Bad Santa(s)

I gather this Saturday's Beijing SantaCon was subdued ever so slightly by the hyper-anxious policing we've suffered in Beijing lately.  Many of the participants were deterred or prevented from joining the mass meet-up on Tiananmen Square by repeated demands to see passports and search bags, etc. from the goon squads patrolling the perimeter.

I'm amazed - relieved, but genuinely a little surprised - that any of them made it on to the Square.  Indeed, I'm surprised and relieved that none of them got themselves arrested.

But Santa Clauses are a disappointingly harmless and apolitical bunch, aren't they?  There wasn't much chance they were going to try to leave an empty chair on the Square, or break into a mass chorus of Free Nelson Mandela!  [I would have!  That's why I didn't go...]

That's the original version of the song by The Special AKA. I've just discovered a cover by Amy Winehouse, from an AIDS benefit concert in London in 2008 - great stuff!

God, I really hope somebody does a Chinese-language version of this for LXB. Though I think singing the original gets the point across quite well - but just obliquely enough to spare you from beating or imprisonment?

Bon mot for the week

"I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old."

Charles Baudelaire  (1821-1867)

What, pray, is a bogan?

The word was new to me when JK brought it up at the bar a few months ago.

Online researches revealed that it is an Aussie slang term of disparagement for the 'white trash' underclass, probably originating in the Melbourne suburbs but now in common use throughout Australia and New Zealand.  I don't know how far back it goes (the similar term CHAV in England is only a Noughties coinage, I think).  I suspect the popularity of the expression was given a big boost in the early Noughties by the success of Aussie ska band Area-7's jokey song Nobody Likes A Bogan (which surfaces on the 12 Square Metres playlist once in a while: lyrically a bit thin, but infectiously bouncy).

And here's a further illustration of the concept, from a Melbourne comedian who calls himselfy the Angry Aussie (a fairly prolific online presence on YouTube and a blog).  ['Seppo' was a new one on me, too.  Apparently, it means an American - a diminutive of the Cockney rhyming slang Septic (Tank).  I rather like it.]

Top Five New Hangouts

As a prelude to the fourth instalment of my year-end Annual Bar Awards, I thought I'd better run through some of the more welcome new discoveries that have been varying my nocturnal activities this year, and particularly over the last few months.  For a long time now, I'd been in a rather comfortable rut, never venturing beyond the 'Holy Trinity' of 12 Square Metres, The Pool Bar, and Amilal, never going across town to Sanlitun any more....  But this year there have been quite a number of new openings, some of them very worthwhile.

My Top Five New Hangouts of 2010

5)  Thong

This ultimate in naffly charming hutong eccentricities is rather more 'hidden' than 'gem', but still a serendipitous highlight of my year.  Thongs for the memory....

4)  VA Bar

It's just a tad expensive (the kind of place where half the crowd spills out on to the street to buy beers from the xiaomaibu opposite), and the service can be a bit unwelcoming (they regularly bug the crap out of me by trying to hassle you into giving up your seats whenever a large party comes in; utterly friggin' pointless anyway, since they don't have any booths that can accommodate more than 4 or 6 people; but trying to bump people who've been there an hour already in favour of people who turn up halfway through the show - that's just dumb, and rude: STOP IT!).  However, this is much the best of the new music bar openings this year: the only one to have established a regular programme of gigs.  Great sound system.  And less than 30 minutes' walk from my home.

3)  Sand Pebbles

I was attracted at first by the name (a favourite China-based film; although the owner is quite ignorant of this, and chose the name purely to suggest a beach theme!), but stayed for the food and the warmth of owner Ray's welcome (and his gorgeous dog, an enormous but very docile husky).  I worry slightly for its future: it has limited space, rather naff design, doesn't really attract any walk-by trade (its chief attraction during the summer months was its postage-stamp roof terrace - although even that is rather compromised by the din of the nearby 2nd Ringroad); it's been surviving mainly on good order-in business from the adjacent Yonghegong Villas - but that's up for the redevelopment, so next year could be a tough one.  However, the prices are low (especially with the 'extra discount' Ray always seems to give me; not sure if he's thanking me for having introduced so many other customers to the place over the last 8 months, or if he does this for all his 'regulars' - well, anyone who's come in more than once or twice, say; or anyone who spends more than 100 rmb in one go), and the food is excellent (although the service out of the kitchen can sometimes be slow, it's usually worth the wait): far and away the best Tex-Mex in town (well, inside the 2nd Ringroad, anyway), it has enabled me to turn my back on the repeatedly disappointing, really rather dismal Amigo.

2)  Flamme

It's upstairs in a mall (though this is less fatal to restaurants than to simple bars).  It's strangely hard to find (although it's just a stone's throw away from the highly visible Blue Frog, I fairly regularly manage to walk past it, around it, behind it...).  And it's a little above my usual budget (although the Stella is quite keenly priced at 25 rmb for 330 ml; the cheap booze deals on Mondays are proving very attractive; ditto the half-price steak offer on Tuesdays; and the excellent vegetable side dishes are a very reasonable 18 rmb each [the vegetable chilli with a couple of baked potatoes for 36 rmb is a decent meal]).  The decor's a bit naff, a bit soulless somehow, too; and the bar's just UGLY, and way too small (but they're supposed to be redesigning - and extending - that shortly).  However, it is, for me, way the best new restaurant to open in Beijing this year.  And it has the potential (if they make the bar bigger and get some more staff) to be the best cocktail bar too.

