The End Of The World comes early

I have been planning for some months now to use the alleged 'Mayan Apocalypse' at the end of next week as a facetious pretext for closing down my two blogs - which I feel have been going on for quite long enough now. Alas, being on the road for most of November left with me with a huge backlog of posts I really wanted to write before the shutdown (hence the fitful incontinence of my writing here over the past two or three weeks since I got back). And I've been further frustrated in my efforts to get those posts out of the way by a succession of problems with my preferred VPN and my Internet connection. I am once more getting a little paranoid that perhaps I have been targetted for some special attention by the censors here in Beijing; everybody's been struggling to keep their VPNs working, but I haven't heard of anyone else getting their Net connection completely shut down. Then, yesterday morning, my computer - less than six months old - DIED. Yes, I suffered a return of the dreaded 'blue screen of death' - the first time I've experienced it with this laptop (though I'd had a few nasty encounters with it on my previous Dell, and it used to be a constant companion with the ancient IBM Thinkpad I'd been muddling along with before that). Not even a conventional, familiar 'blue screen of death', either; darker blue, brighter screen. Maybe they've changed its appearance in the last year or so, but the creepy unfamiliarity of something once so familiar added to my anxieties. As did the fact that the screen appeared to be frozen; it was not creating 'dump files' - as it promises to do - and then shutting down automatically. It was just staring at me tauntingly, denying me access to any of my computer functions, and not doing anything. I couldn't even crash the computer using the power switch, so eventually, after about half an hour of this agonising limbo, I had to remove the battery. And then, of course, I couldn't reboot. The first several times I tried to do so, I was just getting a blank screen and an ominous silence; I couldn't even use the F keys to try to access the 'Safe Mode' start-up options. After going back to bed and crying for a couple of hours (amazing how this seems to work as therapy for the computer too!), the little bastard did deign to fire up again, but... oh dear me, limited functionality or what?! No Net connectivity. No access to most Windows functions. VERY SLOW operating speeds (3 or 4 hours to run a virus check!!!). Eventually, I have managed to get a Net connection back via the 'Safe Mode with networking', but.... now my bloody VPN won't work again. And my 'System Restore' function is mysteriously broken. This is a clusterfuck from hell. In another two or three days, I would have cleared the backlog of planned posts, and tidied up a few outstanding work assignments, attended to the last of my social obligations, and finalised my travel plans over the imminent holiday period. In another two or three days, I might not have needed the bloody computer again for weeks. But having this spectacular meltdown assail me just now is several notches beyond merely 'inconvenient'. I suffer rages of despair; if I had a carpet, I'd chew on it. (I achieved some valuable catharsis yesterday by smashing the old Thinkpad - barely functional anymore anyway - into about a million pieces, as a proxy for my maddeningly misbehaving Dell Inspiron.) So, this is it. The forces of malign Fate have got the better of me. I accept defeat. I'm done. I may, perhaps, one day retroactively insert some of my planned final posts into the upcoming week (I've already written most of them, but omitted to 'schedule' them for automatic posting), but for now - IT'S OVER. So long, farewell, adieu, adieu, adieu.

The BIG Question

A frequent topic of speculation for me during my years of drinking in Beijing bars has been... Can you can make more money off Chinese or foreign customers?

It's a question of vital importance for any bar owner or prospective bar owner.

Although there is a broad spectrum of personality types and spending patterns in both demographics, my instinct would be that you can in general make much more off foreign punters.

The key exception that might skew the analysis a bit is your Chinese high-roller type who will order premium spirits (or wines, champagne) by the bottle, just to flaunt his wealth - and perhaps not even drink it all. However, this type of punter brings his own problems. They're often quite brash and obnoxious types, who will treat staff contemptuously, and perhaps annoy other customers with their loud and boorish conversation. And if they do drink heavily, they're quite likely to get dangerously sloppy - perhaps even start a fight, or throw up in the middle of the bar. And it's distressingly common for this sort of punter to 'forget' to settle their tab, or to quibble about it. You also have to bear in mind that they're perhaps treating quite a large group. You might be initially quite excited when someone orders a bottle of Chivas - but when you realise that means you're going to have a group of six or eight Chinese patrons hogging your best table all night, and that quite possibly none of them are going to order anything else, it really isn't such good news. Especially if they end up making an ugly scene.

Most Chinese are still unfamiliar with Western bar culture, and not really all that receptive to it. They'll dabble in it because it's become a hip thing to do for students and young professionals. But most of these people have fairly little disposable income, and a negligible tolerance for alcohol. Moreover, they rarely seem to recognise any ethical constraints about being obliged to spend money in your bar. Venues like Starbucks and McDonald's have become hugely popular hangouts for the young because they usually leave you unmolested all day long, never requiring you to buy anything. This free-and-easy attitude in two of the most ubiquitous foreign franchise businesses here has perhaps encouraged young Chinese folks to believe that it is normal and acceptable to occupy space in a venue for hours at a time after making only one token purchase - or no purchase at all (and to use the bathroom without making a purchase, too!). It is quite common for one person in a couple, or only two or three people in a group, to buy a drink, and assume it is then all right for them to occupy a table indefinitely. This might not be all Chinese customers, or even the majority of them; but it is a common enough phenomenon to cause serious aggravation for a poor bar owner.

And even the good drinkers amongst the Chinese - enthusiasts of good beers, wines, or spirits; people who'll spend quite heavily, but without exceeding their physical tolerance - are rarely going to spend as much as your average Western drinker, I think. They haven't been doing it since their early teens, haven't built up such a prodigious appetite - or the capacious gut - for it.

I'd guess that quite a large proportion of Chinese punters will spend little or nothing; and while there are a few who will improve the average substantially by spending in the high hundreds, the typical Chinese spend per head is probably a lot less than 100 rmb, perhaps not much better than 50 rmb. Almost all foreigners, even the modest drinkers and teetotallers, will order at least a couple of drinks... and then leave when they feel they've had enough, not stage a sit-in for hours. Heavier drinkers may well take up residence for much of the evening, spending steadily over an extended period. I pretty regularly spend 200 rmb, even on a fairly slow night, and sometimes go through twice that much. And I'm hardly a high-roller: I don't order cocktails or top-shelf whiskies very often. I'm just your typical enthusiastic pisshead. I suspect the average spend-per-head of a foreign bar punter here is well over 100 rmb... and perhaps, in some bars, over 200 rmb.

So, it does seem there might be a powerful economic argument for favouring foreign customers over Chinese ones. I certainly think that (unless you're running a nightclub, which is a whole different ballgame) it must be very difficult to make a decent income from a wholly Chinese clientele (although exceptions prove the rule: Reef on Nanluoguxiang seems to be managing it).

But, of course, you can't very well take overt steps to exclude any particular group of punters. Fubar's English-only drinks menu appeared to be sending some such message, that Chinese punters weren't particularly welcome, and it was not something I was comfortable with. (Although I have been notoriously - and unashamedly! - lazy about learning much Chinese myself, I think it is a bit rude to your host country not to offer service in Chinese as well as English if you're running a business here.) However, the only place I ever heard of trying to actively discourage Chinese punters was the Chinese-owned No Name Bar down by Houhai (and I suspect that was an exaggerated rumour, catching fire from the spark of one or two cases of particular customers being excluded).

