When naming this club, the proprietors must have been torn between Lava and Ignite, but couldn’t settle on a favourite, so ended up calling it both. Similarly, I can’t decide whether the menagerie of barely-clad ladies who flutter here on school nights fills me with shock or awe, so have also settled for both. It’s a fitting juxtaposition as by 3am, this place resembles Baghdad around the time that George Bush’s Shock & Awe™ campaign was tearing it a new one. If you think this sounds like the prelude to another Le Monde-style demolition job, then yes, you’d be right. Before I sharpen my HB pencil and start feverishly scratching pejoratives however, let’s begin with a few decorous words, to showcase the genteel side that Ed Uncovered occasionally exhibits when it’s ran out of Joseph Fritzl jokes. If I were composing this review by day, as part of my proper writing job, I would be forced to describe Cav as follows:

“Lava & Ignite is a stylish nightclub that provides three floors of very distinct action. Primely located on the city’s busy Lothian Road, this venue likes to let its hair down on a weekend, welcoming in students, locals, holidaymakers and anyone else who fancies a good time. When it springs to life, the club is a collision of colours, styles and tunes. The scenery – like the music – is brash and bold, with the city’s party boys and girls getting down here en masse every weekend.

Lava & Ignite also offers a selection of cocktail, champagne and hen night-themed packages that present a fun way to make a group night out feel extra special. With a variety of club nights pumping out the latest chart, dance and R&B tunes, there’s always something happening in Lava & Ignite. Drinks are cheap, the decor is sparkling and the atmosphere is electric.”

Ignite my loins

Once I’d clocked off and taken a slow bath in bleach however, I would attempt to atone for my sins by redacting the fawning advertorial and counterbalancing it with EU’s take on such a ‘stylish nightclub’. Had the words you are about to read been composed an hour ago, I could have assembled the most favourable review in Cav’s history (not the hardest of tasks, admittedly). Unfortunately for the club that no one calls Lava & Ignite, it’s just gone 5 o’clock, the hour when Dr Jekyll bids goodbye to the world and out steps his malevolent alter-ego. Of course, you don’t need to be possessed of a mean streak in order to slaughter Cav. It just so happens that I own several however, and have decided to deploy them all simultaneously in the creation of this piece. How will this review pan out? I’m not sure as I haven’t written it yet, but if the words ‘cock’ and ‘vag’ don’t crop up somewhere in the text, I’ll be most disappointed. OK, let’s batten down the hatches and see where this perfect storm carries us…

In the beginning, there was Cav

Why is Cav called Cav? I’m not sure, though I’ve always assumed it to be an abbreviation of Cock & Vag. You don’t need either to visit this priapic nightclub, though given its patrons’ obsession with trying to mash one into the other, you may feel marginalised without at least one such accoutrement strapped to your waist. Doing your thing in Cav generally consists of trying to do the opposite sex’s thing; fingering, fumbling and frigging it on the dance floor, in the toilets and even at the bar. If you don’t come home with fingers smelling of Scampi Nik-Naks, you’re clearly a double amputee. To call this club a whorehouse would be grossly disrespectful to whorehouses the world over. It’s a mystery why Cav’s carpet should be stickier than a Japanese snorkel, but then nothing about this club makes much sense.

An age-old question

How young does a girl have to be before she’s considered too young? 15 is the official answer, although many of Cav’s patrons, who are at least 18 of course, look exceedingly fresh-faced, it must be said. There must be some sort of elixir distilled into the club’s mixer, imbuing all who drink it with eternal youth and no pants. The clientele may not be under-age, but they’re certainly under-dressed. I never thought I’d find myself pleading with womankind – or its teen equivalent – to cover up, but it’s true: watching the harem of dirties totter into Cav on a Thursday night is the very embodiment of the phrase ‘Edinburgh Uncovered’.