And in the top spot we have.... [drum roll]

1)  El Nido

A dive bar with class, this is a strong contender for Bar of the Year.  It's an inspired amalgam of the best features of the old Huxley's (the cramped intimacy), Salud (the cosy atmosphere and the novelty house-infused spirits), and Amilal (the arty vibe and the superb, unexpected music selection).  Add to that some excellent bar snacks (sandwiches made with real bread and real pancetta!), an astonishingly broad selection of affordable wines and premium imported beers.... and ridiculously low prices (hello, 10-kuai Hapi, I think I love you!).  Oh, and it's only a 19-minute walk home.  (Well, OK, it's a 19-minute walk there.  It's more like a 22-minute walk back.  You know how that goes.)

HBH 212

Music's a time warp:
Twenty years, forty years back;
Channelling Jimi.

I grew up without Jimi Hendrix.  I relied on my (much) older brother to introduce me to rock music, and he gave me my first taste of a lot of good stuff (even though, at the time, sibling rivalry dictated that I should affect to be scornful of his tastes): Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Creedence, Queen, Bowie.

But there were some conspicuous omissions.  Nothing of The Who.  No Janis.  And no Hendrix.  Maybe he'd been just a little bit too young to get into them in their heyday.

So, although I'd heard of him (most notably Queen drummer Roger Taylor's adulatory name-check of him in the fade-out to his song Drowse), I don't think I heard any Jimi until I was a student at university.  And I didn't immediately get him.  His playing seemed a bit rough and raucous, a bit violent, not melodic enough for me (I'd been weaned on Mark Knopfler!).  I'm ashamed of myself now.  The breakthrough moment for me came when I listened to an entire album of his (it was Axis: Bold As Love) while very, very drunk (and perhaps a bit stoned): suddenly it all clicked.  Over the next few weeks I bought everything of his I could find.  It was the (belated) beginning of a love affair with one of the music greats.

Over here in China, I don't hear him nearly often enough.  So, whenever something of Jimi's comes up on a bar's playlist, I experience a little swoon.

And I was pretty buzzed - very buzzed - last night after hearing the very decent Hendrix cover outfit Purple Smog play again at one of my local haunts, the VA Bar.  It's threatened to be their last-ever gig.  I hope they'll reconsider.  (Martin, stop being such a pussy!)

Beijing Boyce stuffs up

The essential - inescapable - bar blogger Beijing Boyce decided to do a 'live blog' of The Beijinger's Super Quiz last Sunday.

He was largely thwarted by crappy wireless Internet connectivity at the venue.  And, possibly, also by the limitations of his website (it's often very slow and glitchy to download at the best of times); I didn't try to access his page on the quiz on Sunday, but it seemed to be unavailable throughout Monday and the first half of Tuesday.

However, when I learned of this, I was gobsmacked that he would try to do anything so outrageously.... er, pointless, stupid, destructive of the whole essence of the event.  WTF????

OK, maybe - as a life-long trivia buff - I have an exaggerated reverence for the sanctity of the quiz.  And maybe - as a former lawyer - I have a sterner respect than many people for the importance of rules.  But, actually, I don't think these attitudes are that unusual, or at all unreasonable.  In fact, just about everyone I've spoken to about this has reacted far more violently than me - unleashing torrents of invective upon poor Mr Boyce's unfathomably dumb behaviour here.

Now, I think the whole 'live blogging' concept is terminally naff, anyway.  But OK - if he really thought this was in some way providing a service to his readers that some of them might find appealing, and if he'd got the blessing of the organisers first, then maybe it's not so bad (though there's no indication I can see in his post that he did get the organisers' permission; and I can't believe that they would have been daft enough to give it, if asked).  But in general.....  that was a very, very, VERY bad thing to do, JB.

Amongst the reasons why:

1)  It's probably rather pointless.  How many people, really, are going to be interested in reading the questions in a quiz they are not participating in?

2)  If not completely pointless, there's a danger that it could be damaging to the success of the event.  If there is a significant number of people whose competitive urges and curiosity might be sated just by reading the questions and the answers rather than showing up to the venue to take part, well, then you're discouraging people from attending. (I know, I just slagged the quiz off as ill-conceived and ill-executed, but.... I wouldn't have done that before or during the event.  It was for charity, for heaven's sake!)

3)  The organisers have a commercial interest - a species of IPR - in the concept of the event, and in the specific questions and answers to be used on the night.  By attempting to broadcast the quiz live over the Internet (without their permission?), you are abusing that right, damaging that interest.  The only thing dumber you could have done would have been to get access to the questions & answers ahead of time and publish them before the quiz even started.