You can effectively target a Western or Chinese clientele by your decor (Chinese, for the most part, don't get the wooden bar vibe; Westerners, for the most part, are fairly indifferent to soft furnishings) or the facilities provided (cheesy Chinese folk-rock performers and/or a karaoke stage go down big with the local punters; as do dice and playing cards, so that they can lose themselves for hours in noisy and pointless but strangely addictive games, rather than having to make the effort to sustain a conversation). And the pricing - most young Chinese will be discouraged by higher prices (although a lot of us less affluent foreigners will be too!).

There are some bars in Beijing - long established expat favourites like The Den, Frank's Place, Eudora Station, and the Goose & Duck (or some newer places in a similar vein, like The Irish Volunteer) - where the only Chinese people you'll usually see are WAGs or staff members. I've never felt very comfortable in places like this. Then again, I can't stand most of the bars on and around Nanluoguxiang these days: bars which prove strongly alluring to Chinese patrons tend to be deeply unappealing to me (it's not the Chinese patrons I mind, it's the things Chinese patrons seem to like!).

My favourite bars over the years have been ones that somehow managed to appeal to a good mix of foreign and Chinese punters: Huxley's, Reef (in its early days; it's rather lost its foreigner appeal now), Pool Bar, Salud, and, of course, my best beloved 12 Square Metres. I'm not quite sure what the secret is. I suspect it's something to do with being more Western than Chinese in style, but having a level of pricing reasonable enough not to drive away Chinese custom... and perhaps also with being sufficiently off the beaten track that their expat constituency just isn't large enough to establish an exclusive dominion. A bar in Sanlitun or Lido can easily establish itself - not necessarily by design, but by natural evolution - as essentially an 'expat only' kind of place; in my neighbourhood, it can't - and I'm grateful for that.

Lost songs

Nearly a year ago, I mentioned in passing that I had once been involved (behind the scenes rather than onstage) with a school band called Ded Lemming. I wrote most of their lyrics; but, seeing as it is over 30 years ago, I have - perhaps fortunately in most cases - forgotten nearly all of them now. I can't even remember many of the titles or subjects.

Only two of these songs still persist in my memory. One was inspired by a Classical reference (I specialised in Ancient Latin and Greek in the 6th Form, and at university - a quirk of my personal history which has come up on here before once or twice). The celebrated Athenian playwright Aeschylus died, according to legend, on a visit to one of the Greek colonies in Sicily in the 450s BC, when he was quite elderly. It is said that the eagles in those parts were especially fond of eating tortoises, and would break open their shells by carrying them high aloft and then dropping them on to round stones. Aeschylus's bald pate was apparently mistaken by an eagle for a suitable tortoise-cracking rock. Oh boy, I found that a compelling image, and I had long wanted to try to write something (I probably originally aspired to something far more serious and poetic!) about a great writer's brains being dashed out by - and mingled with - the squished innards of a tortoise. When my friends briefly formed this punk band, I found myself penning a jauntily manic number for them on this theme. I'm sure nobody but the handful of Classicists in the school had a clue what it was about; most people just thought it was an engaging nonsense song. The chorus (I don't think there was much to it apart from the chorus) went: 

Never thought that I would wind up lying out here dead,

Lying in the baking sun - with a tortoise in my head,

Tortoise in my head, tortoise in my head, tortoise in my head!

You think that's grotesque?! Well, that was as nothing to our 'greatest hit'. I created a sort of catalogue song which imagined a situation most of my mid-teen schoolmates were familiar with - being left at home alone for the first time by our somewhat mistrustful parents, and being given a long list of rules we shouldn't break (which, of course, we tended to find unduly provocative, and would often treat more as a list of suggestions). I think the idea started off as a fairly straight depiction of this parent-teenager confrontation, but then I started taking it in a wild and surreal direction. The verses had a two part structure, beginning with two lines from a nagging mother issuing prohibitions (our singer did a particularly good - vaguely feminine - anxious whine for this), and then another two of her bratty son sarcastically mimicking her with more bizarre examples of the creatively evil things he might get up to if left unsupervised (the singer did an even better mocking sneer for these bits). The distinction between these two parts became blurred, as the mother's anxieties escalated, and she began to imagine more and more terrible things that her son might do (and her son found it harder and harder to outdo her in his perverse responses). I wish I could summon this back from the void of oblivion; I have a feeling that it was one of the best things I have ever written - in any genre.

Anyhow, I remember the chorus (very catchy!):

Be a good boy, Johnny. Now, see you behave.

And don't put kitty in the microwave.

Don't put kitty in the microwave, don't put kitty in the microwave.

[After a while, we recorded the 'ting' of a microwave finishing its programme, and started using that to give the song an abrupt ending.]

HBH 315

The gloomiest week,

Time when everybody leaves,

Loneliness envelops.

I think airfares typically ramp up for a week or so after the mid-point of December, so this - the second week of the month - is traditionally when most expats quit Beijing for their Christmas break. It is miserable to be one of the few left behind. I think I'm going to treat myself to a holiday this year too; but maybe not until the flights get cheaper again on Christmas Day.

Great Love Songs (40)

I think The Wind Knows My Name was my favourite of the Mark E. Nevin songs from the superb Fairground Attraction album First Of A Million Kisses. The theme of restlessness and inconstancy strikes a particular chord with me. I don't think that's been an issue in my love life. Well, not on my side, anyway. Well, not directly; I suppose that if one is unsettled in the rest of one's life, it makes it difficult to form stable and lasting relationships. It's hard for a nomad to make a nest-builder happy, and vice versa.

One of the great songs of farewell, anyway. And so this seems an especially appropriate choice, as I prepare to move on from this blog. And, hopefully, from Beijing. And maybe even from drinking. Really. Lots of changes happening in my life at the moment.

Here's the lovely Eddi Reader singing The Wind Knows My Name. She might be the only singer to get three mentions in this series; I've posted on her previously here and here. [You can listen to the album version here.]

Great Drinking Songs (39)

Mention of Chumbawamba last week prompted me to play the whole of their Tubthumping album - one of the greatest, if not the greatest of the '90s - all the way through for the first time in quite a while, and I was bowled over by it afresh. It is amazingly good from beginning to end; the enormous titular hit was about the weakest thing on it.

This, Scapegoat, the track that ends the album, is my personal favourite. Not the best song (that's probably Drip, Drip, Drip or Good Ship Lifestyle), but it's got such energy about it, it's an irresistible singalong. And I tend to think of this as my No. 1 'China song' - rather too painfully apposite for a country in which buck-passing is a national pastime. [This looks like a fan video; a crude compilation of video clips, mostly of unfortunate mishaps. Mildly amusing. And at least it's a good quality sound recording. There don't seem to be any live performance videos of this.]

