Emerging from hibernation

Everybody's favourite hutong cocktail bar MaoMaoChong is finally set to open its doors again this evening, after a long closedown over the winter. It has been much missed for the past four months.

Also waking up for the spring is Great Leap Brewing, which is greeting the new season by holding a Chilli Cook-Off event from 4pm on Saturday. [A "source close to the owners" suggests to me that they're not yet ready to re-open fully, and will just be doing one-off events like this. I don't know if this is because they can't be bothered to run the place as a regular bar, or because they're getting enough private bookings that they don't need to, or if they're still having licensing difficulties. I must investigate further tomorrow.]

So, that's the next two evenings taken care of. And I'm sure there's something on Sunday too...

HBH 278

Ten years' merriment!

Energy dies, people leave...

All parties end.

It is really starting to look as if I am nearing the end of my time in China (as if we all are!). An odd sense of dislocation, and a mounting terror of the unknown are setting in...

How not to do it - opening a bar

A couple of weeks ago, I was tipped off about a new bar opening in my neighbourhood - so, I thought I'd go and give it a try.

There are many, many bad and pointless Chinese bars opening up all over the place - particularly in my neighbourhood! - all the time; most of them I never get around to checking out; and most of them don't endure for very long. Therefore, I am somewhat perversely glad that, for once, I went to the trouble of scoping this place out... because it superbly epitomises so much of what is STUPID about most Chinese bar owners in Beijing, it is a text book on how not to.

Things that are probably better to avoid:

Setting up off the strip

Sure, some places - good places (like MaoMaoChong or Amilal or El Nido) - can establish themselves as 'destination bars', somewhere that's worth a small excursion off the more regularly beaten track. And more true 'neighbourbood bars', 'locals' serving the population who live in the immediate vicinity (like The Brick) rather than the general after-work drinking crowd, would be a welcome addition to the Beijing scene. But, in general, there's a reason why bars and restaurants cluster together around Sanlitun and Gongti and Nanluoguxiang and Houhai and Wudaoying and Wudaokou. Most 'lone wolves' die of starvation. Hence, the bar that inspired me to write this is immediately setting itself a bit of a challenge by opening up on Gulou Dongdajie (a street of shops and restaurants, not bars), mid-way between the Houhai and Nanluoguxiang bar enclaves (nearby, but perhaps not quite near enough).

Impossible to find/No name outside

The 'speakeasy' craze has tried to make a virtue of obscurity, elevating being unadvertised, unlabelled, hard-to-find into a quirky marketing gimmick. I don't like the idea much myself, but I can see that it might sometimes work - with a very special kind of bar (a trendy, upmarket cocktail bar). With most bars, it is simply commercial suicide: if you don't put a sign out front, you are never going to have any business. Guess what my new bar forgot to do?

Being upstairs, in a mall

Of course, I long ago identified this as one of the defining characteristics of a bad bar. If there is one thing that's arguably even worse, it's being upstairs in a mini industrial estate. Oh, and set back off the main street. At least this place is in quite a bustling area, a very central location in the city. And it's upstairs from a highly visible motorcycle-and-sidecar dealership, which makes it fairly easy to find once you know the secret.

Unclear or naff or multiple names

The bar in question is ostensibly called Zhou in Chinese. Apparently, that's the zhou that means 'axle', not the one that means 'porridge' (nor any of the other 100-odd zhou words; it's a troublesomely multifarious syllable - although I think this is the only one, or the only common one, with a rising second tone). However, the posters that flank the door proclaim instead iBeer - very hip and modern; and I'm sure Apple won't mind. Ah, but the business cards announce that the 'English name' is Eje Beer Club. The owner tells me that 'eje' is the Spanish for zhou, i.e., for 'axle'; so, at least there's some consistency there. Unfortunately, his Spanish is about as good as my Chinese, so I am unable to reach an understanding of why he has chosen to call his bar this... in Chinese and Spanish, but not in English. [One is reminded of the worst bar on Nanluoguxiang, which has long suffered the handicap of having not one but two of the most ridiculous names to be found in this city: LogIn Pub and Wiggly Jiggly's. And also of the little Moroccan restaurant opposite the April Gourmet supermarket on Xingfu Ercun, which has signs outside identifying it as Argana and Escobar and Casablanca; not naff names, but too many of them - this confusion of identity no doubt explains why it has never developed the kind of following that its prime location and tasty food deserve.]

