The Ice Bar cometh

Let's see if I can write this without describing it as cool, how we chilled out or any other ice-related pun...

I'd heard about, read about and even sort of knew where the London Ice Bar was but it took Angela's pre-Christmas visit and invite for me to experience this Lapland Ice Hotel-inspired bar on the edge of Mayfair for myself.

More an attraction, an experience than a place to ch.... relax; your £12 entry fee gives you 45 minutes in the freezer (that doesn't count, it's a valid metaphor) and an Absolut vodka cocktail, literally over ice given the glass is made out of the stuff. And, as per the shampoo adverts, here's the science bit: because the ice is so cold it doesn't stick to your lips.

Nor does it freeze your fingers as the hefty fleecy poncho-style puffa jacket placed over your head as you enter has gloves attached to it... as one of our ex-JET party had to point out to the rest of us, intruders included.

It was almost a year to the day that I first shared a drink with Yamaguchi JETs, including Angela, in Japan. Ironic that the Ice Bar was almost as cold as Japan was this time last year. Campai!

Anyway, back to the icy inspiration of my awe: the bar itself. Designed to be remodelled during the year, the walls are apparently made from the water of a river in Norway. Everything else: the scupltures, the bar itself, the tables and seats are also only solid because of the refrigerator shell on the other side of the wall.

Despite this whimsy and curious-cum-revolutionary intentions of staying beyond our permitted time slot by 35 minutes in we'd drunk our complimentary drinks, taken photos, soaked up the arctic atmosphere and were read to leave.

It's only a small place but has a huge novelty factor. Between the shock of the cold and eventual numbing of digits a couple of vodka shots helps melt away the days' troubles.

Oh, so close.