Recommended Posts, October-December 2012

A selection of highlights from my last few months of despatches from The Barstool. This list might end up being a little longer than usual, because the approaching demise of the blog prompted me to post quite prolifically, and to address a number of especially good topics that I'd somehow failed to get around to over the previous six years.

Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 4th quarter of 2012

1)  Blues Week

I began October with a week of diverse musical posts, covering varieties of the blues: we had some Motorhead (a slowed down version of The Ace of Spades), Cream, ZZ Top, some early Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin (some amazing footage of one of their first ever TV appearances), the astonishing blind singer Turley Richards, and piano legend Otis Spann playing with the great guitarist Peter Green.

2)  The desire for oblivion - 5th October 2012

My weekly haiku triggers one of my more serious posts, examining my lifelong history of depressive illness.

3)  If they'd asked me.... - 9th October 2012

I imagine what my responses might have been if The Beijinger magazine had invited me to participate in their new 'A Drink With...' series.

4)  "The Carp" - 11th October 2012

A reminiscence of a favourite restaurant during my first year in Beijing - and its horribly memorable floorshow.

5)  Childhood holidays - 12th October 2012

It's amazing what the aroma of a single malt Scotch can evoke!

6)  A Top Five Guitar Riffs - 13th October 2012

Does exactly what it says on the label. Of course, it's impossible to limit myself to just five once I get started on this topic - I imagine I'll be returning to it at least once or twice here.

7)  Useful words - 16th October 2012

I discover a couple of intriguing concepts from other languages... and wish that we had English equivalents for them.

8)  Stop that! - 25th October 2012

Flirting is BAD, m'kay? At least according to the Anti-Flirt Club - a real (though short-lived) social campaign from the Prohibition Era in America.

9)  Drink and age - 26th October 2012

The passing of another birthday makes me ponder on the spectre of the dreaded Mid-Life Crisis.

10)  Drum & Bass: a Top Five rhythm pairings - 27th October 2012

Can you guess who my top pick was? Moon and Entwistle? Bonham and JPJ?  [Some more Great Basslines here and here.]

11)  Possibly my favourite ever 'Weekly Bon Mot' - 29th October 2012

Not one of my own, alas; but very, very good.

12)  The Rule of Custom - 30th October 2012

I a reminded of why you shouldn't go into restaurants that have no customers in them.

13)  Bitter? Moi? - 5th November 2012

This is one of my own bon mots - combining my favourite subjects: women and drink.

14)  The Top Five Unusual Places I Have Drunk - 7th November 2012

Gosh, I have led an adventurous life! Well, in my younger days, anyway.

15)  The Monmouth connection - 14th November 2012

Reminiscences about how the place where I grew up influenced my burgeoning enthusiasm for music.

16)  A rare regret - 16th November 2012

My return to Hong Kong after a LONG absence revives memories of a not-quite-romance from nearly 20 years ago... and prompts me to recount the story of how I once blagged my way into the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.

17)  Ginger ale that knows someone! - 19th November 2012

Champagne - I am not a fan. And neither was Hawkeye.

18)  Bad behaviour - 23rd November 2012

I reflect on what it is about hotels that so incites people to misbehave.

19)  "Don't think this has taught me a lesson." - 26th November 2012

I allow myself a bit of a swoon over the inimitable Tallulah Bankhead.

20)  On Anonymity - 27th November 2012

I explain why I opted for anonymity in my blogging - and why I feel it would in general be a better course for anyone who's reviewing bars and restaurants.

21)  Chinese hotel breakfasts - 29th November 2012

One of the most hilariously awful things in the world!

22)  What kind of probe? - 30th November 2012

It is not until I journey into remote south-west China that I discover that Beijing's local beer is sponsoring the Chinese space programme.

23)  Lost songs - 14th December 2012

Two fragments from my brief career as a lyricist for a punk rock band. (I was 17; forgive me!)

24)  The BIG Question - 14th December 2012

I ponder the tricky question of whether a bar can make more money off Chinese or foreign custom, and whether it's possible to combine the two.

25)  A final 'unsuitable role model': Fred Dibnah - 15th December 2012

An affectionate tribute to the affable Bolton steeplejack who was one of the great stars of British television during my childhood - and one of the most admirable and enviable men I've ever encountered.

26)  American bartenders - 17th December 2012

I love 'em to bits, think they're the best in the world, but... their habit of randomly slashing people's bills at the end of the evening discombobulates me more than somewhat.

27)  A Beijing 'Bucket List': 10 things to try before you die - 19th December 2012

I reflect on some of the more frivolous and fun experiences I've had during my decade of living in the Chinese capital.

28)  A more cynical 'bucket list': the things you probably will have done before you leave China - 19th December 2012

Barbed farewell satire on the rather-too-common expat experience in this country.

I'll also be 'cheating' a bit - returning to the blog every once in a while to add further music posts here, and new 'Top Five' posts on other assorted topics here. So, keep your eyes peeled.

Top Five Dive Bars in Cambodia (my new favourite hangouts)

15th NOVEMBER 2017

A little over a year on from my first post about my new life in Cambodia, I find - alas! - that all the bars I celebrated in that are now closed, or.... well, considerably diminished in my regard for them.

Indo Bar, a beguilingly English-pub-like little spot in the southern town of Kampot, may in fact have closed even before I put that post up; I discovered its recent demise on my next visit down there just a few weeks later (I was even more disappointed that its sister enterprise, the Curry House, had likewise closed, leaving the town without any really decent Indian food).

Picasso in Siem Reap I've been going off as well. Vivacious Aussie bar manager Sam was one of its main points of appeal, and she's moved on now. The cocktails there were never much good, really, although brutally effective; but now, alas, they seem to be tainted by the tide of fake booze that has broken over the city in the last year or two: the last few times I've drunk the spirits there, it's made me ill.... and there's only one thing that causes that, I'm afraid. Also, I've had a run of bad experiences with obnoxious punters there recently. So, it's dropped off my 'must visit' list, although I've been spending more and more time in Siem Reap this year. I still like its ambience, and the sociability of the place, but - there's not much that I actually want to drink there.

I have a similar problem with Here Be Dragons in Battambang, where I now live (the city, that is, not the bar!). It's still a very inviting little bar, but.... well, draft beer is almost never any good in this country (and I'm convinced they've switched over from the sort-of-OK Cambodia to the gassy pish of Anchor; that might be a false memory, but it contributes forcefully to my rising disenchantment with the place), so I used to drink mostly Beer Lao there - of which they had, for a time, both the stout and regular strong lager varieties, and their new premium offering, Beer Lao Gold, with its stimulating burst of hoppiness on the nose. There have been some problems with the distributor for these Lao brands, though, and I think they now only have the lager.... perhaps not even that. And no decent local beer either (no Cambodia in cans - why not??). And their novelty cocktails are invariably way too sweet for my taste. So, there's absolutely nothing for me to drink there any more..... um, except spirits, I suppose. In this less attractive drink environment, I find myself more and more pissed off by their too-high bar and uncomfortable, wonky bar stools - things which had previously been only mild irritations to me. I confess also that I'd had a major man-crush on Dave Howard, the brilliant young manager they had last year (my farewell binge with him in Phnom Penh just before he flew back to England was probably the most extreme session I've had in this country!). I like their new staff well enough, but there's just not the magic there was last year. (Also, of course, when I was just a visitor in this town, I always used to stay at The Dragons; so, it was by default my first and last stop every day. Now that it's no longer 'home' - nor even, most of the time, 'on the way home' - I don't have much incentive to drop in there.)