Inconsistent theme or lack of branding

It was also unclear to me why such a very Asian bar (think Japanese or Korean: bright, garish, would-be space-agey, with lots of chrome and shiny plastic and mirrors) would give itself a Spanish name. And then specialise in Belgian beer. While playing (at least while I was there) exclusively reggae music. This is a bit too much of a cultural mélange: customers don't understand what you're trying to give them here.

Horrible decor

I already mentioned the gleaming plastic and the overuse of mirrors, didn't I? There are also some 'homemade' booth seats along the wall with the windows, which are too cramped for anyone - other than, perhaps, very diminutive Asian girls - to actually sit in, and are absolutely rock hard. The centre of the room is filled with small, high, round, gleamingly plasticky tables - most of which have but a single stool placed next to them. So, this is a "beer club" for the solitary drinker?? You'll probably need to wear ski goggles as well, since the lighting sears the eyeballs.

An unwelcoming attitude

It's good to get your mates in to support you in your early days, and to give the impression - however slight and unconvincing - that the place is attracting customers. It's not such a good idea to have these few guys always completely hog what little counter space you have at the bar.  And chain smoke, in a small, poorly ventilated room. (I suppose I should be grateful at least that they weren't playing dice. Although it seemed likely that dice, or cards, or some kind of drinking game would break out shortly.)

Lack of facilities

These days, your own loo - preferably a Western-style sit-upon - is pretty much de rigueur for a bar, or at any rate for one that aspires to be even slightly upmarket. As is a wi-fi beacon (despite half-hearted attempts by the authorites to outlaw wi-fi last summer). And at least one member of staff who can muster a couple of dozen words of English. Zhou may address these deficits in time - but I wouldn't bet on it.

Too near to rivals

Zhou may be just a bit too far away from Houhai or Nanluoguxiang to pick up much random foot traffic (er, if anyone knew it was there anyway...), but it is right next door to two other recent-ish bar openings, Temple and Jam. Temple is a large, divey bar, with Chinese/European ownership, focused on beer and simple cocktails, and putting on a lot of live music; Jam is cleaner, brighter, more upmarket, more Asian in flavour, with a "Japanese/Italian" theme (I kid you not!) and an emphasis on food and fancy cocktails. As it happens, I don't particularly like either of these places; but at least they have a fairly clear idea of what they want to do, and they do it way better than Zhou. I cannot conceive of anyone choosing to go to Zhou rather than to one of these two neighbours.

Falling between two stools

It's particularly unfortunate that Zhou is in many ways so reminiscent of its local rivals. Its emphasis on imported beers, and its attempt to keep prices reasonable (about the one good thing I have to say for it; I think it's probably got the cheapest bottle of Duvel in town at the moment - I just don't like Duvel, unfortunately) would seem to pitch it more in the 'dive bar' category, where it can't hold a candle to Temple (or El Nido). However, its decor and ambience (insofar as it has one) seem to be aspiring more to something Asian-friendly and slightly swish.... like Jam. It is not so much falling between two stools as taking careful aim and diving between them...

Perhaps it can attract enough Chinese - and Japanese and Korean - beer enthusiasts to keep it afloat. But, without some radical changes, it is never going to build any Western custom.

A new distraction

Don't ask me how, but... a couple of days ago I serendipitously discovered the Spirits Notebook, kept by Bill Dowd, an American writer on wine, beer, and travel, and author of a history of whisk(e)y called Barrels & Drams.

I can imagine myself spending quite a lot of time on his New York Beer Trails or Drinking New York blogs, but it is the Spirits Notebook that is sure to consume most of my time - with its intriguing news of Bushmills bringing out a new 'honey' blend, or of French cognac producers branching out into whisky-making, or these unusual  "Chinese"-themed cocktail suggestions.

Oh yes, more hours of my life just disappeared down the drain of the Internet!

