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Drink: Wilde night out Drink enough absinthe and you'll see `wonderful, curious things', according to Oscar Wilde. Richard Johnson took up the challenge at a rooftop bar in west London

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From: The Independent - London
Date: 20010915
Author:Richard Johnson, IILLUSTRATION MICHAEL GILLETTE

A devotee of absinthe - and fin de siecle decadence in general - Oscar Wilde once said: "The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things. But if you can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see - wonderful, curious things." Wilde recalled that, during the third stage, he had imagined feeling tulips brushing against his shins.

Two absinthes in, but still no tulips. Just 180 degrees of sunset, on the divine roof terrace at Babylon, in London's Kensington High Street. And roses with enough ...

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