And worst of all, Battambang's richest gem, the Riverside Balcony Bar - the loveliest venue in the whole country, though just a little bit too 'fancy' to be an habitual three-times-a-week type of haunt - has just been forced to close (and while I was out of town, dammit, at the end of October). The owner of the property had died suddenly a few months ago; so, there's probably now some sort of family dispute over what to do with the property (redevelop it, sell it, reclaim it as a family home, tout it as a commercial space again - but at a much higher rent??), and perhaps even some uncertainty as to who the new owner actually is. I had thought Frazer and Frankie, the charming young couple who've made this place into such a beloved institution in the town over the past two years, had another year on their lease; but it seems not. They'd got a bit bored with the place, and were looking to move on anyway. But they had been hoping to get an extension for at least one more year, so that they could sell the bar as a going concern; and that hasn't worked out - so, the place is suddenly derelict. Unbearably sad.

At least dear old Oh Neil's (also in Kampot) is still there, and still as great as it ever was.... although it's gone through some rough patches in the last year or so (being without a kitchen for long periods, and giving up on daytime opening - factors which combined to rob us of Neil's 'breakfast roll', one of my very favourite guilty indulgences: an entire cooked breakfast somehow crammed inside a baguette!), and I gather it is unlikely to survive beyond the end of its current lease.

So, where have I been drinking over this last year or so, as these early favourites faltered and fell?? These are my newer loves - all of them predictably divey!

Froog's New Top Five Favourite Bars in Cambodia

5)  The Roadhouse Saloon (Siem Reap)
Or 'Anna's Place', as I like to think of it. The likeable Khmer landlady is coy as to how this bar came about, where the concept came from. It is such an authentic rendition of a classic American bar (subdued lighting, stone-topped bar, classic advertisements and b&w photos of dead rock stars on the walls) that I am inclined to think that there must have been a foreign partner involved at some point; but she won't be drawn on that, and appears to be in sole charge now. Her house special gin & tonic (a huge measure, with lots of lime juice, served in a brandy balloon) has become my favourite brain-bludgeoner this past year. Again, alas, as with so many of my original picks above, there's not much on offer in the way of beers - which stops this place being more than an occasional indulgence for me. Its other major drawbacks are irregular opening and a complete dearth of customers most of the time. While I have much enjoyed being able to introduce a couple of visiting friends to its charms in recent months, it has been completely deserted just about every other time I've looked in - which hasn't tempted me to stay. Perhaps I've just been unlucky; Anna assures me she's had a number of spectacular nights where large gaggles of visitors kept her up until the wee small hours. This, it seems, is her common excuse for not always opening very early, or at all - she's recovering from one of her big nights (exhausted? hungover? feeling that she's made her money for the week??). With a better clientele (it's got good potential, I think, as it enjoys a very prominent location - on the big roundabout at the start of 7 Makara Street, directly opposite the horrendous Hard Rock Café), and a more varied range of drinks, this could become my favourite bar in the country.... or at the northern end of it, anyway.

4)  Mekong Crossing  (Kampong Cham)
The Mekong Crossing is a barebones little guesthouse that I've often stayed at (well, two out of three times so far) in the quaint provincial capital of Kampong Cham. It's got a great corner location, right opposite the riverfront promenade, with some nice sidewalk seating (and also a narrow wraparound balcony on the first floor, which is scarcely used), and some of the keenest drinks prices I've found anywhere in the country. The food, unfortunately, is not up to much (I prefer the nearby Moon River for that). But they have a really friendly group of staff in there; and I've developed a huge affection for the place in just a few brief visits. (Indeed, Kampong Cham is rapidly becoming my favourite place in the country - largely because it has just about zero foreigners [only a handful of Western tourists at any given time, and it's fairly easy to ignore them; no resident expats that I've ever seen!]. Sometimes, I just get really fed up of the kind of Westerner that predominates here; and KC - just a few hours out of Phnom Penh on a bus - is an excellent place to get away from them.)

3)  Kampot Hilton  (Kampot)
I don't love the name: the reminiscence with the 'Hanoi Hilton' doesn't conjure positive associations (nor, indeed, does any reminder of the ghastly Paris Hilton); I fear the Hilton Hotel chain might sue one day; and, well, it somehow just doesn't sound like a bar to me. But a bar it is, and a very good one. A very new one, too: only open two or three months at this point, I believe. It was always an appealing space, and a promising location (facing the small grassy square just inland from the 'Old Market' on the riverfront); but with its previous incarnation, a would-be New-Orleans-y bar called NOLA... well, that had its moments, but the tenant had got depressed by some bad experiences in her business and personal life, and had rather obviously given up interest in the venture.... It was slowly and painfully dying on its feet over the last year or two. Its revamp - under a boisterous Aussie biker couple, Jono and Ricky - is long overdue, and seems likely to prosper. The newcomers are putting a lot of effort into special events, including some kind of promotion involving cheap drinks or prize draws every night of the week (and putting on a rather awesome brunch buffet for Melbourne Cup Day while I was visiting recently). The major draw, though, is Ricky's pub grub, which is really very impressive (she apparently dumps a full Bloody Mary into every serving of her excellent chilli - which is an inspired innovation, to be sure, although I worry what it does to her profit margin!!). I was in there very nearly every night of a recent two-week stay: it's not often that happens with me.

2)  Elly's  (Phnom Penh)
Just before I grew terminally disenchanted with Phnom Penh and quit at the beginning of this year, I had found myself becoming a bit of a regular at this newly opened bar down in the Russian Market district, at the far southern end of the city (I'd only go once or twice a week; but, given that it's nearly five miles away from where I lived, and I'd usually walk the whole way, there and back, it must have had quite a draw for me...!). It's a classic dive: dark, narrow, barebones, grungy.... cheap. But that's obviously a winning formula for many folks, not just me: this is the only bar I've found in the capital that has established an enthusiastic regular clientele (on Fridays, in particular, it would get pretty heaved out by shortly after 6pm). At first, it was a very Aussie bar (the owner appeared to be an amiable young bloke called Clinton, getting occasional help from his old dad, Don), and that was no bad thing: they do the dive bar well, the Aussies. But when Clinton moved on to richer pastures overseas (and Don also vanished back to Oz for quite a while) at the start of this year, the mysterious Elly - for whom the place had been named all along - stepped forward to take over (Don's Mrs, apparently: a feisty Filipina). The bar food menu (already good under Clinton, who had experience as a chef) underwent a dramatic makeover, going fully Filipino (there are a few other places in PP where you can sample this cuisine; but I doubt if they're anywhere near as good as this!): the occasional all-you-can-eat Pinoy Sunday brunches are particularly good (I'd often find myself the only white guy in the room, as the place had soon become a hub for the city's entire Filipino community during the daytime on the weekends - that's how good the food is!). There are, as ever, quite a few negative points: some of the 'regulars' are a bit obnoxious, all of them smoke an obscene amount, the music they play in there can be sometimes great but rather more often absolutely bloody terrible (I was unlucky enough to catch them on a Cambodian holiday the last time I visited: the usual 6pm crowd had been in all afternoon, chain-smoking, and getting especially obnoxious; they launched into a phase of cueing up electronic dance music on Youtube ['young' people - dontcha hate 'em??!!], which drove me from the bar in despair within minutes), and so on. Ah yes, and the place is romantically disastered for me: I had a brief but ultimately very unhappy affair with a gorgeous American woman I met in there just before Christmas last year. Yet still, despite all that, I am sure to go back there whenever I visit Phnom Penh....