A bad deal

I asked The Chairman if he would come out for a drink with me on St Patrick's Day, since he is, like me, a person of Irish ancestry - a generation or two back, at any rate.

He regretfully declined, on the grounds that he had committed himself to travelling out of town for the weekend to do some IELTS examining. (He's supposed to have been giving up - or radically scaling back - that line of work; but his resolve on this point has faltered after just a few months.)

As he put it:  "I've sold my birthright for 40,000 mao."

I replied:  "You could call it 400,000 fen*, and it still wouldn't sound like a good deal."

I then added:  "I hope you've at least got some Jameson's in the hotel mini-bar."

No, not much of a St Pat's this year. All my playmates were otherwise engaged (bloody rugby!!). And mobility was inhibited by foul weather: the day-long damp cold had long looked as if it wouldn't produce anything worse than the persistent mizzle we'd suffered on Thursday, but in the early evening it suddenly developed into a proper rain; within an hour or two, the rain became quite heavy; then it transitioned into sleet; and by 10.30 or so it was snowing like the clappers. So, the city's increasingly ropey taxi service - and much of the rest of its public transportation system - ceased to operate, and everyone was STUCK wherever they happened to be. I couldn't even make it a mile up the road to catch Des & co. playing their Irish songs at Modernista. No, I was trapped in 12 Square Metres all night. Still, there are worse places to get trapped...

[* A mao is slang for the one-tenth of a yuan currency unit. A fen is in theory one-hundredth of a yuan, although it has ceased to exist as a practical unit of currency.]

Bon mot for the week

"Maybe crazy is what they call anybody who's still got magic in them after they're no longer a child."

Robert R. McGammon  (1952-  )

Great Drinking Songs (31)

Crikey, we haven't had a Great Drinking Song in nearly 7 months! So, obviously, we've got to have one today - St Patrick's Day. (It's also the 100th post under my 'Great Songs' tag, so I'd better pick something extra GOOD...)

How have I not nominated this before? Well, better late than never - here's Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy doing their classic version of the traditional Irish song Whiskey In the Jar.

And here's Gary Moore and a number of other former Thin Lizzy members performing it at a 2005 tribute to Lynott (on 20th August, which would have been his 56th birthday).

And here's a more traditional version from The Dubliners. (I have just learned that they also sang this with The Pogues; the Youtube post of this has good sound quality, but, unfortunately, a still photo only).

I also just turned up some intriguing oddities: versions by The Grateful Dead (a folksy rendition, with particularly bright mandolin), Smokie (of whom I'd never heard before: a moderately successful Yorkshire rock band of the '60s and '70s, their take on the song is quite similar to Thin Lizzy's), Metallica (a 'tribute' to Thin Lizzy that it might have been more respectful to omit), and.... Elvis (well, not really, no; it's an Irish Elvis impersonator called Jim Brown).

I've also posted some versions of The Wild Rover over on Froogville today. Double happiness!

Too much happening, all at the same time

Last night I went to a Premature Paddies event (at Danger Doyle's of all places, god help me!) organised by a cabal of alumni groups.

We have the real thing tomorrow...

... with a raft of events competing for my attention (Blackwater at Modernista? The Beijing Beatles at Temple? Steerage somewhere?? Enticing specials at 12 Square Metres and Salud!).

But first, I'm supposed to be going to the opening game of Beijing Guo'an's season - against the reviled Shanghai Shenhua - tonight at the Workers' Stadium.

And then... our favourite blues-rockers Black Cat Bone are doing a reunion/farewell gig at 2 Kolegas, since their long-time drummer Jon Campbell is back in town to promote his book Red Rock at the Bookworm International Literary Festival. I also have a ticket to see him speak at the Worm tomorrow afternoon. It is a toss-up as to which of us will be in worse shape for that. (I'll be impressed if he shows up! The Bone always play long and late at 2K. It could be particularly extreme this time, since the show's been put together at short notice, and tacked on to the end of an existing bill... of three [or four, or five??] bands; so, they probably won't be taking the stage till 1am or 2am, and will be going on till god knows when. It could get UGLY. And then Mr Welton will inevitably insist on breakfast at The Den...)

