Best buddy, The Chairman, has just reneged on a projected rendezvous for the third successive time this week (all of them originally his suggestion!). Other best bud, The Choirboy, is enjoying a short break in Tokyo. Most of his regular acolytes are also suddenly out of town: Jesse the Film Guy and The Suave Bengali are both holidaying in Thailand for a week or so (quite independently of each other, they insist, purely a weary-minds-think-alike phenomenon). The Man In Black has no 'shore leave' this weekend. Ron Not Ron is likewise a prisoner of his (virtual) uxoriousness. And The Poet has, I gather, like numerous others of my American friends, grown aghast at the hugely inflated 'prices' being asked for visas this summer, and has fled back to the US for a couple of months.
I am all ALONE in the city tonight. The glorious Helen Feng of Ziyo is playing at my favourite divey music bar, 2 Kolegas....... and I have no-one to go with. NO-ONE. Well, that hasn't stopped me in the past. And it won't tonight.
But, in the past, solitary gig-going has usually been my choice; or, if not, I have at least had the consolation that my regular associates are simply choosing to enjoy themselves elsewhere in the city and I thus have the option of joining up with them later.
I am now starting to feel as though I might become The Last Laowai In Beijing........
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