RICHARD BELL joins the empty-pocketed clubbers for Skint @ Lava Ignite.

I’d like to preface this week’s article with a personal opinion – I dislike toilets with attendants.

I don’t like the fact that attendants are present at my least favourite (and, of course, most personal) moment of the clubbing experience and I don’t like the presumption that I’ll pay for them to be there.

The absolute worst thing about toilets with attendants though – known to those of us who’ve had the displeasure of encountering ‘freshen-up men’ – is that they make the simple yet necessary and, of course, crucially hygienic process of washing your hands feel like a chore and, at its worst, like something to be avoided.

It was rather delightful then, as I and a couple of friends arrived for a Friday night at Lava Ignite, to find no toilet attendants in sight.

Having made use of the glorious privacy of the restrooms I was able to take advantage of Lava Ignite’s latest initiative to get recession stricken young folks out of their living rooms and on to the dance floors.

Two drinks for the price of one is the kind of deal you might expect from one of the pre-clubbing pubs in town, but not from the biggest nightclub in the city, and finding that Lava Ignite is willing to offer such a generous deal to the empty-pocketed is a charming and above all inviting surprise.

The music is also surprisingly decent, and as an avid indie boy I found I was more than able to enjoy the DJ’s choices in funky house, electro beats and cheesy classics.

While I can’t say I was coaxed on to the dance floor myself I could see people were having a great time and understood why.

The secret to the humorously and indeed aptly named Skint is to get down early.

I’m afraid the rather wonderful deals behave much like Cinderella’s dress, turning from riches to rags and disappearing into thin air at the stroke of midnight, coinciding with the unfortunate reappearance of a freshen-up man in the toilet.

After midnight Lava Ignite changes from the inviting Skint into the money-grabbing snarling monster many years of living in Oxford have convinced me it truly is.

But I am being a bit unfair.

This is a very good night, with its ear to the ground on what people are looking for from a club night these days and crucially what they can afford it to be.

But the abrupt appearance of toilet attendants and the sudden hike in drinks prices have shown me no matter how good this night may appear at first sight, its commercially-minded Ugly Sister is always waiting in the wings.