4)  You are facilitating - practically soliciting - cheating.  In a serious quiz, it is essential to maintain the security of the venue and the security of the questions.  Taking the questions outside of the venue while the quiz is in progress is the most fundamental kind of WRONG.  With the proliferation of Internet-capable mobile devices, it's becoming almost impossible to police quizzes effectively.  But with a quiz of this magnitude, a serious effort should be made: allowing someone to openly use a laptop computer at the quiz venue is inevitably going to tend to seem to condone or encourage the use of i-Phones, mobiles and whatnot by the quizzers.  And even if the quizzers are ethically disciplined enough to refrain from accessing the Internet or attempting to contact friends outside the venue for help, there is a serious danger (if you make the questions available outside the venue) that friends may voluntarily contact them from outside - saying, "You do know that the answer to that one is ...... , right?"

Just unfathomably DUMB, JB.  You might have ruined the competition.  If there'd been that many people interested in taking part, anyway.  I don't think any of the quizzers I know bothered with it.

The Beijinger stuffs up

The Beijinger magazine - abruptly, and without much advance publicity - decided last weekend to revive its 'Super Quiz' idea.... securing a large venue for an evening and inviting every quizmaster in the city to contribute a round of questions each (well, almost every quizmaster; our own JK, who's been running a rather jolly little quiz down at 12 Square Metres once a month through the second half of this year, was shamefully overlooked!) to produce a quiz of quizzes, an ultimate test of the trivia buff's powers.

Now, as an idea, this doesn't SUCK.  There are scores of ardent quizzers here in Beijing, and many of them would welcome the opportunity to match their brains against the leading contestants from the other regular bar quizzes around town.

Trouble is.... well, there's a bit of a dearth of really good quizmasters in Beijing (Julian Fisher of the Tim's Texas Barbecue quiz on Tuesday nights is the only one I really have any time for); and putting 6 or 8 bad quizmasters together in one room somehow seems to bring the standard of questions down even more.  There's also a dearth of decent venues large enough to host something of this kind.  And the first staging of this event was such A COMPLETE FUCK-UP (crap venue, crap quizmastering!!) that anyone who suffered it would be extremely unlikely to risk wasting an evening on it a second time.  Moreover, if you're going to try to get this going as a regular event.... well, it needs some kind of regularity about it; it's been over 18 months since the last one!  (And I thought it must have been two years; I just remember that it occurred on a dreary sunless day, but did not recall that it had been a warm grey day rather than a cold one.)

And it would seem that The Beijinger didn't learn any lessons from the disaster of that first Super Quiz.  It was mostly the same quizmasters again this year (Karl Long of Paddy O'Shea's should still be doing hard labour in the gulag for the abomination of a round he visited on us last time!).  And they were again given a free hand to indulge their egos with silly novelty rounds, rather than being given clear guidelines on format, topic, scoring, and degree of difficulty - in order to create a more well-balanced and demanding (dare I say it, a 'harmonious'?!) quiz.  (I gather one guy this time had a round of questions on 'Cryptic Band Names' [Hamlet Humans = Village People, geddit?].  Quite a fun idea at first, but it gets tedious after a while.  And probably too easy as well, once you've got the trick of it.  This is the sort of thing [bizarre themed rounds, 'missing links', odd bonuses or penalties] which can be a good laugh... in your local quiz, at Christmas; but in a 'grand citywide championship' kind of setting are just irritatingly naff, and/or absurdly randomizing of the results [this was what ruined Super Quiz 1]; the sort of thing that the organizers really ought to try to outlaw if they want this event to succeed.  Moreover, I object to rounds like this - that depend on English wordplay - as excessively exclusionary of a Chinese audience.  Admittedly, 95% of quizzers are going to be laowai, and any Chinese that do come along are likely to be a bit lost for the most part [particularly on a music round!], but.... you don't want to make a set of questions completely inaccessible to the locals.  That's just bad manners, I think.)

Worst of all, the folks at The Beijinger had chosen to hold this event at The Hard Rock Café!!!  I don't think I know anyone who's ever been to The Hard Rock Café in Beijing.  It notoriously caters almost exclusively to wealthy Chinese businessmen looking to meet expensive hookers.  Even Beijing Boyce - who generally gives the impression of being a modestly affluent fellow, able to hang out in swanky cocktail bars almost every night of the week - found it cripplingly expensive and eventually left in a huff (and I may return to the question of what the heck he thought was doing there in a further rant shortly...).  As a venue selection, that was somewhere beyond bizarre - absurdly high prices, sleazy reputation, just about zero foreign custom: WTF??  I was just about prepared to give the Super Quiz another chance - particularly as it was for charity - even with Karl Long getting behind the microphone again.  But when I saw where they were holding it, I thought, "Oh no, this is surely just some sort of a JOKE!"

Another useful metaphor...

... for the Post-Work Gargle.

On Monday, The Choirboy reported mid-afternoon that he was likely to have to cry off our planned evening drinks rendezvous because he was badly behind with his work.  I checked in again a few hours later, hoping for better news....

Me:  "Progress?  Light at the end of the tunnel??"

He:  "Oncoming train!!"

Me:  "Yay!  The Martini Express !!!"

Alas, no.  But I feel the expression will have it uses.

Fetch me a posse!

After some weeks of thwarted plotting and conspiring, I thought yesterday - finally - I'd managed to corral The Lads into assembling for a proper, old school Boozy Monday.