And in the top spot this time, my new 'second home'.....

1)  Ganesha  (Battambang)

This charming little family-run guesthouse operates out of a couple of colonial-era shophouses in the heart of the old quarter of central Battambang. The German owner is a bombastic but mostly lovable old eccentric (German food features heavily on the menu; and the potato dishes - wedges, potato cakes, mash - are the best you'll find anywhere in the country), and his lovely Cambodian wife is my favourite person in the city, one of the nicest people I've met anywhere. The staff are great, too. The booze prices are very keen, and there's a better range of beers available than anywhere else in town: drinkable Cambodia on draft, Klang in cans (tastes about as nondescript as any other Asian lager, but it's a satisfying 1% stronger - hence, my tipple of choice!), and also the handle-with-care Barrley Black (a new super-strong 'stout' from the Cambodia beer people: there's nothing at all nice about it, and it induces hangovers-from-hell, but... it's 8.5% alcohol for only a dollar a can!!). They have a pretty good pool table too (and the owner and his two teenage kids are formidable players), which is, of course, a further insidious attraction for me. They've recently instituted a pool competition on Monday nights, which could become a fixture in my week (except that my mojo has gone walkabout this month; I'm now losing confidence that I'll even be able to give anyone a half-decent game, let alone win the damn tournament outright, before I head off on the road again in a few weeks). Nothing is perfect in this world: the bar is tiny (and often overrun with backpackers staying in the dorms upstairs), the only three stools available are uncomfortably tall,.... and they can't hook up the TV sound to play the commentary during big football games (aaarrgghh!). But despite these considerable demerits, Ganesha has wormed its way deep into my heart. If I'm going out drinking in Battambang (although I have given up for several extended periods since I moved here....), it's highly likely that this will be my main stop.... quite probably my only one.

Top Five Bars in Cambodia

12th AUGUST 2016

Just a few days after I shuttered this blog, as I was in the midst of finalising my intended departure from China for good.... out of the blue I was offered quite an exciting new job, which kept me in China for another two-and-a-half years or so. At least it got me out of Beijing, moved me down to the Suzhou-Hangzhou-Shanghai area. I was completely burnt out on Beijing; but I was pretty much done on China too, and after having to endure another couple of years of the place, I was determined I had to leave and never come back.

During this rather fraught 'China extension', I had the good fortune to discover Cambodia for the first time. Well, I had long been interested in, fascinated by the country. And I had laid plans for an extended visit when I quit Beijing at the beginning of 2013 - but got deterred by the likely difficulty of travelling there around the time of the late King Sihanouk's funeral. In fact, I didn't manage to make my first trip there until Christmas 2014. I took to it at once, and returned twice more within the next few months..... and then relocated permanently to Phnom Penh towards the end of 2015.

By August 2016, after considerable travels around the country, I am in a position to add a little 'Best Bars in Cambodia' roundup to my old drinking blog here (sneakily backdated into my 'Farewell Tuesday').

Yes, it is a little sad that there are no Phnom Penh bars in this list. Perhaps I haven't researched my 'home turf' quite enough yet. I have in fact spent very nearly as much time 'on the road' visiting other parts of the country as I have 'at home' in PP. And I have for most of this past year been drinking only very moderately, or not at all - very different from my wild Beijing days of a few years ago! When I'm off 'on holiday', I let my hair down a little bit, sup a little more. While in PP, I spend much of my time hunkered down in my very pleasant apartment, and sometimes don't venture out from one week to the next. (Also, I worry that I may be something of a jinx: the two best beloved watering-holes of my early months here were both soon demised - one fatally losing its mojo after just a couple of months of near-perfect-bar-ness, and its replacement in my drinking affections being suddenly demolished a scant three months after that! This city, alas, suffers many of the same woes of hasty, greedy, ill-conceived 'development' as Beijing. I have caught it on the cusp of momentous changes, and I fear that everything I now love about it is likely to be swept away in the next few years.)

Moreover, the majority of Phnom Penh bars come up seriously lacking in one way or another. The city has an awful lot of bars, but most of them aren't really much good; and even the good ones are a long way short of great. (It's not quite so ill-served as Siem Reap, which is a very, very disappointing bar town; or the big coastal resort of Sihanoukville, which is the armpit of the world, surely the ugliest city in SE Asia... and has not a single decent bar.) There will probably be a 'Top Five Bars in Phnom Penh' post appearing shortly, but for now.... here's my pick of The Best from the rest of Cambodia.

The Top Five Bars in Cambodia

5)  Picasso (Siem Reap)

Picasso is a challenge to find: very inconspicuous signage, not open during the daytime, hidden down a tiny back-alley (but parallel to and just yards away from the raucous awfulness that is the city's main 'Pub Street'). And it's a terrible name for a bar, a name that cries "twee bistro food" rather than "hardcore dive bar". But the latter is what it is, and thank god for it. I think it used to be more of a tapas type of place in its early days, but it has gradually evolved into the city's best drinking den. It's the decor that makes it: an arched faux brick ceiling gives it the grungy intimacy of a cellar bar (although it's actually at ground level). And it has a long, stone-topped U-shaped bar, almost a complete 'island'; it's the only one of its kind I've found in the country, and it is quite magical how it conduces to opening up casual conversations with other drinkers - whether next to you, or on the opposite side of the narrow room.  The feisty young manager, an Aussie girl called Sam, also plays a big part in maintaining the friendly, chatty atmosphere of the place. Cheap drinks and a small but good offering of bar snacks - and an ongoing obsession with trying to set a new Jenga world record - complete its appeal. It's one of the most sociable bars in the country - and streets ahead of anything else in Siem Reap. Its all-evening 'happy hour' on Wednesdays is one of the country's great drinking events too, a rather dangerous attraction (it's not wise to schedule your bus out of Siem Reap on a Thursday!!).

