Substitute

Nice as it is to have Li Mei back behind the bar at 12 Square Metres, it's hard not to feel a little regretful at the departure of the replacement bar staff who've been keeping the place going for the past few weeks - German Connie and Israeli Bora.  They were a very agreeable pair who did an excellent job of filling in for the bosses during their holiday Down Under.   It was a particularly pleasant change to have a breath of novelty about the music choices.  I mean, the regular playlist is perfectly OK, but, well, it's very regular: the same handful of tunes seem to come up over and over again.  (I suspect it's the fault of the asinine i-Tunes interface which seems to accord 'priority ratings' to songs every time they get played, even if they were only selected randomly - hence ensuring that the 'randomization' isn't really random at all, but just progressively rigidifies the first few random selections it happened upon until they become an immutable playlist that covers only 5% or 10% of the total downloaded music library.)   Even with the existing - slightly stale, we thought - library, Bora was able to liven things up quite a bit by the simple expedient of opting for the 'Classic Rock' category instead of the usual 'party mix'.  The boss, JK, might not necessarily approve of the experiment.  Pink Floyd isn't the kind of thing to entice in passing trade.  But I like it!  And, oh my god, who knew they had Led Zep, Cream, and The Kinks on there?  And indeed The Who!  There was one night the bar was deserted and Connie left me in charge of the laptop for an hour while she sat on the stoop chatting with a friend - rock'n'roll heaven: the time just flew by!!   In addition to these long overlooked delights, Bora also imported quite a few bits and pieces from his own eclectic music collection - including a wonderful compilation of obscure '50s and '60s hits, and some classic jazz.  It rapidly became something of a tradition that he'd put on Nina Simone's stupendous live version of Sinner Man towards closing time, or whenever I was threatening to leave early..... and we'd know we had time to get at least one more in (the track lasts 10 or 12 minutes).   Ah, but that leads to another aspect of the temporary regime at 12 Square that was, how shall I say, more of a mixed blessing.  Joseph and Li Mei are usually pretty strict about closing up promptly around midnight.  But their two young friends, having no regular day jobs to bother them, were much more lax about this - especially on the weekends.  That bar is so wonderfully insulated from the cares of the outside world that it rather too readily becomes a time warp - you just lose track of the clock completely.  But ordinarily that doesn't matter too much - if you know you're going to get kicked out shortly after midnight.  Last month there were quite a few occasions where I suddenly came to my senses and realised - with shock and disbelief - that it was in fact 1am, 1.30am, 2am....  Yikes - how did that happen?!    There are other places I can go for that kind of late night indulgence, if I'm feeling in the mood; and I know what I'm getting myself into when I do that.  At 12 Square Metres, however, experiences like that are an ambush!  (I may, at another time, write about the usefulness of 'closing time' and how, on balance, I rather miss it now that it has become for me, in Beijing, an almost completely redundant concept.)   Anyway - bon voyage, Bora and Connie.  Thanks for everything.  We hope to see you back here again one day.