The mysterious world of private members’ clubs
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s a place where people meet to network and make connections - and most people have never set foot in one.
These exclusive establishments, in cities around the world, are reportedly more popular than ever.
So what goes on behind those hallowed doors? And how can people get in?
We look at the history of these exclusive clubs, find out how to join, and ask whether they have a future.
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Produced and presented by Elizabeth Hotson
(Image: Members of the Harvard Club use the lounge to read and socialise in 2022, in the midtown neighborhood of New York City. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Elizabeth Hotson and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. On today's programme, I'll be looking at the mysterious allure of private members clubs and how they've grown from rather murky beginnings to bastions of desirability. We talk about them coming out of the coffee houses, but they were basically a legitimate front for illegal gambling. |
| 0:22.4 | The legal jargon of saying we're a private members club |
| 0:25.5 | made it very difficult for the authorities to raid them. |
| 0:28.1 | Nowadays, even the richest people in the world |
| 0:30.5 | don't get an automatic pass to the most sought-after clubs. |
| 0:34.2 | If you sell 15 million pound yachts and you want to join the conduit because you're |
| 0:42.2 | hoping to find billionaires, you're probably not our ideal member. And we'll find out who does |
| 0:47.7 | get membership to one of London's most convivial establishments. Somebody who's jolly and who's |
| 0:53.9 | good at chatting. Somebody you want tolly and who's good at chatting. |
| 0:55.4 | Somebody you want to sit down and have a talk to. |
| 0:57.8 | That's who we want. |
| 0:58.8 | That's all in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:08.4 | Nowadays, it seems that almost anything can be yours for a price. |
| 1:13.0 | A private island? No problem. |
| 1:15.5 | A solid gold shirt, yours for $240,000. |
| 1:19.3 | How about a $14,000 diamond tea bag? |
| 1:22.9 | I'll take four, please. |
| 1:24.7 | Yes, you can pretty much buy it all. |
| 1:27.3 | Apart from that is, membership to some of the |
| 1:29.8 | world's most exclusive private members clubs. Because for some of these places, no matter |
| 1:37.9 | how big your bank balance, if the membership committee doesn't like the way that you look, |
| 1:42.6 | you're not getting in. |
... |
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