But then.... well, the 'posse' just evaporated. The Choirboy suffered another of his workload ambushes, JK got stuck minding the bar, The Bengali cited a spousal veto, and The Feeble Weeble was once again demonstrating his infuriating inability to commit to anything or to plan any aspect of his life more than a few hours ahead....  Sigh.

It had looked for a while as if I was going to be left drinking entirely on my own - but at least Leather Britches eventually showed up (a mere 40 minutes late); and a few other folks joined us an hour or so later (but didn't stay for very long).  A very good evening, in the end.

But gosh, my social life is drying up.  I really need to get out there and make me some new friends....

[And yes, the title is a reference to a rather risqué joke....]

A street of shiny things

The insidious, relentless, step-by-step desecration of Nanluoguxiang continues apace.

Once upon a time, it was - apart from the isolated 'hidden gem' of the foreigner-friendly courtyard café Pass-By Bar - just a grungy little hutong, much like any other: ramshackle residential housing, neighbourhood xiaomaibu convenience stores every 50 yards, and lots of bare-and-basic but gratifyingly cheap hole-in-the-wall restaurants - an authentic slice of 'old Beijing'.

Then, for a couple of years, the 'modernisation' process was gradually gutting it of its former charm; but, although we missed that rough simplicity of yore, the new, swankier look wasn't too tacky.  The place was primarily targeting foreigners, and was becoming a lively but not hectic bar/restaurant strip - a welcome alternative to the clamorous charmlessness of Sanlitun.

But over the last couple of years, as greedy landlords bump up the rents (with the encouragement/connivance of asinine local government officials, who expect more revenue from a 'tourism culture street' development aimed at Chinese tourists), the street has been flooded with snack stalls, souvenir shops, and upscale boutiques.  Bars and restaurants are getting squeezed out: Fish Nation and Mirch Marsala gone, Saveurs de Corée soon to follow them... and I begin to worry for the future of Salud, the only decent mid-sized bar left on the street.  I'm inclined to blame Dominik Johnson-Hill, the English entrepreneur who founded the extremely successful Plastered t-shirt brand.  Since he demonstrated what obscene amounts of money could be made off cheap clothes and curios, we've moved rapidly towards what Douglas Adams once jestingly described as 'The Shoe Event Horizon' - where the perceived profitability of a particular type of store is so dominant that any other kind of business becomes unthinkable (of course, this phenomenon leads rapidly to complete economic collapse).

Now, I don't mind all of this new tackiness so much per se.  Some of it is quite fun (in an "I can't believe somebody else believes there's money to be made in selling novelty match-books!" kind of way).  And the rest I can easily ignore.

Unfortunately, the young Chinese who now throng the street - mostly just window-shopping and taking each other's photograph, rather than actually buying anything (another worrying indicator for the street's financial viability) - are not so immune to the allure of displays of pointless baubles.  The girls, in particular, will stop - abruptly, without warning, without any awareness of or concern for people who might be walking close behind them - in front of almost every window.  Or they'll loiter and dawdle and zig-zag and track back - just to make sure that they haven't missed any little shiny thing that there might be to be gawped at for a moment.

And, even worse, they do it in groups.  With the Chinese propensity to link arms or hold hands (good god, the boys sometimes do it too; but the girls are much worse), the NLGX window-shoppers meander down the street in human chains, sometimes three or four, even five or six people wide - completely blocking the way: honestly, it's like playing British Bulldogs, sometimes.  If I'm heading down that way early evening (if?? when!!), I'll generally try to avoid NLGX itself and approach my destination via one of the sidestreets.

And it seems to be getting even worse now with the cold weather, this arm-interlocking - as if the cosiness of it proofs you against the winter's knives.  The wall-to-wall chains of gawking girls have just been ridiculous these past few nights.

In another week or two, perhaps, it will have become so cold that no-one (not many of the extremely unhardy Chinese, anyway) will be going out at all any more.  But I'm going to take a break from Nanluoguxiang for a while: it's become completely impassable at the moment.

Bon mot for the week

"I don't understand people who say they have no regrets.  You'd think they might at least regret their sorry lack of spontaneity."

Froog

Great Drinking Songs (24)

This is another of the stompin' good tunes - Elvis Costello's Pump It Up - that regularly used to feature on the Monday night playlist at 12 Square Metres when genial giant Nigel Murphy was in charge of the bar.

Those 'special Mondays' appear to be over now, perhaps forever.  Big Nige has been overtaken by domesticity - wife, baby, house out in the sticks, full-time work - and won't be around to brighten up our gloomy Mondays any more.  We had a farewell drink with him last night, and it was really rather a poignant moment.

Thanks for all the good times, Nigel.  And I hope you'll at least be able to look in for a drink with us again from time to time.

HBH 211

Old friends smile and wink,
Forgiving of his absence:
Whisky shelf welcome.

I feel bad about neglecting these guys.  They are the most reliable of my friends these days.  Johnnie and Jack and Jim and Paddy and all those good ol' boys - I don't know what I'd do without them.

New Picks of the Month

Time for a delve back into the mists of three years ago again...