4)  Indo Bar (Kampot)

Again, a pretty terrible name, but... this unassuming little spot, on a quiet street a block or two in from the river, has managed to recreate the ambience of a traditional British pub - the only place I know in the country to have pulled this off (having the cheery young Brit owner behind the bar most of the time certainly helps; but there are a lot of other foreign-owned bars around, especially in this town, that dismally fail to conjure any particular atmosphere or character). The TV behind the bar is fairly small, but it makes it a good spot for watching football matches (well, it's pretty much the only option in town for this). And they offer a small but very good (and very generously portioned) selection of Indian set meals from the nearby Curry House (I think there's some shared ownership between the bar and the restaurant). My only gripe is that the bar itself is tiny, and you usually have to arrive pretty early in the evening if you're going to stake a claim to one of the handful of barstools. (This is a common problem with the footprint of the typical 'Chinese shop-house' property - long and narrow. If I were turning one of these spaces into a pub, I'd put the bar along the side wall, not at the end of the room.)  [Well, damn - the jinx strikes again! I returned to Kampot just after writing this post, and discovered that Indo had closed down over the summer of 2016. Oh Neil's (see below), luckily, is still going strong. But Kampot becomes a much less compelling destination when its number of attractive boozers is reduced to ONE.]

3)  The Riverside Balcony (Battambang)

Does exactly what it says on the label! Not a terrible name, this time, though rather unimaginatively prosaic - but we're probably stuck with it now. I gather this place has been going for several years, was one of the first foreign bars to open in Battambang - but had got itself a bit of a bad reputation under the last owner. Since the end of 2015, it's been taken over by a young Scot and his Australian girlfriend, and they have completely revitalized it. It is a lovely, lovely space, a large covered terrace on the first floor of a traditional wooden stilt house, overlooking the small river in the bucolic southern fringes of Battambang. The only reason this doesn't make the top spot is that it's a bit too fancy: it feels more like a 'special occasion' kind of drinking destination, somewhere you'd go on a date rather than just for everyday tippling. The temptation to explore their interesting list of cocktails (and/or their very fine selection of single malt Scotches) threatens to make it a bit too expensive for a regular haunt, too. But there is no finer place in the whole country to slake the day's thirst while watching the dusk gently fall, and I make a point of dropping in at least once or twice whenever I'm passing through Battambang. (Their pizzas are also extremely good, and boast some unusual but very effective combinations of toppings.) I am amazed - and resentful! - that there is nothing like this, nothing remotely as good as this in the capital.

2)  Here Be Dragons (Battambang)

OK, this name is perhaps a bit too determinedly quirky, and it doesn't quite fit the traditional templates for bar-naming - but it works. It's actually a very apposite warning, given the hazards of repeated and prolonged drinking that beckon within: it is the 'Bermuda Triangle' of Battambang! On the quiet east bank of the river, just north of the Wat Sangke temple, Here Be Dragons is one of the country's most popular backpacker dorms. (My days of slumming it in ultra-cheap bunk beds are behind me; but, luckily, they have a few quite decent - and also very cheap - private rooms upstairs, so it has become my favoured place to stay in the city.) By some happy alchemy, the young Brit couple who own the place have managed to create such a welcoming atmosphere that many people who arrive anticipating just a couple of days' battery-recharging before they head on to Siem Reap or Phnom Penh or Thailand, end up.... staying rather longer.... sometimes indefinitely. Most of the bar staff are backpackers who couldn't bear to leave. That's how fabulous this bar is! And in addition to its lively - though mostly transient (and mostly very, very young) - population of guests, it's also established itself as the major social hub for much of the expat community there. It tops Picasso [above] as a sociable bar because it's super-lively almost every night of the week (not just Wednesdays) and you're likely to meet a broad mix of people, many of them long-term residents in the city (not just tourists). The food is - mostly - very good, and the menu's extremely varied; the prices are pretty cheap; and they put on a slew of special events (cheap cocktails all night every Friday, themed parties or live music events most Saturdays, the best trivia quiz in the country on Wednesdays). Ah yes, and they don't really close. Nominally, they do, at about 12.30. But the barmen usually like to have a few to unwind themselves after that; and if the owner's in, he'll often settle in for an all-night session. This is the only place in the country where I have found myself repeating my crazy Beijing lifestyle, staying up drinking until 2am or 3am for days in succession (I fear I don't have the stamina to do that at all regularly any more; but it is nice to be able to revisit that over-indulgence just once in a while). The only slight demerit (there's always one!) is that, owing, I believe, to some cock-up in Imperial-to-Metric conversion, the bar is absurdly too high; and the rickety rattan stools you are obliged to perch on if you want to be able to lean your elbows on it are ridiculously uncomfortable. I hope that one day they'll make enough money to rip it out, and replace it with one about 8" or 10" lower. It might then become the perfect bar.....

But for now, I give the coveted top spot to.......

1)  Oh Neil's (Kampot)

Yep, yet another terrible name - but a wonderful, wonderful bar. There are many other bars on the Kampot riverfront offering views of the often spectacular sunsets beyond the Elephant Hills on the far side of the river, but this is by far my favourite. The ambience is more thatched-roof tiki bar than Irish boozer, but in a tropical climate, this seems to work; in fact, this place seems to combine the best of Irish and Caribbean culture (as my favourite bar back in Oxford 25 years ago briefly did). Actually, the Irishness is confined to a few Irish whiskeys behind the bar, and a few Irish items on the menu (I was delighted to find colcannon here - for the first time in years! - but disappointed that the Irish stew, though heartily thick, is made with beef rather than mutton). The general feel of the place is more American, with background music - played at sensibly audible-but-not-obtrusive volumes - sourced from online radio stations specialising in blues and classic rock. Owner Neil seems a nice guy, and is usually on hand himself - in the evenings, at least - to make sure all is running smoothly; although there's never too much of a worry about that, as he has managed to find himself some unusually friendly and efficient Cambodian bar staff. And, unlike nearby Indo [above, in the No. 4 spot], the bar is along the side wall, affording plenty of barstool perches (even so, the place is so popular that it can be difficult to get a seat). Excellent food, excellent service, excellent music, keen prices, and a super view from the small outdoor seating area at the front - this is dangerously close to 'bar perfection'. The fly-in-the-ointment here is the clientele: mostly quite middle-aged, nearly all expat rather than tourist - not nearly as varied as in most of the other venues on this list. Moreover, Kampot expats can seem tiresomely smug and self-satisfied: they're often rather too pleased with themselves that they were able to retire early and set up a moderately successful business there, or just that they were among the first to 'discover' that Kampot was the coolest spot in the entire country. I've had a number of interesting conversations at Oh Neil's, but on the whole I prefer the company (largely NGO workers) at Here Be Dragons; it's a very tight call between those two, for me. Oh Neil's just edges it on the food... and the music... and the hint of Irishness (I'm such a Plastic Paddy!).

A Top Five 'Magic' Letters

Reflecting on my strange (and terrible) romantic history, I am struck by the curious fact that the ladies I have been attracted to seem to form clusters. There are certain names that I seem to have a particular weakness for. More than this, even, I seem to be drawn to girls with names that start with particular letters of the alphabet.

