A milonga with a jacuzzi

[Update 25/01/10: The milonga at this venue is cancelled, probably permanently - it's looking for a new one]

Okay - the deal is that most of the house at 33 Portland Place is closed for repairs/maintenance/whatever in August. However, the lovely organisers of this milonga have obtained access to the basement, a bit of the house the dancers don't normally see. Instead of going in by the main door you go down the stairs on the right.

The jacuzzi room leads off the dance floor. The dance floor is in a dark red and gold room with a bar, the bar with its back to the windowed private light-well, the light-well being where the drinks are camping out. The floor is much smoother and easier to dance on than any of the ones upstairs. It's red, the wallpaper is patterned with roundels, the mirrors start at about waist height. There's enough actual room bouncing around between them that I don't remember being too much thrown by my own reflection.

This part of the house turns out to be a strange blend which as far as I can tell is achieved by buying good things over several centuries and letting them sort it out. And then going, "I know what we'll do with this bit, we'll paint it white, stick in giant mirrors and a bizarre parody of a family portrait, fill in this odd-shaped hole with the chaises longues that are the real ones and not the fake ones they have in pretentious department store toilets, put the jacuzzi on a giant square wooden pedestal, light it with underwater coloured LEDs, put two of those little gilt chairs from upstairs above it like paired thrones, and finish it off with two young women hanging the toes of their Comme Il Fauts over the edge of the water and having a bit of a goss."

It does make the atmosphere rather steamy, so don't overdo the clothes.

You are politely asked to wash your feet before paddling. You'll need to bring a towel if you're going to. I don't think anyone actually did.

And they had surprise live music, Oscar Acebras, who played the guitar and sang, without amplification, while we danced around him; a vals, a milonga, a tango, another milonga just for fun. It was awesome. There's some video of him when he was there before on the website, but I can't link directly to it because it's all Flash. You'll need to go to Events then navigate to the last page and click Oscar and then the second square.

The rest of the music was unpretentious, as usual, and consistently in tandas (no cortinas, though).