On Froogville I point you towards Tea with Madame X, a poignant poetic snapshot of my great failed romance of the last four years.

And from The Barstool I pick Women don't understand 'romance', a brief celebration of my favourite ever Beijing bar.

Traffic Report - the blog stats for November

Am I finally slowing down my ridiculous over-production just a little?

Hardly, I think.  It's been one of my least prolific months in quite a while, but not so very much less than 'normal' (despite a fairly heavy schedule of conventional work recently); and such reduction as there was mainly down to a brief suspension of posting in the third week of the month - not because of pressure of other commitments or shortage of inspiration, but because I wanted my notice about Wu Yuren's trial date to retain prominence at the top of the home page for a few days.

I think I'd be rather happier with keeping the combined number of posts on the two blogs below 60, and the total wordcount below 20,000.  Not quite there yet, but making some progress.  Hmm, could be time for a resolution, perhaps...

Anyway, here are the November figures:

There were 36 posts and around 11,000 words on Froogville.

There were 32 posts and also 11,000 words on Barstool Blues.

Nothing very exciting to report this time, I'm afraid.  Drop-ins from Uganda, Bulgaria, and Colombia are starting to seem fairly run-of-the-mill.

What's the Rush?

Oh, Froog you incorrigible punster!  Enough, already!

At the risk of alienating my new "No. 1 fan" Hopfrog (and countless other fans of the band, no doubt), I have to say this:  I just don't get Rush.  Never have.  One of my best friends at university persuaded me to give them a listen, and he was someone whose knowledge and taste I generally trusted, someone who introduced me to a lot of other good stuff.  I tried with Rush, I really did, but.... I couldn't really work out what people saw in them.  Or, I thought I could guess what people saw in them, but it didn't appeal to me.  I've given them several tries on and off again over the years, and they still leave me absolutely stone cold.

Of course, they have a fanatical following - including a lot of serious musicians, which ought to be a high recommendation.  However, I can't help feeling that much of this following (not excluding the musicians) is of a rather nerdy bent, and most of the admiration for them seems to be based on their technical virtuosity rather than their musicality.  These are people that a lot of other players want to be able to play like, to extend their technique.  But that's not the same as wanting to play (or listen to) what they play.  People - my old college buddy and Hopfrog among them - rave in particular about Neil Peart's drumming.  And I can understand what they're getting at: sure, he can be a very fast and intricate player, coming up with a lot of patterns that you don't hear from just about anyone else.  But you know, you don't really want virtuosity from a rock drummer; you just want someone who's going to tie down the beat and add some punch to your sound.  That's the problem I have with the whole band, I suppose; it's very fast and showy, but... I just don't hear the music in any of it.  Add in whiny vocals and - most of the time - truly godawful lyrics, and you have a band well worth avoiding, for my money.

Big Nige, the relief barman down at 12 Square Metres who's become an invaluable music guru to me this year, has given me a digital copy of the recent documentary about them Beyond The Lighted Stage.... but it's sat on my computer for 3 or 4 months and I still haven't got around to watching it.  I will try to soon; people tell me it's a very good film, even if you don't like their music.... and they say it shows them in such reverential light that it may have the power to woo even the stubbornest non-believers like myself.  I rather doubt it.  Nigel, a chap who has awesomely good musical taste, is a bit of a sceptic about them himself: he's been giving them a try lately, but doesn't seem that much impressed.  Last night, one of their songs came on the playlist at the bar (I think it was Fly By Night?), and we both kind of shrugged and said Why are we listening to this?  Indeed, I didn't really listen to it; I am so thoroughly immune to their 'charms' that I'd subconsciously tuned out after only 15 or 20 seconds, and only started paying attention again when a different band came on next.

However.... veteran of the Chinese metal scene Kaiser Kuo (only a semi-laowai in the first place, since his parents are Chinese; and he's been living here pretty much half his life, so is fairly 'naturalised') is always worth checking out.  And if he wants to put together a Rush cover band as an excuse to team up again with a bass-playing buddy from his college days, who am I to denigrate his ambitions?  Moreover, they were going to play their two shows last weekend right on my doorstep, at Gulou 121 (as the new-ish [open 7 or 8 months] music bar on Jiugulou Dajie seems to have settled on calling itself).  Now the weather's got bollock-freezing cold at night, close is good: it will have to be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of a show to entice me all the way over  to 2 Kolegas while the weather's like this, or even to the just about walkable Yugong Yishan - and there was no such attraction anywhere else in the city last Friday and Saturday.

And despite my profound Rush-aversion, I found that the show wasn't half bad.  I hadn't known how good Kaiser is on the guitar (I think I've probably only ever seen him playing bass before; well, except for a couple of the unplugged Chunxiu shows earlier this year).  The bass and drums were, I thought, just adequate; but the lads hadn't had much time to rehearse (the drummer was still relying on a crib sheet!).  And the vocals were.... well, practically inaudible, which may have been a mercy (but still an improvement, for me, on Geddy Lee!).  And it was a fairly short set; they've thus far only learned 7 songs.  However, it covered most of their more accessible and rockier stuff, and the guys clearly had a whale of a time doing it.

