Then there are bars with fairly routine ordinances, but with settings that defy the standards of normalcy. There is a bar in Singapore, for instance, which is styled entirely – and, like the prison-bar, For the discerning melancholic with a desire to laugh – or imbibe – in the face of mortality, a 66-foot long, 20-foot high coffin in Ukraine houses Eternity, a mourning-themed bar with a moribund menu.
South Africa isn’t bereft of weird bars, either. The Big Baobab on Sunland Farm, Limpopo, houses a bar in the hollow of its 6000-year-old trunk; and the HQ Exchange event in Cape Town converts the bar of this local favourite into a bibulous stock-market: the price of drinks fluctuates relative to the profligacy of people’s spending.
Still, as far as petty proscriptions go, the ban on ‘literally’ goes unrivalled – and The Continental must have alienated many a Millennial on these grounds.