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I used to visit in the late 90s just before the R18 laws loosened and buying a vHS of porn was a ?20 gamble - it could be a blank tape for all you knew.

There were cinemas, peep shows, girls asking for business in the street, clip joints for the unweary, lots of doorways with "model, top floor" written on the wall; a colorful, slightly dodgy place where you didn't know quite what you were going to get.

I went there last week, all cinemas have closed bar a single gay cinema. The peepshows are still there but, as usual, one hot Spanish girl in one booth, one minger in the other - ?2 gets you 60 seconds! Police everywhere, loads of shops shut. No touting, no couples sneaking in to the DVD booths or blowjobs in doorways - all in all, quite boring.

What's happened. Can't blame a recession for lack of fun or giddy sense of thrill. And Soho just keep getting smaller.

Or am I getting bigger?

Nah, Soho has become populated by the metrosexual folk.

Those people are now long gone as Westminster Council has capitalised on the notoriety of the place by making it all trendy.

There goes the neighbourhood

This happened to Notting Hill where all the city workers have hijacked my old fave rave place of choice The Subteranea and made it a trendy private club now called The Supper Club

Why they enjoy hob nobbing in areas that are poorer than what they used to is anyones guess. Maybe to flash their cash and feel better about themselves maybe?

Thats like a bunch of fat folk walking gaily and singing merrily into a nest of Velociraptors

Last time I visited Soho I was asked if I wanted tickets to a "Vicar and choirboys" show. It seemed to me that it was getting more gay friendly. Not my cup of tea so I've never returned.

Nothing stays the same and soho is no exception, anyway London is being revamped ready for the olympics next year, Boris is behind it all !wink!

Soho is not as good as it used to be. The last time I was there.. it was August. So few good shops.. not a lot on offer. If it's to do with the recession, this hot spot is coming to it's turning point.

Sheer wanton greed has killed Soho. After decades of stitching up punter after punter.......the punters had enough and moved on. Even the porn punter has a limit to the number of time that he'll allow himself to be cheated.

Soho killed, stuffed,roasted and devoured the Golden Goose and now serves no other purpose than being a Venus Flytrap for hapless gangs of drunks and the last few sad members of the Dirty Mac brigade. I'm afraid I never saw Soho as a Sherwood Forest kind of reserve made up of valiant, little sex shop owners, whistling a jolly tune, whilst bravely facing off the evil of Westminster Council. I saw it as nothing more than a place to be ripped off.

The last time I looked round Soho, it all looked so, so, sad. Apart from the shop, Prowler which was packed with dozens of gays busilly emptying the racks of everything they could find.

I prefer Leicester Square myself. I love being in Central London but the whole place is ridiculously over the top expensive now. I love The IMAX at Waterloo too

Its no suprise that it has the lowest council tax in the land...All the other taxes pay for it to be kept so low and the Tories just dont want to lose their stranglehold on this most exclusive of areas in order to keep the riff raff out.

Try rioting down there and you'll get ripped a new arse faster than the SAS can storm an Iranian Embassy!

It always was a bit of scumbag, rip off shithole when I used to live there !

It used to be a 20? a film and a tenner to exchange back in the mid 90s when i visited a few times.Used to feel like i was on an undercovermission under darkness sneaking in having a few beers getting some porn and sneaking out. The shops were seedy as hell but never had any problems with the staff,they were tripping over themselves to sell anything,and they always showed the tape being played before you left with it.

As a former member of John Lindsay`s sex cinema in the late Seventies,
and a buyer of several betamax tapes (remember betamax anyone), I
used to love and hate the place. The sex shops were utter rip-offs then,
only the strip clubs had a kind of tatty 1950s glamour about them. But
I miss the old Cameo Moulin cinema where the raincoat brigade of city
gents used to either fall asleep in the warm fug, or sit watching the
softcore features, like "School For Sex" and wanking furiously. Odd to
think those smutty silly old films had production values 100 times better
than what passes for most Brit Porn these days.
After Soho was "cleaned up" in the 90s I must say I rather prefer the
change....tons more eateries, one or two passable though expensive
restaurants....as the sex shops legalised the prices dropped but it was
no longer very naughty....
In fact the naughtiness really went with the Street Offences Act in the
1950s. Girls in tight sweaters and stiletto heels on the street corners.
Now that was the real Soho !!!