I think I probably had more fun watching this than I would have done at an actual Rush concert.  Yes, I am that resistant to them.  Sorry.  I don't suppose I'm ever going to change on that now - despite Kaiser's best efforts.

Strange deals

In recent months, JK, the boss down at my local, 12 Square Metres, has been getting 'creative' in his attempts to induce me to drink even more.

Yes, he's been dreaming up quirky drink combinations with amusing names, and pimping them at an enticing discount.

For some time, these have been unofficial 'specials', off menu, only available to those in the know, the regulars.  (Well, I'm not sure that anyone other than me has ever ordered any of them so far!)  But now.... he's set to launch a new, greatly expanded menu which will advertise these liver-busting bargains to the world at large.

The first of these bizarre combos was the Boag's'n'Roses - a bottle of James Boag's, the fine Tasmanian lager, accompanied by a chaser of the cheap but extremely palatable Four Roses bourbon.  (I've indulged in quite a few of these.  With the discount, it does represent the best alcohol-per-kuai value in the bar.)  In fact, since I'm rather partial to both drinks, I think I had serendipitously created the combination before it was ordained as a 'special'.  JK was much taken with the verbal reminiscence of Guns'N'Roses, the fine rock band who often feature on the bar's playlist (well, not often enough...), and also of 'bogan' - which is Aussie slang for 'white trash' (something I hadn't previously known).

Then JK came up with his 'Czech yourself before you wreck yourself' (which is apparently inspired by a rap song by Ice Cube - but I'm not familiar with that genre), an inspiration which may require an update to this Urban Dictionary entry - a bottle of the strong Czech lager Budvar followed by a slug of absinthe (although he's been out of Czech absinthe for a while and has had to substitute a French brand).  This is one to be approached with extreme caution.... and then backed away from again.

And his latest brainwave has been inspired by the fact that 12SqM is one of the few bars in town to carry all five varieties of Johnnie Walker whisky.  The colours of the labels correspond, more or less, to those of the rings on the Olympic flag - red, black, green, gold (well, yellow), and blue.  Hence we have a 'Johnnie Walker Olympics' if you want to try all five back-to-back.  JK is thinking of calling this his 'Special Olympics', since, as he says, "You drink that, and you will be disabled by the end of it."   
[Actually, my mate The Choirboy claims the copyright on this one, since he has discussed the idea with me a number of times this year.  Indeed, I think the pair of us probably did complete the 'Special Olympics' at the late, lamented Tryst one blurry night back in February...  JK, however, insists that he came up with the concept independently.]

Another departure

So many people are quitting Beijing this year.  Too many.

Heck - you could form a pretty darn good band from the folks we've lost in recent months.  (Ekber Ebliz on guitar, Pierre Billiard on bass, Adam on sax, Daisy Sweetgrass on vocals.... damn yes, I'd pay to see that!)

Well, you certainly can now: The Departed were missing a drummer - but beardy Canuck Jon Campbell is about to leave too.

Jon's been with us a decade or so now, and was a real mainstay of the music scene here.  He set up one of the first - if not the first - laowai-run music news and promotions ventures, YGTwo ( 洋鬼摇滚, yang gui yao gun - "foreign devil rock'n'roll"), which, over the years, has brought many excellent acts to China, and helped some Chinese bands like SUBS tour overseas.

He will be very sorely missed.  Best of luck with whatever you're up to next, Jon.  (I rather suspect we'll see him back before long, at least for an occasional visit...)

[Of particular concern is the fate of two of the most popular laowai bands here, boozy blues-rockers Black Cat Bone and the, er, uncategorizable RandomK(e), who will both now be missing their drummer.  Not that there's any shortage of good drummers here in The Jing, but these outfits won't be quite the same without JC - and I wonder if they'll want to try to carry on with a new man on the sticks.]

Bon mot for the week

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

Bertrand Russell  (1872-1970)

Great Love Songs (23)

Last week over on Froogville I celebrated the delectable Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies as this month's 'Fantasy Girlfriend', and included a video of her singing their Blue Moon Revisited.

This is another particular favourite of mine, from their classic Trinity Session album, a cover of Lou Reed's Sweet Jane.  I could listen to that voice for hours, drown in it....

[And here's a video of them doing the song live in Savannah, Georgia; slightly dodgy bootleg quality, but a great performance.]

Top Five Thanksgivings

At least in China, that is.

I probably have fondest memories of a family gathering I attended in Philadelphia many years ago, hosted by my old Oxford drinking buddy, The British Cowboy..... which ended with us attempting to 'walk off' the humongous meal (The Cowboy, fearing that perhaps turkey alone would not be able to sate the huge throng of in-laws he had invited, knocked up a vat of boeuf bourgignon as well!) by staggering 150 yards down the road to his 'local', the incomparable Hogan's.  I'd enjoyed a couple of rather more improvisatory ones with American friends in Oxford prior to that, and another rather more low-key one in America a little later, but... it was only when I moved to China that I found myself assuming the role of a Thanksgiving planner.

