excess feel the need to bathe everyone in their soon to be televised wit. Some of it is quite funny, but I do also find that that middle class scornful sarcasm sometimes gets on my wick. I remember one night there were two white guys dishing out the scorn and sarcasm to everyone, brutally insulting a girl with a big nose, safe in their little bubble of mutual masturbatory ridicule. To my surprise this girl, who had previously been talking to her friend, turned to her side to talk to the guys. She was amazing quick-witted and started to tie these boys up in knot. The knockout blow came when she invited them back to her house for a blow job each. They asked her if she was serious and she said yes and that it had been a long night. The two guys were stunned. Eventually the girl got off at her stop, and whilst the boys shouted at her to get her attention, neither of them ended up having the balls to take her up on her offer. Maybe they didn’t want it, but I suspect that at least one of them did, and probably bitterly regretted not doing it.

Camden - the best night out.

• Chambers, C. (2006) Bottles rain on pub in 22-strong attack, Camden New Journal.

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