That was like Jersey to me, Avenue D. There were opium dens down in Chinatown.
Taking decisions in a tight group in the "den" in Downing Street is understandable in the run-up to war and during its fighting – Churchill had a small war cabinet, as did Mrs Thatcher during the Falklands conflict – but Blair's style rarely tolerated divergent opinions.
In fact it looked like Dad's den, right down to the brown curtains and pipe racks.
Yuh take duh Fourt' Avenoo express, get off at Fifty-nint' Street, change to a Sea Beach local deh, get off at Eighteent' Avenoo an' Sixty-toid, an' den walk down foeh blocks.
The star of BBC2's Dragon's Den stood down as chairman of the League One club in May 2005 but continued to serve as a director under his successor Peter de Savary.
For an hourly fee you can hire a private cubicle containing a TV, a BluRay player, a computer, a games console, a stereo … everything you'd find in a techno-savvy twentysomething's home den, right down to the bed (increasing numbers of people sleep in these bedrooms-for-hire overnight: they're open 24 hours and are considerably cheaper than a capsule hotel).
There were two major surprises (beyond the fact that a woman could be named Tommy): cut-out sinks — we didn't have those in the bathroom salon at home — and a stack of Playboys in the waiting area, right next to Time and Esquire, not squirreled away in the den, passed down from a creepy uncle.
Even gambling dens shut down on the day of her funeral, as a mark of respect.
By rights, Belle and Sebastian should be viewed as a kooky diversion: music to make tea by, or to pipe into the den while settling down with a volume of Samuel Pepys.
Elsewhere, ADO Den Haag went down to a 2 1 defeat at home to NAC Breda, Csaba Horvath replying to goals in each half from Anthony Lurling and Matthew Amoah.