And then.... on Sunday afternoon, MaoMaoChong is finally (maybe??) supposed to be reopening... if anyone is still ALIVE. I fear it might look a bit like the Zombie Apocalypse...  [Ah, well, in fact... NO. The weekend relaunch plan was perhaps always a bit over-optimistic, and new paint and varnish just hasn't been drying in this damp weather we've had in Beijing for the past few days.  S + S are pushing things back a bit, till the middle of the week, probably.]

HBH 277

Waiting forever;

No menus and no service;

Worst bar in the world.

I was enticed back to Danger Doyle's last night - for the first time in well over a year. I was willing to give it another chance, hoping it might have improved somewhat from its abysmal earlier impressions.

It had not. I stayed for all of about 15 minutes - as long as it took to convince me that I was NEVER going to get served.

To be fair, the staff were working quite well under difficult conditions. But there appeared to be NO DRINKS LISTS anywhere (a problem continuing from their early days three years ago!!). There were no lists of the specials being offered for this event. And there were apparently no extra staff laid on (for a quite heavily attended alumni group party). When you're busy, it's really important to let people know what's available and how much it costs without having to ASK every time.

Some table service would have been in order, too. And some attentiveness from the bar staff - rather than all crowding together in the middle of the bar, and pretty much demanding that punters come up to them and grab them by the throat in order to place an order. It was a vision of hell on earth.

Identity parade

My pal Ruby posted a fun challenge yesterday - a poster with cartoon depictions of famous guitarists.

The resolution, alas, isn't that great. And nor are some of the likenesses. Yngwie Malmsteen?! I have a couple of his albums (although I haven't listened to them in at least 25 years), but I quite literally cannot pick him out of a line-up now. There is something of a generic look to '80s metal types... and to early '70s prog rockers.

I nailed about half of them - but more from recognising the guitars than the costumes or the hairstyles.

Give it a whirl.

How not to do it - promotions

Red House (II), the disastrously uncharismatic new dive bar near Dongzhimen (the one thing a dive bar should have is 'character'!) that I visited briefly last week (for five minutes too long), is compounding the folly of its so-cheap-you-don't-trust-it 5-kuai beer promotion with an INSANE 'happy hour' offer.

It's all-you-can drink for 20 kuai (which leads you into the so-cheap-it's-effectively-FREE territory that I castigated here). But it's only for two hours, those hours being 10pm-12am. And it's only one day a week, that day being Friday. And it's only on that we-virtually-GIVE-IT-AWAY-anyway draught lager that's too skanky to drink. So, really, what is the goddamned POINT?

I am sure it will draw some interest from the city's most determined budget drinkers. I am equally sure that they will only visit during the period of that offer, and will not be sufficiently favourably impressed with the place to think of becoming regular customers. Thus, it is a complete waste of time.

My own beloved 12 Square Metres isn't entirely blameless in this regard, though. I have often carped that their 'happy hour' - featuring a modest reduction on only two items, house wine and draught beer - is not really very happy at all. We can blame the original laoban JK for that: he didn't really approve of the 'happy hour' concept (although he did like indulging his creativity by coming up with bizarre combination offers that no-one [except me] was ever likely to order) and, I think, only introduced one under sufferance - in order not to lose my custom. But the newbies MK and LJ haven't yet seen the wisdom of trying to make the 'hour' a little happier. 

Moreover, while they have shown commendable innovation in coming up with new ideas for events and drinks deals, they haven't always been very effective in advertising them (the website is great, but nobody except me looks at it; you really need to start using Twitter and Weibo, my friends), or consistent about the details. The Australia Day promotion on the Coopers Ales, an established all-day tradition under Aussie JK, was touted as following the same formula this year - but we found ourselves ambushed with a (bizarre, pointless, and scarcely advertised) "only after 8pm" proviso (by which time most people were getting ready to leave anyway, having been on the lash all afternoon). The recent every-fourth-drink-FREE deal on Leap Day was again purportedly restricted (according to an inconspicuous note on the website that nobody but me saw) to after 8pm; but, thank heavens, they saw the error of their ways and in fact offered it all day.

It is NOT a good idea to restrict special offers to a very limited number of hours (or other narrow limitations). And, if you do, you really have to advertise those restrictions prominently and consistently.