I have never been attracted to - nor could I imagine being! - a Belinda or a Beryl or a Briony or a Bernice. Nor a Mary, Marian, Miriam, Millicent. Nor any Annas or Angelas (and only an isolated Amanda and Annabel).

On the other hand, I seem to have an astonishingly high strike-rate with these few letters of the alphabet....

Froog's Top Five (or so!) Fateful Letters of the Alphabet

5=)  N

But only for Natasha, a name which causes butterflies in my tummy merely typing it. Natalia, Nadia, Nadezhda etc. might also be in with a chance, I imagine. Bit of a Russian fetish, I confess. I blame Tolstoy.

5=)  F

But only because I have a huge soft spot for Fiona - possibly my favourite female name. I struggle to think of any others. I suppose the similar-sounding Fionnula and Fennella might be in with a chance. I've never much liked Felicity or Fay.

4)  K

K is the letter that haunts me. I love the name Kirsty, but I've never gone out with a girl of that name (nor with a Kirsten, or a Kristen). Kates and Katherines are mighty fine too; but I always seem to find myself with girls who use the C spelling (see below). And I absolutely swoon for the idea of a Kitty (blame Tolstoy again) - but it remains an abstract fixation.

3)  R

Rose, Rosie, Rosemary, and Rosalind, Rachel, Rebecca, Rowan and Rowena.

2)  C 

Several Carolines (and a Carolyn), a Cathy or three, a Cindy and a Candy and couple of Christines. I've never much liked Carol, funnily enough - although given my obvious propensity to fall for other C-names, I wouldn't rule out the possibility one day.

But what has been the most fateful letter in my romantic life, the most haunted page of my address book??

1)  S

Several Sarahs and Susans, a Selena and a Simone. And a Sally or two. It's a tight competition, but I think S shades it for me - on both quantity and quality.

Top Five Beijing bars I miss

I'm surprised I haven't got around to doing this list before. I really must do it now, since I'm shuttering the blog, and planning to move on from Beijing. In ten years of drinking here, there have only been a handful of bars that I developed a real fondness for; and - such is the way of this crazy city - most of them only lasted a year or so.

Froog's Top Five Defunct Beijing Bars

5)  Handsome Café

In around about 2004, this was the only bar I'd go into around Sanlitun. An awful name, but it had a good vibe: cheap'n'cheerful, with friendly owners. It lasted barely a year, I think. There's something jinxed about that space (the semi-basement below what is now Luga's Villa); despite its very central location, nothing in that building ever seems to prosper.

4)  Yugong Yishan (the original one)

I had a lot more work over on the east side of town in those days ('04-'07, I suppose), so I was quite often passing through the Sanlitun/Gongti area in the evenings mid-week, and whenever I was, I would invariably look in on the cosy YGYS to see if anything was going on. Even if there wasn't (Tuesdays were almost always dead), I'd stop to play a few games of pool with the barman.

3)  Room 101

Some readers might have expected this one to rank higher, since it was my principal resort through much of 2008. However, it was always struggling for direction (haphazard in its food offerings, its 'happy hour' promotions, its staging of live music, and other intermittent special events), and never looked likely to endure for long - particularly after Olly came on board in the early summer and convinced the other partners to try to make it more of a restaurant. The tiny stage in the corner was kind of fun. It had a beautiful little island bar - the only one I can remember in Beijing. It had a great music selection (much of it dictated by - and, indeed, donated by - me and my main drinking buddy of that year, Crazy Chris). And, for a while, it had the cheapest draught Stella in the city. But I really only dug the place during the few months when my old pal Jackson Bai was running the bar.

2)  B2M (aka 'The Moatside')

The first - and best - of many out-of-the-way hobby bars I've happened upon over the years, and subject of one of my earliest posts on here. It was tiny, difficult to find, far off the beaten track - and only survived on the custom of friends of the owners. But it was a homely little space, and a regular hangout during the '03-'04 winter. The Chairman and I gave some very serious consideration to taking it over when its original begetters, an Australian girl and her Chinese fiancé, departed on their epic bike ride from Beijing to Melbourne (the source of the bar's cryptic name).

But in the top spot we have...

1)  Huxley's

Its second incarnation on Yandai Xiejie, that is. Yes, of course, it's still there. But, really, it's NOT. Nowadays, the booze is mostly fake, the staff are charmless and often downright surly, and the clientele is mostly tourists or American high schoolers (it seems to have become the Houhai counterpart of the horrendous Pure Girl). It has lost the unique ambience that made it the best bar in the city during its first couple of years ('05-'07), when Jackson Bai was running it. Ah, I miss those days. I miss being serenaded by that Norwegian girl who was an operatically-trained semi-professional singer. I miss discussing the future of the planet with a young German climate change scientist. I miss wooing The Poet there (and then losing her again!). I miss staying up all night in there with Nick O'Pix and Tennessee Tom. I miss the free shooters that Jackson would dispense whenever it appeared that we weren't getting drunk fast enough. If they'd had draught beer, and if Jackson had stayed there a bit longer, that place would have been my favourite Beijing bar of all time; as it is, it's only just behind 12 Square Metres and the Pool Bar (which, mercifully, are still with us... though perhaps not for very much longer).

Top Five New Bar Openings In Beijing This Year

Amongst many 'Top Fives' I was contemplating for this week, today, I suppose this is the most 'urgent' - since it is a preliminary to my last Annual Bar Review, which I'm aiming to compile this weekend or early next week.

There won't be any order of preference for these, because, although I have significant reservations about all of them, I suppose I'll have to choose one of them for my Most Promising New Bar accolade - and I ought to try and maintain some suspense about that.

So, here we go....

Froog's Top Five New Bar Openings In Beijing in 2012

Plan B

A great name for a bar, and particularly for an expat bar in Beijing, where so many of us - like the unfortunate owner, Trevor Metz - have to adapt to violent disruptions of our personal and business lives and try to start afresh. It's a great resource if you happen to live in that housing complex, but doesn't have the oomph factor to make it a destination bar - even, I would suspect, for folks from nearby Shuangjing. Minnie is a great bartender, but the space is small, awkwardly laid out, has rather random decor - and there's a very limited selection of booze. The strong local following is what really makes this place; but I'm afraid it's a bit too small - and too remote, too hard to find - to rate a recommendation to the general populace.

Brussels

I think manager Kenn Bermel deserves some kind of award for the effort that he's put in to building up awareness of this venue through hosting special events, and even trying to rally fellow bar and restaurant owners in the area to engage in some joint promotion to try to establish an identity - or even just a name - for that unappealing wasteland of semi-redeveloped industrial estate that sprawls behind the now mothballed Pacific Century mall on Gongti Beilu. But I fear he's got his work cut out trying to make a viable business with that venue, in that location. It's a hopeless barn of a space, completely lacking in atmosphere; and the pointless 'Belgian' theme that he inherited is something of a further handicap (I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds that the image of the Mannekin Pis puts you off your food, or drink). The keen prices - and the dire state of Sanlitun's other 'sports bars' - give it some chance, I suppose; but I don't envisage it becoming a long-term survivor.

