If the size of a person's ego can be judged by how often his photograph appears on his own website, Peter Stringfellow has an ego the size of Australia. His grinning face peers out from some 50 photographs taken with entirely predictable people like Colin Farrell, Callum Best, Simon Cowell and Peter Andre, writes Breda O'Brien
Even the most jaded person might blink, though, at the ones taken with Margaret Thatcher. On reflection, though, it is not unfitting that the Iron Lady should have attended a Conservative Party fundraiser at Stringfellow's strip club in London.
She does, after all, believe that the market functions best when given free rein, and Stringfellow would surely raise an over-priced glass of champagne to that.
Such is his admiration for the baroness that he even gave his "dancers" the night off in deference to her, although he was patently delighted when she asked where his "girls" were.
Game old bird, Maggie, none of this prudish nonsense for her of wondering what the effect on society might be of pretending that stripping is a career choice akin to chiropody.
Oh, I forgot, the baroness once imperiously declared that there was no such thing as society, only individuals and families.
However, none of the photographs, not even the one with Maggie, quite matches the smirk Peter Stringfellow had on his face when he got his licence to open another club in Parnell Street.
So pleased was he that he congratulated Judge Ann Watkins, the person who granted the license, albeit with conditions, on being "worldly" and aware that "Dublin is a modern European capital".
Some people, notably the architects of Dublin's development plan, might have thought that pouring millions into the refurbishment of O'Connell Street and the development of a cultural quarter around Parnell Square might have been a better tribute to Ireland's arrival in the modern era.
Yet what do a writer's museum, art galleries or 200-year-old gardens in the Rotunda that are soon to be refurbished have to offer in comparison to the delights of paying to see a young woman take her clothes off?
Still others, like residents Vera Brady and Maria Mhic Mheanmain, want to see the area they grew up in continue to throw off a sad history of neglect and drug abuse in order to become a thriving area once again.
How kind of Stringfellow to explain that having a strip joint around the corner from a hospital, a school and a toy shop constitutes "gentrification" not degeneracy.
Then there is city councillor Emer Costello, who wanted to raise at the hearing such irrelevant concerns as the dangers of clubs like this being magnets that will draw highly-undesirable activity into the area. Irrelevant, that is, to the planning laws.
Last year Ms Costello tabled a motion in relation to the Dublin City development plan which only one person voted against. The motion was aimed at preventing sex shops from setting up in residential areas.
Sadly, she was informed that, due to the planning laws, this could only be an aspiration. Planning permission for a shop doesn't define what you can sell, a loophole that the Ann Summer's chain exploited with glee when they set up a sex shop on the main street of our capital city.
Since then sex shops have set up opposite schools and churches, and their signage has become increasingly brazen.
It is deeply ironic that local councils can zone areas, or list buildings for conservation, but cannot lift a finger to help residents keep sex shops out of heavily residential areas where lots of children live.
There are similar loopholes in Acts governing public dance halls which have facilitated lap-dancing clubs and strip joints.
The testimony by the advocacy group for women in prostitution, Ruhama, was irrelevant too because the only grounds that are relevant to the planning legislation are noise, public nuisance and public order.
Never mind that there is evidence that women are being trafficked into Ireland and abused to service this kind of industry.
The judge did impose conditions on the club such as not opening until 6pm, not allowing patrons under 21 to enter, or any signage other than the name of the club to be displayed.
The conditions do not go anywhere near meeting the concerns of the residents, but they are more than the law would have demanded.
In Scotland, a women's group proposed taking photographs of the men who frequent these clubs and posting their pictures on the internet. As a tactic it would fail miserably in Ireland. You would probably have people thrusting their faces at the camera, and waving at mammy.
So eager is Ireland to throw off the shackles of a repressive past that both men and women are queuing to show how totally cool they are by patronising these venues.
They might be interested in the conclusions of the Canadian McKenzie Institute, better known for research on terrorism, which also turned its attentions to strip clubs.
It suggests that such clubs exist to sell drink to patrons, and that this is accomplished by linking sex, or rather the idea of sex, to such consumption.
In other words, sex is just the equivalent of the magician's patter designed to distract us from what is really going on.
While the punters' eyes are focused on the titillation, the clubs are metaphorically picking their pockets by charging high prices for alcohol.
The fact is that while some women working there make large amounts of money, most do not. And their prospects are extremely bleak when the silicone starts to sag. It's just business, darling, as the ever-lovable Peter Stringfellow might say.
Councillor Costello's next step is to take a motion to the General Council of County Councils, which, if passed, will result in lobbying the Minister for the Environment for changes in the planning laws.
Certainly there is a market for these clubs, but there is also a thriving market for child pornography.
Despite what Margaret and her adoring acolyte might say, sometimes we need more than the market to guide us.
After all, how sad is it to need to buy a facsimile of sexual intimacy from women who would not look twice at you if they were not being paid for it?