You never feel as if you will stay in one groove for long here.To get to our next destination we use a trolley bus (like a tram but with wheels and strictly for the masses), but the club we are going to would rather close than let someone in off a trolley bus. Is this one good?"Pilot is excellent; well suited to visitors and local people who fit into the income band that lies between dismal poverty and immoral wealth It is a thin band in a city where extremes are the norm. They saw it on telly; glaze over and get frenetic.Hairy hippies mingle with suits, jumpers and rave torches. Campus clobber abounds; luminous rucksacks, dippy skirts and US Army gear.

A sprinkling of Lycra, the occasional kaftan and even a huge Teddy Boy strut their different stuffs. Three under-10s wander in from some gathering in the private room. A cat appears in the upstairs bar and lounges around waiting to be fussed over, as it duly is."People of all ages come," says Alecia, 32, whose father, an erstwhile Party man, accrued wealth by "inheriting", then selling, state property "From what Yeva says, I'd be old in London clubs People have money here now It would be bad if they couldn't go to clubs They were such a mystery before. That doesn't stop the clubbers imitating E-heads when dancing to rave. Inquiries for drugs (for the sake of research) yield nothing but shocked expressions. If you took drugs you would hide it rather than wear the zombie-look like a badge of honour. The dance space is huge; the management hasn't learnt that a tiny floor means people get crowded off and drink more You can even hear yourself speak.

"I've been to London so I know you shouldn't have this."Still, everything that has gone wrong with British club culture has yet to happen here. "People aren't confident enough to boo," says Yeva, 23, a banker. The shell of a helicopter juts out of the middle tier in the three- level floor. Shiny metallic rigging adorns the stage and roof, from which a First World War monoplane is suspended, along with five sky-diving dummies in Oxfam clothes.Fagin and his boys die a thousand deaths but drone on regardless. Pilot is regarded as trendy.The cavernous, matt-black club looks like an Eighties theme pub writ large. This is followed by techno-dance music (circa 1992), followed by Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and an awful live band: world- jazz cum Russian folk, fronted by a man in scarlet who looks like Fagin Then it's back to dance and smooch.