It hasn't happened quite every year.  In 2004, I had just started dating an American girl, but... she'd gone back home for Thanksgiving (and to go through a round of grad school applications) within a week of my meeting her.  I ended up having a low-key dinner with a couple of American friends (and their Chinese girlfriends), and just one or two other hangers-on.  It didn't take much organising, and I can't now remember if it even fell to me to make the reservation that year.  I suspect not - since we ended up going to the Silk Street branch of Steak and Eggs, a venue I would have lobbied vigorously against.  It serves up decent enough American comfort food through the year, but it's cramped, and the grungy diner decor doesn't conjure the ambience you want for a slightly more formal meal.  Also, I've never much liked the owner, a rather neurotic Canadian with a propensity to harangue his staff in public, and generally to whinge about everything.  (Shortly before this Thanksgiving experience, I'd had to endure a long monologue from him about how much he hated Thanksgiving, how much he hated cooking turkeys, and how much he hated all the extra work the holiday entailed for him.  You would have got the impression he even hated all the extra money he earned!  After listening to this rant, I was even more disinclined to hazard a Thanksgiving there, but... my two American chums seemed set on it.  And, back in those days, there weren't many other options.)  The food, as I recall, was OK, but unremarkable.  (The Weeble has reported that a year or two later he suffered one of the worst meals of his life there on Thanksgiving!)  The meal, in general, was pretty subdued (the Chinese girls didn't want to eat much, didn't want to stick around afterwards for drinks).  The evening was salvaged by the fact there was a visiting Irish-Aussie folk band playing at the nearby John Bull Pub. (After several more beers, I became embroiled in a joke-telling contest with the lead singer...)

In '06, I had to go down to Shanghai for work on the big day.  And in '07, strangely, all of my American buddies seemed to have made plans to do something at the weekend, and could not be persuaded to sign up for anything on the Thursday itself.  And then, of course, this year I hit rock bottom - attempting and failing to set something up, very late in the day, for a party that ballooned to 20+.  I wound up hating most of the venues I'd talked to about it, and most of the people that were supposed to have been coming (or the ones that never could quite make up their minds).  NEVER AGAIN!  Even my modest 'consolation plan' of getting in some turkey sandwiches for myself and the young American barman I was likely to be drowning my sorrows with all evening foundered (the sandwich shop had moved, and I couldn't find its new location!).  Oiveh!

However, in each of the other five years I've been here, there was a major Thanksgiving party.  Here's how it breaks down....

My Top Five Thanksgivings in China

5)  The John Bull Pub

I'm just going in chronological order here, not in order of fun or quality of food or anything of that sort.  In my first year here, I was working at quite a large private college that had several American teachers. My innocent suggestion to one or two people about doing something for Thanksgiving rapidly snowballed into an event involving just about the entire foreign staff, and a few other friends and hangers-on too.... getting on for 30 people.  The food was pretty good, I thought.  At least until we got to the pumpkin pie, which was stodgy and tasteless, but... temptingly missile.  My younger, more irresponsible colleagues initiated an enormous food fight with it, which I struggled to restrain.  Other than that, a pretty good night.

4)  The Kempinski Hotel

Very nearly the worst of the lot - but at least I wasn't involved in the organisation this time; I just tagged along with some American colleagues from the university where I was working that year.  The company was varied and quite fun.  There was a very cute young American Mandarin student I was sharking a little at the time, which was a pleasant diversion.  However, (as I'd anticipated beforehand; but I'd been powerless to change the plans) the food was severely average, and rather expensive.  Buffet service just doesn't create the right atmosphere for a banquet meal.  And the availability of so many non-holiday-fare items rather undermined the sense of Thanksgiving, I felt.  Worst of all, there was no mashed potato!!!  And, for a major foreign hotel, the service was pretty weak, too.  A major disappointment.  (And I never got anywhere with the Mandarin student either.)

3)  Return to the John Bull

Probably the best ever.  After lame experiences at The Kempinski and Steak and Eggs in the two previous years, I managed (for once, without too much grief and vexation!) to put together a slightly smaller and much  better behaved party for another Thanksgiving at the dear old John Bull (sadly demised now).  Good food, varied company (I think we had Canadians, Australians, Austrians, Chinese, and one or two other nationalities in the mix!); and even The Poet, notoriously anti-social and unreliable, deigned to turn out for it.

2)  Sequoia/Culinary Capers

The John Bull was for a while reinvented as the Sequoia cafe/sandwich bar, and it continued to put on a good spread for Christmas lunch.  Unfortunately, the following year they teamed up with an event catering company to lay on the food for Thanksgiving.... and it was an unmitigated disaster.  The worst Thanksgiving I've ever had; and one of the worst meals, period.  We had to hit up a neighbourhood Xinjiang restaurant a little while later to quench our unsatisfied appetites!!

1)  Grandma's Kitchen

The service was all over the place, and the food a bit variable (horrible gravy and stuffing!); but the portions were appropriately huge, and the booze was agreeably cheap too.  The major advantage of this venue (the one lurking in a hutong behind the Beixinqiao subway station) is that it's a walkable distance from where I (and most of my friends) live, and a walkable distance from most of the bars we like to hang out in.  The disadvantage is that it's fairly tiny.  Last year they had promised us a private room for our party of around 20, but in fact they only had two small rooms with a connecting archway (bizarrely decorated rooms at that!), so we were in effect split into two smaller groups.  This year, those rooms are allegedly no longer available to the restaurant, having been taken over by the guesthouse side of the operation; and the headless chickens they have working there have no idea how they might rearrange their tables and chairs a little to try to accommodate a large party in their conservatory area.  I'd had hopes of getting something going there again this year, but the discussions proved fruitless.  I try to focus on their gravy to console myself.

