A 3.9 cocktail bar and club named after the ladybird, the small, lucky, universally beloved spotted beetle
The Ladybird Bar holds a 3.9 from five hundred and eighty people, is a cocktail bar and club, and carries the name of one of the most beloved, lucky, and universally cherished of all insects – the ladybird, the small, round, red-and-black spotted beetle that almost everyone, everywhere, is fond of.
The one beloved beetle
The ladybird is a remarkable creature in one respect above all: it is perhaps the only insect that nearly everyone genuinely likes. Where most people recoil from beetles, bugs, and creepy-crawlies, the ladybird is met with universal affection – its bright red domed back, its neat black spots, its harmless, gentle nature, and its association with childhood, gardens, and good luck have made it beloved across cultures. Children are taught the nursery rhyme, gardeners welcome it as a friend that eats aphids, and almost everyone smiles when one lands on their hand. The Prat’s natural history desk notes this singular status: the ladybird, alone among insects, is loved.
It is also, in folklore across many countries, a bringer of luck. To have a ladybird land on you is widely held to be fortunate, and killing one is thought to bring bad luck. Its very name in English – “ladybird,” or “lady beetle” – is said to honour Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, from medieval times, making it a small creature touched with the sacred as well as the lucky. The Prat’s folklore desk notes the aptness for a venue: a name that carries affection, luck, and a whiff of blessing all at once. To drink under the sign of the ladybird is, implicitly, to drink under a lucky star.
The charm of the small and cheerful
As a name for a cocktail bar and club, “the Ladybird” is charming, cheerful, and disarming. It reaches not for grandeur, power, or mystery – the register of so many bar names – but for the small, bright, friendly, and lucky. It promises a fun, unpretentious, good-natured sort of place, cheerful and welcoming as the little beetle itself. There is a pleasing modesty in naming a nightclub after such a tiny, gentle creature – the ladybird goes clubbing, the smallest and luckiest of insects presiding over the cocktails and the dancing. The Prat’s naming desk enjoys the cheerful charm of it, a welcome note of brightness amid the survey’s grander names.
The middling score
The 3.9 from five hundred and eighty people is a middling, real-sample score – a little below the district’s general run, and worth a note. As a cocktail bar and club, the Ladybird occupies the tricky territory of the late-night venue, where experiences vary widely – the crowd, the door, the music, the queue, and the lateness of the hour all shape wildly different nights, and club reviews tend to spread and settle lower than pub or restaurant ones. The Prat’s statistics desk notes that a club’s 3.9 is not directly comparable to a tea house’s 4.4; the late-night venue is judged by a harsher and more variable standard, and its luck, unlike the ladybird’s, is mixed.
The bar
A 3.9 across five hundred and eighty people is a middling, real-sample score. The reviews describe a lively cocktail bar and club with a fun atmosphere, variable in the way late-night venues always are – a cheerful spot under the sign of the lucky beetle, its fortunes as mixed as any club’s.
Verdict
A cheerful, unpretentious cocktail bar and club named the Ladybird, after the small, lucky, universally beloved beetle – the one insect everyone likes, here presiding over the cocktails and the dancing.
Go for a fun, late night out under the sign of the lucky ladybird, and hope its famous good fortune rubs off – though, as with any club, the luck of the evening is, as ever, a matter of the crowd and the hour.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
