A strange evening

So, farewell then, Bad Company.

I quite liked the name, but everything else about the place epitomised what is so awful about the majority of Chinese bars. Although I have to admit, this negative assessment is based essentially on intuition: I'm only familiar with the place at all because it is just over the road from my favourite haunt, 12 Square Metres; until last night, I had never actually set foot inside the place.

My prejudices against the joint were immediately confirmed upon entry. It has badly laid-out space (the bar crammed in near the door; a pointless stage taking up most of the rear part of the room); unwelcoming staff who speak just about no English (though I suppose their dourness might be forgiven, since they were about to lose their jobs [but - a barman and two waitresses in a joint that size??]); disgusting colour scheme, profusion of tacky knick-knacks; and savagely overlit.

But the owner (well, the one surviving owner - his three co-investors had a big falling out, and did a moonlight flit, leaving him with all the bills), the memorably named 'Turbo', is a nice enough young chap - something of a regular at 12 Square. And he decided to go out with a bang, by auctioning off all his equipment and fittings for a pittance, and discounting the remaining booze down to giveaway prices for a going-out-of-business sale. I was ordered to go check it out by the boss of 12 Square (And how often do you find a bar owner insisting that you go to drink somewhere else?! I mean, unless you're breaking stuff, obviously....). And the two-for-one offer on Harbin beer was indeed hard to resist. And oh my god, the spirits.....

After consuming a couple of large Jim Beams, an improvised Drambuie cocktail, and three tequila slammers within the space of half an hour or less, I thought I'd better beat a retreat in the interests of my survival.

And, to be honest, even the ridiculously cheap booze (not to say FREE - Turbo was standing me most of the liquor) was failing to generate a party atmosphere. No, poor Turbo was not unnaturally a little maudlin about things, and the place was pretty near deserted - the mood was awkward, tending towards the funereal.

However, there wasn't much going on anywhere else in the 'hood, and an hour or so later - by which time I was just starting to be able to see straight again - I was summoned back there by another of my 12 Square Metres cronies who'd found his way there. By this time (around 11.30 or so), Turbo had crashed out on one of the sofas (although for a while, he did continue to make occasional, incoherent contributions to the conversation, as he stirred intermittently from his tequila-induced coma), and the handful of other punters who'd been in earlier had all left. And we had cleaned the fridge out of Ha Pi. So, again, the baleful ambience was prompting us to leave, cheap/free booze or no cheap/free booze. But at that point, The Choirboy extricated himself from a wedding party and insisted on coming over to join us - so we ended up staying there drinking very strong gin & tonics until about 1.30am (the barman had been calling 'last orders' - without any conviction at all - since shortly before midnight).

And we then went to a bunch of other places, of course - the Pool Bar, 'The Muslim' - and finally staggered home at dawn.

Ah, Saturday nights in Beijing..... always a strange mixture of the expected and the unexpected.