Terra's new rum bar, I have just remembered, is offering 'happy hour' prices (or two-for-one, or something) all evening on Thursday for teachers. Well, that's nice. I mean, I resent being reminded of my lowly status and puny income, but I'll take whatever compensatory 'privileges' may be going. But how are we supposed to claim this bounty? Students have a student ID card (at least, if they're enrolled in a university programme). There is no equivalent for teachers. If you teach in a university or a state school, you might have a 'Foreign Expert' card. Are we supposed to bring that with us? Tough luck for many folks working for the smaller private schools, who are left to sort themselves out with a 'business visa' and don't enjoy the benefit of 'expert' status. I suppose it's going to have to work on trust. "Do I not look like a teacher? Let me teach you something..."

I think the all-time winner in this category of ineptitude, though, might well be Tun. The last time I looked in there (it must have been two or more years ago, since Dr Manhattan was with me), a blackboard outside was advertising a selection of daily specials that were: a) mind-buggeringly complex; b) unclearly explained; c) off-puttingly expensive; and d) of rather dubious 'value'.

Alas, I can't remember any of the details now. I wish I'd taken notes. Or a photograph.

Tun eventually went out of business. That is why.

Theatre of the Weird

The other night, I went to see a young Brit called David Thomas Broughton - 'experimental folk singer', crossing over into performance art territory - appearing as part of the Bookworm International Literary Festival (and a joint event, I believe, with the concurrent Jue Festival of art and music organised by Splitworks).

Alas, Mr B doesn't seem to be well enough known - or, what is known of him is not sufficiently appealing - to have attracted a paying audience: a large proportion of the few dozen people in attendance on Sunday night were Bookworm staff or, like me, the recipients of giveaway tickets.

BeijingDaze's Badr was there, and I'll be interested to read what he made of the show. I rather feared it would only serve to further prejudice him against Xiao He - Beijing's nearest equivalent, and an artist whose style Badr has been largely resistant to in the past. However, in fact he was grinning good-naturedly throughout, giving every appearance of enjoying the show.

I, on the other hand, was trying very hard not to keep looking at the nearby laptop on which the Bookworm staff were recording the performance, and making a note of the elapsed time it was displaying. "Is he really going to keep this up for a whole hour? Has it it only been 20 minutes so far??"

For one thing, Broughton was straying too much into the wanky 'performance art' sphere for my taste (it was an ominous sign to me when he began his show by ritualistically taking off his shoes). He's got quite a good falsetto-ey voice, and he's adept at looping diverse samples together in elaborate and often quite effective ways (there was a kind of '50s doo-wop sequence at one point that actually sounded quite pleasant). The prowling distractedly around the room, and challenging his listeners' personal space by loping up to them and rearranging items on their tables in would-be significant ways, was much less winning.

His improvised (?) 'lyrics' were the worst element to cope with, though; just excruciating. I was soon reminded of Vogon Poetry*; in fact, I was reminded of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings (who was, according to The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the worst poet in the entire history of the universe, whereas the dreadful Vogons were only responsible for the third worst poetry).

Xiao He mostly sings in a deliberately indistinct style, or uses a made-up gibberish language. Hence, his vocals just become part of the music, and you're not distracted by whether his lyrics are actually any good, or have any worthwhile meaning. I think Mr Broughton would be well advised to cultivate a similar technique.

The other big advantage Xiao He has is masterful musicianship: music just drips from almost everything he does; and he can play the ass off his guitar, when he chooses to. Broughton didn't make that much use of his guitar, and although he had quite a nice sound when he did play it, he didn't exhibit much of a technique with the instrument.

I hope Badr, and other experimental music sceptics, will not be put off trying other gigs of this kind. Mr Broughton, I fear, is really not one of the best examples of this type of performer - certainly not in the same class as people like Xiao He and Li Tieqiao.

*  I see the BBC's HHGTTG page has a 'Vogon Poetry Generator' - quite a fun way to waste 5 minutes!

Bon mot for the week

"Every saint has a past and every sinner a future."

Oscar Wilde  (1854-1900)

Return of the Band Names game!!