Some may deem it inaccurate to label Cav’s fine, upstanding women as ‘dirties’, but not as inaccurate as labelling them as fine, upstanding women. Then there are the ‘men’ to consider, if men were a synonym for ‘truculent walking abortions’. Most of Cav’s lads are prone to exhibiting their WKD side in the club, usually by ploughing a bottle of lurid blue alcopops into some poor cunt’s face. The only good thing about getting bottled in here is that the pain fleetingly distracts from the music.

When the worms aren’t biting in the city’s regular nightclubs and you can’t be arsed trudging to Leith to pick up a hoor, there’s always Cav.”

If you were to take the cast of The Scheme for a night out in Edinburgh, Cav is where they’d start. They’d end the night not too far away either, in the police van that is a permanent fixture outside the club. This isn’t hyperbole, by the way – a police van really does sit here on weekends, though whether it’s to apprehend troublemakers or simply to perv on all the skirt is unclear. Leng, as our crack-dealing bruthas are prone to labelling Lothian & Borders’ finest, have allowed Cav to flourish in an effort to herd the city’s undesirables into one cesspit. Like a rehab centre for leprous junkies, Cav accepts the dregs that the rest of Edinburgh doesn’t want. As a consequence, this nightclub is about as classy as a hooker who offers you a blowjob and, upon being refused, administers it anyway because she loves the taste of cock.

When the worms aren’t biting in the city’s regular nightclubs and you can’t be arsed trudging to Leith to pick up a hoor, there’s always Cav. It’s not uncommon for men (flatmates, I’ll throw in, as a dig at no one in particular) to loiter outside Cav purely to inspect the flesh that’s hanging around the smoking area, even if it proves to be mince rather than sirloin. Such casual lingering can prove fruitful however; it is not uncommon for the veal-dressed-as-beef to sidle up and crash a fag. This can’t always be taken as evidence of the girls hitting on you it should be noted; they may have genuinely had trouble getting served smokes.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that monkeys are rubbish at playing skittles. If there are two things I’ve learned however, it’s that for every beautiful creation, something shitty must be conceived to counterbalance it. A ying to its yang, an alpha to its omega. And thus, as a reward for boasting the finest castle ever to be hewn out of volcanic rock, Edinburgh must endure the worst nightclub ever to be spewn out upon a city. Just to play devil’s advocate however, let’s suppose that I’m being overly harsh on this persecuted club. In the interests of fairness and impartiality, let’s pluck a few user reviews from the net and see what they have to say about this inimitable establishment:

“Avoid unless you like chavvy neds who binge drink on alcopops and then go fighting. And that was only the girls! The worst night out I’ve ever had in Edinburgh.”

“Grimy, sticky floors…cheap nasty beer…same old same old mainstream music dribbling out of the speakers…and a cloak room that stringently charges you for every item of clothing you hand in (even if, in my case, it was a fleece that lined the inside of my jacket….).”

“Should you end up here on a Saturday night, my advice is this; look at your pint, look at the floor, look at the ceiling. Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with any of the bottom feeders in this place, a bottle in the face is their way of saying “hello”…”

Oh well. Like darling Wills & Kate, it would appear that I am perfectly attuned to the mood of the nation. Although this review may exude a mildly unfavourable undertone towards Cav, it should be noted to the club’s credit that at least it’s not Shanghai or bloody Silk. Sure, technically Cav’s a lot worse, but at least it knows it’s worse, and doesn’t make any attempt to hide its shame, Joseph Fritzl-style. If you’re going to do something badly, do it really badly. Don’t just conceive a nightclub dripping in piss, puke and spunk – immerse, bathe and baste yourself in it. Cav’s so filthy, you could probably impregnate yourself in the slime that drips off the walls after a hard night of banging tunes and tarts on the dance floor. Every beginning has an end, and this is Cav’s epitaph. It may well continue serving watered down drinks to diluted talent, but this club died on the day I say it died, just as my favourite day of the week died the day that Rebecca Black made it hers.

Try: If your latex allergy means you can only f*** girls who ride bareback

Avoid: If you’ve more brains than a jar of desiccated coconut

Typical prices:

Drinks £2 during the week, £3.60 at weekends

Spending the night in A&E having shards of glass removed from your eye: priceless

—★★★—



