Blue Cat Club

An establishment in Ankh-Morpork, located on Lurkers Lane in The Shades, operating under the auspices of the Seamstresses' Guild, which caters for rather specialized tastes. Those interests can be tactfully guessed from the existence of its counterpart, the Pink PussyCat Club catering those appreciating young women.

Despite opposition from within the Guild, Rosemary Palm is in full support of the proprietor, Mr Harris, and his right to Guild membership, on the grounds that un-natural acts are only natural. Mrs Palm is so much in support of Mr Harris, in fact, that she has ensured he has a seat on the Seamstresses' Guild Council, which makes him quite a powerful, if little-known, figure in the Guild.

It can be seen that the Seamstresses' Guild strives to be a non-discriminatory equal-opportunities employer.

The Blue Cat Club may be alluded to in Hogfather, as a side-note to Susan Sto Helit's visit to Fidgett's to find her grandfather.

"This was a gentlemen's club which did not allow the presence of ladies. This was not to suggest it was that kind of gentlemen's club, which existed in a different part of the city, with generally a lot more going on."

Annotation

In Victorian England, a sexual libertine named Frank Harris caused major scandal with his, shall we say, relaxed attitude to the morals of the day. He was part of the "chattering classes" of the day (1890's London) and was a friend of others, such as Oscar Wilde and Sir Richard Burton, who for various reasons were thought of as being no better than they should. (Sir Richard Burton - the explorer, not the film star - provoked indecency actions with his frank translations of Persian love poems, which were by no means heterosexual. He also publicised the seamy side of British India, such as the fact that every second house in Karachi appeared to be a gay brothel - which were by no means used only by natives.) Harris wrote eleven rather repetitive volumes of My Life and Loves, chronicling his liaisons with both men and women. He faced frequent actions for indecency and publishing pornography.