While enjoying the sanba show at Temple with a couple of girlie chums the other night, we achieved the collective realisation that Beijing bluegrass favourites The Randy Abel Stable are now 'big' enough to warrant their own tribute band (Peter immediately asked if he could join; I don't think you can be in your own tribute band...). We have decided to call it The Unstable Table (perhaps, like Brick Tamland, we were just being inspired by random items in our immediate environment....).

Later, challenged to come up with a name for a friend's new band, I suggested Bye Bye Kitty. This is not exactly a new idea, since haters of the noxiously cute Japanese cartoon character Hello Kitty arguably outnumber the idolaters, but I don't think it's yet been done as a band name. And such opposition seems particularly needful in China, since attachment to the emetic pussycat is almost universal among young women here. I envisage a logo with the loathsome kitten tied to railway tracks...

But this might also do...

Anyway, this sudden splurge of band-naming frivolity reminded me of The Band Names Game - my 'most popular' post ever on this blog, but lapsed into silence for the past two years. Now seems like an opportune time to try to revive it - follow that link, and get naming!

Renovations

A remarkable thing has happened. Beijing bar owners have finally discovered the concept of improving their venues, making changes that are actually useful (rather than perverse, pointless, and retrograde) and executed with some taste and and attention to quality.

Luga's has long been struggling with a variety of problems and challenges: its on-again-off-again expansion into the neighbouring basement space, its ambiguous relationship with its sister Vietnamese restaurant upstairs, the threatened loss of its outside pavement café and restricted access/visibility due to the mysterious erection of blue construction fencing right in front of it for several months last year.  But it's starting the new 'season' strongly, with our diminutive entrepreneur having taken advantage of the slow period over Spring Festival to get the builders in. There's now an impressive new glass frontage (replacing that perpetually wonky sliding patio door), which encloses the staircase up to Pho Pho - uniting the two spaces to allow easy sharing of the food between them (their menus are now combined, so that you can order Vietnamese or Tex-Mex dishes in either part of the venue). Not much else has changed inside, but the place feels significantly more classy.

Even more surprisingly, grungy music bar Dos Kolegas also had a long close-down over Chunjie to allow for some remodelling.  They've been able to expand into the unit to the rear of them, creating a small seating area behind the sound desk and allowing for the installation of three new loos (which, for the time being at least, are unbelievably clean) with an improbably swanky washroom area outside (including a huge mirror to help you adjust your make-up or groom your Mohawk). The green room has been slightly expanded, and an extension to the bar added (though not in use last night, since Gao Feng was on his own behind the bar) - taking over the space formerly occupied by the notoriously grotty gents loo (somehow, I'll miss that cracked floor sill that always felt as if it was about to collapse underneath you). It's not all good news: the curtain at the side of the stage - which used to allow a great close-up view of the bands - has been boarded up; and the super-tall speaker stacks have returned (although much skinnier than those awful ones they had for a while a couple of years back; and pushed right over to the sides of the stage, so they don't completely obstruct the view this time).

The best feature of the new improved Kolegas, though, is the expanded bar, with a collection of enormous beer fridges (this is just one of three). They're still going to run out of cold ones once in a while on a busy night, but it'll take a lot more than one hour now. (I wish other venues would take note: MAO Livehouse and Home Plate BBQ, in particular!)

[Some musical 'renovations' going on as well last night, with the splendid Amazing Insurance Salesmen emerging from a 7- or 8-month hiatus that had threatened to be permanent. They seem to be enjoying being back together, playing with tremendous energy and exuberance - and, to my mind, sounding rather rockier than before. I like to think that I may have witnessed an historic turning point in Beijing musical history a couple of months back when I ran into their frontman Jean-Seb paying a rare visit to VA Bar's Wednesday night jam session. He had brought along his acoustic guitar, thinking to try out some of the 'experimental folk' he's been devoting himself to recently; but he was persuaded instead to pick up someone's Telecaster for a couple of songs, and he really got into it. The usually rather glum Frenchman was beaming from ear to ear when he came off stage, and confessed to me that he hadn't played electric in six months and had forgotten how much fun it could be. I really think that might have been the moment when he decided to get the band back together.]

