Next door to Delight Kebab and Cafe is a bare, uninteresting and uninviting place which calls itself a social club and which displays a sign saying it is an internet cafe.
People not involved with the E17 Social Club have told me all sorts of hair-raising rumours about the place, which is really just a shop front with a 3 pool tables in it so close together no-one in their right mind would want to play on them. There are also a couple of computer games consoles. For some reason the competition from the Embassy Snooker Club has not put this place out of business. These sad items of entertainment at the E17 Social Club for some equally strange reason are capable of attracting the attentions of a number of strutting young men, who often wander the neighbourhood like pantomime villains pretending they are 'somebody' in drugs. Them and their Oystercards.
They can be a bit of a concern. Some evenings there are a number of young men in hoodies and baseball caps who spill out from the E17 onto the narrow pavement. Those passers-by who don't realize that it is all a fantasy being played out by adolescents without girlfriends or anywhere to take them if they do strike it lucky, may find this intimidating.
On the whole, they look just like local boys who like to dress up as wannabe Los Angeles street gangs. They wander about texting, with that vaguely lost and retarded 'pimp roll' gait that used to be the style on the mean streets some time ago. Rather than come up with anything original, and too young to have understood the point of Ali G's satire when it first came out, (or too busy translating for their parents who were claiming asylum at the time), they are affecting a comedic style of yesteryear.
I say to those law abiding people who have noticed there are rarely any police patrolling around this well known crime hot spot where St James's Street meets the High Street, don't be afraid. There is a CCTV camera at the end of the High Street which can get a good look at who goes in and out the front door, if the powers that be can drag themselves away from looking for traffic and parking offenders to fine. I am not, unfortunately, not so sure what's covering the back of the club, however. And whatever you do, when walking past, don't make eye contact and laugh. It will crush their self-esteem.
Should their posturing as gangsters lead some of these young men to become further casualties at the hands of some of our other more seriously tooled up local ne'er-do-wells, at least we all know from the altitude of their trousers that they have changed their underwear recently and can get into the ambulance with confidence.