Nightlife in suburbia is traditionally dire; if you're not one for wine-bars, nor wife-swapping, nor bridge clubs, nor fortnightly hoe-downs in the Leisure Centre, there's really nothing for you to do after 8 p.m. Other than sand down the skirting board. Or talk to the other half. No wonder DIY has taken off. So I was interested to see if the new leisure revolution (boozing in banks! sipping in sports shops! pickled in a chemists!) really had changed my local social scene. Would stilettos still be perma-glued to feminine feet? Would this season's longer length skirts make a showing (as I recalled, any fashion for dresses that stretched further than mid-thigh was always rejected by Wilmslow girls as impractical, i.e. you wouldn't pull in it). Would the local top lads still insist on drinking pints of bitter; or would lager, or perhaps even alcopops, have made a beverage impression? Would Toby's earring still be regarded as radical?

Toby arrived home, and we worked out a schedule. Eight thirty at the Rectory. Nine thirty: the Eskimo Bar on Grove Street. Kell's no later than 11.30, because it was busy Saturdays, then Peruvia after 1.30, when the crowds had calmed down. The pair of us dressed for battle: Toby in flash suit, me in slinko trousers. No trainers, no sportswear. Some things, we just knew, would never change.

The Rectory car park boasted a few choice motors - a flashy Lexus, several BMWs and a Mercedes SLK graced the gravel. We crunched past them towards the entrance. Shoulders back, gender forward: Toby strode like a sportsman, I minced like a model-stroke-actress. There was a bouncer outside the door, not tall, but built like a sideboard; two more, kitchen-dressers with earpieces, just inside the entrance. Each gave us the onceover more than once. I felt like a fraud.

The Rectory's décor was ye olde vibrante slap-dashe: wood beams hastily painted in turquoise and russet, industrial radiators given the scrunched-cloth-in-gloss effect. Some bricks were left exposed; there were black, twisted metal candlesticks; a few sofas, in hot colours; and big fireplaces, painted black and left empty. The floor was wooden boards. Downstairs, the front room was full; the back, getting there; but no one was allowed upstairs until later, according to the round-faced bargirl.

The music thumped cheerfully from speakers on high: disco classics, funky stuff, good time sing-songs. I was inordinately cheered to hear Shalamar's 'I Can Make You Feel Good'. (Shalamar was my favourite group when I was sixteen. They were a mediocre US disco trio whose sole fame claim was a flamboyant body-popping sequence on a seminal Top Of The Pops by Jeffry, who wore thin-lapelled suit jackets with nothing underneath. I thought he was fantastic.) I had a scan at the other clientele. They varied from pub-crawling groups of teenagers, through perkily-jacketed foursomes in their mid-thirties, a pack of celebrating twenty-something blokes, eating at a long table towards the back, and a solitary grey-haired man whose sartorials had matured sometime around 1983. He sported double-vented grey jacket, slip-on woven loafers, massala tan, lager stomach and a number 2 crop which gave way to a cloud of silver hair at the nape that he must have tied into a pony-tail on occasion. Peter Stringfellow, eat my thong!

A tall, slim lad came over. And, blimey, we knew him! It was Alex - Toby and I used to baby-sit him and his sister Nicole. We had a chat about what he was up to, which was working for an insurance company and saving up to buy a camper van. Suddenly, Alex stuck his tongue out: he'd had it pierced. It didn't quite match with his neat appearance: his short hair, smart trousers, nice shirt. He shrugged: 'They haven't even noticed at work. I got it done because you can't see it.' I said: 'I bet you don't waggle your tongue at the bouncers here.' Alex said it wasn't worth it. He'd once come for a drink in The Rectory and the bouncers had kicked off over the fact that Alex's polo shirt was untucked. Alex had explained that you're meant to wear it untucked; and the Liverpudlian bouncers had retorted that he should remember that he was in Wilmslow. Eventually, they let him in. But they made him sit behind a pillar.

Toby and I stayed for a time, chatting with Alex. But we had a schedule to keep to. We left at 9.25 precisely. Verdict on The Rectory: heavy. Though I thought that the décor could have won a Changing Room gong.