HBH 276

Explorer's spirit:

Four or five bars in one night,

A strange adventure.

A funny thing, that, about the bar crawl. Even if none of the individual stops are all that inspiring, the juxtaposition of different bars somehow creates a little thrill all its own. Or perhaps it's just the sense of challenge in seeing how many venues you can shoehorn into one night...

Drinks can be too cheap

I already expounded about 18 months ago on why I think 'Free drinks' events are a BAD IDEA.

I believe very cheap booze promotions can be counter-productive too. I just came upon an excellent illustration of the point with the newly opened Red House on Xingfu Zhongjie (it would be rather more helpful to call it Red House II, to avoid confusion with its parent bar of the same name, a moderately successful student dive up in Wudaokou next to BLCU). It's selling local draught beer for 5 kuai a pint.

Now, I can think of a few places in the past that did this too - the sadly demised Pizze e' Core, for example, a favourite neighbourhood hangout of mine on Andelu 6 or 7 years ago.  Last time I checked, I think the Russian duo of Traktirr and Traktirr Pushkin (and their nearly indistinguishable neighbour/competitor White Knights) were asking just 7 or 8 kuai for a slightly-less-than-a-pint glass of draught. I've even known a few restaurants that gave the stuff away completely FREE, as part of an all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet deal - most of those ersatz 'Brazilian Barbecue' places and the Origus pizza chain. But you see what these ultra-budget options have in common? Yep, they're all restaurants - so the beer giveaway is subsidised by all the food you're going to be ordering.

5 kuai for a full pint of draught is perhaps not quite below cost, but it must be getting quite close, I would think. That should start alarm bells ringing in the back of your head.

But, more importantly, whatever the profit margin, or lack of one, for the owner, it's just too close to being completely FREE, and so it invokes all of those negative consequences I mentioned in that earlier post: penny-pinching by owners (watering down, giving short measures, buying fake or out-of-date stock to trim costs), bad behaviour by customers (drinking too quickly and indiscriminately, getting arsey with the staff), and a breakdown in respect - on both sides - between customers and bar staff.

10 kuai a pint might work. That is beguilingly cheap, it's going to tempt people into a substantial detour to give your joint a try once or twice, but... it doesn't immediately start conjuring doubts about the economics of the offer and the likely - almost inevitably - shitty quality of the product being pushed.

If you offer your beer at 5 kuai a pint, I am expecting the worst.

And the new Red House fully lived down to my negative expectations: the cheap draught beer was absolute skank, and all four of my companions and I left our glasses almost untouched on the table, and walked off within 5 minutes without bothering to risk any other sort of drink there.

I'm afraid it doesn't have anything else going for it, either: the solitary barman looks bored and surly, and hasn't got much of a clue what he's doing; there's absolutely zero ambience; and it doesn't even look like a bar from the outside (the brightly illuminated white sign with oddly inconspicuous red lettering - and no other design at all - being more evocative of a noodle joint or a hairdressing salon, to my mind). There had been two Russian lads in there, but they left within seconds of our arrival (I think they'd been drinking something other than the skanky draught, but hadn't stayed for more than one or two).  This Red House, I would say, is looking DOOMED.

Getting a decent barman and raising the price of the draught beer would be a big help, though.

For always roving with a hungry heart

A special event at 12 Square Metres tonight: Steven Schwankert, founder of SinoScuba, will be coming along to talk about some of his most interesting dives, and also about the Explorers Club, of which he is a member - a distinction shared with such famous figures as the polar adventurer Roald Amundsen, the astronaut Neil Armstrong, and legendary Kiwi mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary (above).

I have a particular fondness for Hillary's famous explanation of his reason for taking on Mt Everest - "because it was there."

That restless spirit of curiosity has been a key motivator in my own life - why did I stop into this bar, order that drink, chat up this girl?

[Unfortunately, I am pledged to another event earlier tonight - the old Beijing curse of too much happening, all at the same time - so I will be struggling to get there in time; I hope to at least catch the second half. It promises to be a fascinating little soiréé.]

