This week, the Groucho Club in Soho had its licence suspended by Westminster Council after a request from the Metropolitan police, who are investigating a ‘serious criminal offence’ said to have taken place on its grounds. Beyond ‘serious’, the crime has yet to be specified. But one thing is certain: the Groucho has gone down (at least temporarily) in a hail of bad vibes, all the famous fun and games grinding to an infamous halt.

I used to be a member of the Groucho, having taken advantage of its offer for under 30s. I spent much time carousing in its seductive, plush interiors. Kate Moss talked to me once on a boozy festive evening, telling me how much she loved panto. A friend and I drunkenly offered to buy Jon Hamm, aka Don Draper in Mad Men, a cocktail (he refused); on another evening we had a very long evening with Andrew Scott, aka (at the time) Moriarty in the Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch. I saw Stephen Fry there, and kissed several famous men.

But over time, the Groucho lost its lustre. I stopped seeing the toast of Primrose Hill, Hampstead and even Hollywood in it, and instead noticed a constant stream of what looked like reality TV stars and people who worked in marketing, advertising, PR, and other forms of media business. When it stopped being what it had always been – a home for actors and writers; a British institution, in short – I began to notice the cost of drinks and membership more.

Slowly I stopped enthusiastically suggesting to everyone that we met at the Groucho, or trying to persuade those who weren’t sure to go there because it was so fun. Part of it was that I got older and began to lose the taste to let my hair down in quite that way. Another was that I left London for a year to pursue a masters degree. When I returned, the place just wasn’t as good. And so after another year of hoping it would become great again, I resigned my membership.

I have not joined another club since, though not because it has not been suggested, especially by friends who are themselves members of, say, Soho House or the grander ones in Mayfair and the Mall – and not because there is not an appealing sense of saying: ‘meet me at my club’.

My reasoning is this. Clubs are nice, but you have to be in a certain financial place to sustain the breeziness required of always paying for your guests’ big nights out, as is unavoidable at most of the real classics, without being tortured afterwards by whether they pay you back in kind or in cash. Have a friend for a glass at the Carlton Club or the Garrick (now open to women), and it goes right on your account, no menus or prices in sight. When I join my elderly friend Paul, a long-time reader who is now in his 80s, at the East India Club in Mayfair, the straitened gentleman must bankroll my curry (or my sandwich, depending on where we dine).

Clubs, one begins to realise, are also just a bit odd. Is there a problem with drinking with friends in public? I have no problem with elitism and elites but social exclusivity has always made me uneasy; perhaps as I was never in the inner circles, or the very coolest groups, at school or university. It is very nice to meet interesting people and a wide array of them, but is it the case that the most interesting people can afford to, or are drawn to, joining private members’ clubs? I suspect interesting people can be found elsewhere. And so can PLU ‘people like us’.

Professionally, there are obvious uses to clubs – networking in media circles at Soho House, or politics at 5 Hertford Street. The Groucho was more about watching a carnivalesque world go by and having lots of daring, flirty, frank encounters, but it was also about drinks to impress. Personally, I made no professional contacts there, but I always thought I might.

But when it comes to enjoying an evening with friends, I can see no reason why a club is any better than a pub. The atmosphere and tipples available at a cosy old pub are unrivalled. The world goes by in pubs too. The beer is delicious. There is Champagne to be had, and crisps, and sometimes decent food. Nothing is more convenient than a pub – unlike the journey to Mayfair or Shoreditch for most people who live in normal places.

It is informal. No need to worry about no-trainers rules. And it’s egalitarian: a round goes noticed as an act of generosity, but nobody has to fork out long-term so that they can be seen in social splendour and their friends can drink at their side.

The truth, of course, is that when I am asked to drink in someone’s club, I gladly accept. The vain and eager part of me is as present as it is in anyone else – maybe even more, due to those teenage years of acute social insecurity. But am I willing to beg leave to pay good money to belong to a court of peacocking? Not right now, at least not in Starmer’s penurious Britain, and not while there are still pubs on most good corners in Britain.