Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 182

It is said that in his later years Pablo Picasso was encouraged to stay away from art galleries because he had previously been caught in the act of trying to improve on one of his old masterpieces.

The image is a delightful one. An old man, with passion and talent undiminished by the years, pounding the loggias of the world with a palette and paintbrush, determined to rewrite his youth and sticking up two fingers at Father Time.

But even Picasso would have had trouble retouching his pictures if London's Soho House private members' club possessed any of his work. Last week, it appointed a vetting committee to 'actively discourage' people over the age of 27 from joining and to ensure the scene remains 'happening and fresh'.

'Happening and fresh'? Isn't that a phrase from the Swinging Sixties? It sounds as if the vetting committee needs to be purged of its gerontocracy and replaced by some teenagers.

But do I look bovvered? Soho House has been crap for years and supplanted by cooler clubs such as The Century, Home, Adam Street and The Hospital, where you can actually walk around without bumping your head or into Category A w**kers.

Soho House's strategy is as ridiculous as an operator actively discouraging their 27+ customers from playing mobile games. Everybody knows that older people like a private club as much as their younger counterparts and it's just as true mobile gamers are played by middle-aged people who remember best-selling brands such as Tetris and Pac-Man the first time around.

And expect this trend to continue as the technology improves and mobile games become more sophisticated. Expect Tetris and Pac-Man to be replaced by 1990s classics Mario and Sonic and these in turn to be superceded by this century's Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft.

But what the heck, I'm off to the Century Club for lunch and that's one London club that even Picasso couldn't improve on. Soho House, please take note.