Blogger is vexing me

My blog platform, it seems, is conspiring to kill off what little comment thread activity I have left - first by infiltrating a gremlin into the word-recognition security feature, such that it won't approve any comments (at least, if you're trying to use the 'Preview' feature; I was told that, originally, it was still OK if you dispensed with trying to 'preview' your comment), then by introducing a pointless and offputtingly ugly 'new look' for the comment window, and then by inexplicably choosing to remove the 'notify me of new comments by e-mail' facility.  All rather galling.  And unfathomably stupid.

I have been deluged with complaints about all of this (well, five people have e-mailed me; that counts as a lot on this blog!) over the past week or so.  Therefore, I have - reluctantly - decided to disable the word-verification feature for a while.

Doubtless, the perversely resourceful techies at Blogger will find some new way to frustrate attempts to comment. And I'll soon be inundated in spam.

But commenting has been so QUIET on here lately, even spam might be quite diverting for a while.

Bon mot for the week

"When people like me, I'm 'spontaneous'; when they don't, I'm 'unpredictable'."

Froog

A long walk home

It has become impossible to get a cab between 11pm and midnight.

Especially in inclement weather, such as the spasm of damp cold that has suddenly gripped Beijing again for the past couple of days.

And especially on a weekend night. And most especially on a Friday.

And in Sanlitun??  Forget it.

Last night I walked back all the way from The Bookworm to Gulou, a distance of getting on for 7 miles. NOT ONE free cab. I must have passed dozens, no, hundreds of people (mostly young Chinese) waiting hopefully for one at the side of the road. Many of them may be waiting still.

This is what's happened to our taxi service provision over the last four or five years. With the increase in access to the distant suburbs through the opening up of new subway lines, and the explosive growth of the 'middle class', the number of people looking to use cabs - at least at peak times - has probably gone up four- or five-fold; but the size of the fleet has contracted.

I used to say Beijing was the best place in the world for picking up a cab. Not any more. Not on a Friday night.

Froog Solutions (24)

Froog's solution to the cerebral meltdown induced by trying to edit Marxist literary theory for 48 straight hours...

Give up, and go and get some fresh air! It's Friday, for heaven's sake!! A leisurely walk over to Sanlitun will take me the best part of an hour-and-a-half - by which time, it will be decent to start drinking.

HBH 275

Tin whistle magic,

A Gaelic stomp in the hutongs;

Old tunes prick the heart.

A new Chinese Irish band has just popped up on the scene, the first one for many a long year.  Calling themselves Streetrag (your guess is as good as mine! Aha - seems like that was just Time Out's extravagant mistranscription of Steerage, which is a much more sensible sort of name for an Irish band!), they made a low-key debut at Modernista last night - essentially playing for a small group of their friends. A gang of youngsters - music students, I would imagine - who've only recently discovered this music, they're a bit under-rehearsed, but they play with a lot of heart, and technically they're quite impressive; they're fronted by one of the best tin whistle men I've heard in years, and also boast a decent fiddler and a bodhran player (which is not something we've really seen here in Beijing before). Very promising. If they could find an accordionist somewhere, they'd be all set; at present, they're filling out the sound with an electric keyboard player, which doesn't quite work for me.

They don't have a St Patrick's Day gig confirmed yet, but I'm sure they'll soon be much in demand.

New Picks of the Month

Gosh, March 2009 was rather a busy month. It was, for instance, the occasion of my Photo Gallery Week on Froogville, during which I shared some 45 of my photographs. What were the other highlights?

Well, from Froogville I'll pick Miscommunication, another of my funny-sad tales of failed romance.

And on The Barstool, I'll go for this Bon Mot.

Traffic Report - the blog stats for February

Another solid month of fripperies; I seem to have hit a fairly consistent frequency/volume of output now - still probably rather too much for any but the most avid reader to consume in full, but no longer so much as to make me fear that I need more of a life.

Last month, there were 36 posts and around 10,000 words on Froogville.

There were 30 posts and nearly 7,000 words on Barstool Blues.

And we have a new reader in Slovenia, it seems. Welcome.

Also, rather spookily, two of my old university chums - with whom I had lost touch for nearly 20 years - have recently found me through my record collection. 'Tis a small world, indeed! I wonder if they're now living in Slovenia.