Cellar Door

My journo pal Mr Sex was rather taken with this place over the summer, wooed mainly by their price competitiveness against their well-established neighbour El Nido. Perhaps during the summer it was drawing bigger crowds, or it was more attractive to sit outside on their narrow sliver of sidewalk. I've looked in a couple of times for curiosity's sake, but I found nothing to lure me back. It seems to lack any distinctive charm of its own: it's just another squitty little hutong bar trying to ape El Nido - but it has far too little space, and also lacks Xiao Shuai's savvy in building a clientele.

Más

I love the idea of a bar just off Guijie; that's something we could have done with years ago. Unfortunately, this place shares the failings of Cellar Door: it's too small, and is an utterly undistinguished space. It has a bit of continental panache about it, though: there's a much better selection of drinks. The cubbyhole around the bar is quite cosy (though so cramped it is difficult to access); but the bar itself is much too high (this is becoming a more and more common vice, it seems), the music is played a notch or two too loud (and it tends toward the more modern interpretation of Latin American music, heavy on the bass and going on too repetitively and too long), and the main area - with its tiny formica tables and rickety chairs - feels like an elementary school classroom. I have my doubts about the strength of the drinks, as well, although the recipes are interesting.

Chill

I've already reviewed this one on here a couple of months back. It's a great location for me (actually my nearest readily accessible bar), and a very comfortable space, but... it's just too damned comfortable for my taste, more a lounge than a bar - and a strangely soulless one at that. It makes a great event space, but I can't imagine anyone treating it as their 'local'. The dire name is a serious handicap as well, in my view. And the decision to close the shutters on the courtyard bar in early autumn was unfathomably perverse; that little bit of bar space is the only part of the place I'd ever be tempted to hang out at regularly.

I suppose there are a few others that might be in contention, too; it's been quite a busy year for bar openings. Hidden Lounge is an intriguing concept (creating a cosy little destination bar in a converted apartment, and combining a cocktail lounge vibe with attractively retro prices), but the owner seems to have an overdeveloped talent for rubbing people up the wrong way. Cuju I'd like to like - nice snacks, nice rum collection, have known the owner for ages - but again I find it too small and too characterless, struggling to create any sense of identity for itself. Serk I've heard a few good things about, despite its awful name; but I haven't yet tried it myself, and I suspect that like all of these other new hutong bar openings, it's probably just a quirky little hobby bar, too small to attract a wide following. Dada seems to have become quite popular with the younger crowd, but it's really more of a nightclub. Mai hasn't quite lived up to the hopes I had for it at the end of last year; Jeff means well, bless him, but he's a bit of a headless chicken sometimes in his promotions, and he still hasn't done anything to upgrade the spartan furnishings. And Malty Dog, his new excursion into the craft brew craze, seems pointless and doomed to me.

Yes, oh dear, that's it for the crop of newcomers this year. It might be hard to make an award in this category.

Oh, I noticed just the other day that there seems to be a new bar next door to El Nido. No name on it yet. It might even be an offshoot of El Nido - although there doesn't seem to be any inside connection between the two spaces (in fact, there's a narrow alleyway between them; but that doesn't preclude common ownership). It looks rather promising, actually; the best bar counter I've seen in a long time.

Another major disappointment is the Slow Boat Brewery Taproom, which held its launch day the weekend after I did this post - too late for consideration for any of this year's awards, but it seemed a likely contender for prizes next year. I want to like Slow Boat; I think they're a much friendlier crowd and much better at marketing and PR than their 'craft brew' rivals Great Leap (though that's not saying much!); but alas, their beer invariably disappoints. It doesn't hold its carbonation well, and it tends to taste a bit thin and watery. (I'm not a great fan of Great Leap's brews either, but at least they have a bit of body about them.) What's more, I find their beers all taste rather similar: there's a dominant undertone of some sort of fruit (mango is most often cited as the nearest parallel). In fact, when they christened their two taps at MaoMaoChong a couple of months back, several of us couldn't tell which beer was meant to be which, and rather suspected that they had muddled up the lines (the beer that was supposed to have a mango savour was actually much less mangoey than the one that wasn't!). Slow Boat and Great Leap are both in thrall to the current American fashion for creating ales with silly novelty tastes, rather than simple, straightforward beers. And they're not even doing it all that well; there were several beers at a recent 'Homebrew Festival' at PassBy Bar that eclipsed any of their offerings. They're trying it on a bit with their pricing as well: beer that you're knocking up in small batches in your backroom really shouldn't cost anything like as much as an internationally famous premium brand that's had to be transported half way around the world; it certainly shouldn't cost more. There were supposedly some 'special prices' for the opening of the Taproom (though it wasn't made clear what these were), but only a couple of the brews were 25rmb per glass; most were 35rmb; a few were 45 or more. That is TOO MUCH - for what is essentially 'homebrew'; and rather undistinguished homebrew, at that.

Even worse, though, than the offputting prices and so-so quality of the product, is the pig's ear they've made of their space. There are enough people who crave idiosyncratic beers - even beers of this American style - that this place could easily become a leading destination bar (its obscure and slightly out-of-the-way location notwithstanding). They've got a reasonable amount of space to play with; and they've done absolutely NOTHING with it. The bar is a complete waste: too small and too high - it acts as a fortress for the staff, clearly intended as a serving point only, not somewhere that customers will be encouraged to hang out. Ridiculous! It doesn't even extend the whole way across the shorter axis of the room. I can't see any reason why they couldn't have put it on the longer wall, or made it an L-shape, covering at least a substantial part of two walls. If they'd done that, it would be a place that people would come and hang out, singly or in small groups. (And, let's face it, beer tends not to be a major enthusiasm amongst the ladies; so, this is going to be the kind of place that guys come to on their own, when they get 'a night off'.) The canteen-style tables and benches - in regimented formation, like a schoolroom - might seem a logical solution for maximising the seating available in a limited space, but they make for an austere ambience. And some decor would be nice, chaps - even if it's just a few posters on the walls.

I'm sorry to say, this might well prove to be a colossal failure. Almost everybody I overheard talking about the beer was bitching it. And I saw two or three people throwing away the discount cards that were being handed out: the offer of every eleventh drink free holds no appeal for people who realise they're probably never going back there. A great pity. A major opportunity wasted.

A DAY of Top Fives??

Well, that was my idea.

Reviewing topics I'd intended to cover in this intermittent series of mine, I realised there were quite a lot I would have liked to try and get out of the way before I retire from blogging next week. Too many, really. I think I had FIVE Top Fives in mind for this Tuesday. And a few more 'possibles' bubbling under.

But my Internet connection has been kaput for most of the week, so I'm horribly behind with everything - work and social plans as well as blogging.

I'm now thinking that I might 'cheat' a bit about this giving up blogging idea, and return to this Tuesday every once in a while to add another Top Five post... and another... and another.

We'll see. I might be so relieved to escape from the tyranny of daily production that I never want to write another blog post in my life!