HBH 210

Always the bar is there,
And the barman, and the drink:
Reasons to be thankful.

Syllables?  Who's counting?!  Thanksgiving this year was an ongoing train-wreck, but... if you at least have a couple of friends to keep you company, and can spend 6 hours getting completely wasted (on an empty stomach!), 'the day' isn't so bad, after all.  Thank god for 12 Square Metres!

Don't mention the T-word!!!

This year, as for most of the years I've been in China, I thought of trying to organise a Thanksgiving dinner for the 'waifs and strays' - my American friends who are here without family, and who are apparently incapable of sorting anything out for themselves... although these gatherings have usually ended up including a majority of non-Americans, people who, like me, just enjoy the holiday as an excuse to get together for a big meal.

This year, the response was the most disappointing I can remember.  In fact, it was a stony silence.  Most of my long-standing American buddies have quit Beijing this year.  And the few that remain (and the Canadians, too; I lump all the North Americans in together for this, because no-one remembers to celebrate with the Canucks at the start of October!) all seemed to have made "other plans" for once.  Even The Weeble seemed oddly convinced that "plans had been made for [him]" - although he was unable to say who these 'planners' were or what exactly their 'plans' might be; rather Kafka-ishly sinister, I thought!

However, with barely a week to go before the big day, one of the aforementioned American buddies suddenly got in touch by e-mail: he's flying back from overseas tomorrow, was relying on me to sort out something for T-day.  Yikes!!

I thought it was just going to be him and his girlfriend, and me, and any 'date' I might be able to find (ha!), and perhaps, at most, two or three others.  But my friend, even while still overseas, was suggesting that he would bring at least two people with him.  My renewed enquiries here in The Jing suddenly flushed a few people out of the woodwork (and, of course, there was the inevitable string of annoying 'definite maybe' types).  And then the friend discovered that his girlfriend's old flatmate was visiting from Shanghai this week, and asked to add her to the party.  She in turn wanted to bring three or four other people.  And then one of my other friends - a surprise response in the first place - was suddenly talking about bringing a small group with him.  And the friend overseas learned that an old friend of his from the States was also flying in this week... with his entire family.

So, my projected numbers had gone from 0 to 22 (with 5 or 6 more still dithering) in the space of 48 hours.

And I had something of a meltdown.

I've got a ton of work on this week, and I'm sick as a dog.  I really haven't got the time or the emotional resource to be dealing with the kind of major military operation that is trying to coordinate dinner plans for such a HUGE group of people.

I don't believe there is any venue in this city that can reliably cater to a party of 20 or more.  Not without making an enormous song & dance about it, anyway.  And not with only 5 or 6 days left before the big day.  Certainly, the ones I spoke to about it were all utterly fucking useless.

So.... Thanksgiving, for me, is most emphatically CANCELLED.  I shall probably be moping under a blanket on my sofa with lots of hot toddies.

I hope the rest of you manage to find somewhere to enjoy a celebratory meal with your nearest and dearest.  (Just don't go telling me about it, please.)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Bloody Vikings!!

A month or two ago (I lose track slightly... I haven't been in much since the weather started getting cold), Xiao Shuai, the affable proprietor (and, usually, sole staff member) of El Nido, the 'dive spot of the year' on Fangjia Hutong, was imprudent enough to get into a big drinking session with a bunch of his Chinese mates.... while running the bar.  He collapsed comatose on one of the tables outside - resting face down on his folded arms, in the classic pose of Chinese students during morning classes.  And his drinking buddies seemingly ran away and left him there.  (Hm, I wonder if the Chinese concept of 'friendship' is somewhat lacking in certain respects?)

I would hope that the customers who were there then, or came in subsequently, most of whom would probably like to think of themselves as Xiao Shuai's 'regulars', observed an honour system by leaving money on the bar for him or coming back to pay a day or two later; or, at the very least, exercised some sort of restraint in facing up to the temptation that thus confronted them.  However, I heard from a number of sources that, er, some people did NOT behave in such an honourable or restrained fashion, and that some of his stocks were heavily depleted.  I was mightily relieved to see that he had not been put out of business by the episode.

If I had been there, I would like to think that I would have taken charge of the situation - closing the bar up for him, or at least manning the counter to collect money for the drinks; and trying to sober him up enough to get him home.  I'm disappointed that - from rumours of the incident that have reached me - no-one, whether Chinese or foreign, friend or casual punter, appears to have done this for him.

I hope Xiao Shuai's learned a lesson from this.  A bar owner really can't afford to get wrecked (not THAT wrecked!) while he's working.  Or, in the immortal words of Tony Montana:  "Never get high on your own supply."

JK lays down the law

"'Sex on the Beach' is on the menu.  Sex in the bathroom is not."