“Opened 60 years ago by the feted, unpredictable Muriel Belcher, the Colony Room was where Bacon made his second home; and soon Belcher had made it a gin-soaked refuge for most of London’s artists, poets, drunks.” Now “the smoking ban, ruinous rents, trouble with licences and hard finance, mean Michael is considering selling: so while Bacon lives exuberantly again, in the Tate retrospective, his home is troubled.”