HBH 310

The old urges fade:

Food, drink, women - less tempting!

Losing appetite.

The health kick I've been on for the last few months has been ruining my social life. I've lost 20lbs, but I'm also in danger of losing most of my friends.

As I've noted before, vices provide motivation. Without them, life is rather flat.

The Top Five Unusual Places I Have Drunk

Since I am away travelling for most of this month, I thought it would be appropriate to review a few memories of some of my more exotic drinking adventures. I think I've visited 18 countries outside of my native England. And I have drunk in nearly all, no, all of them. And in many of them, I have drunk some rather strange things in rather odd circumstances.

Here then is a list of...

My Top Five unusual places to have a drink

5)  An outhouse masquerading as a Jamaican beach

OK, a little bit of a cheat this one - not really abroad at all; just a grotty semi-detached house in East London. I've already written about this, in one of my earliest posts on here, nearly 6 years ago. When I was at Bar School in London, I shared a house with the aptly nicknamed Mad Irish Dave - like me, an enthusiastic drinker. One Sunday afternoon, bored out of our minds, we improvised a 'Jamaican Beach Party' - for just the two of us - in the 'Blue Room', a narrow little extension on the house that our landlord used mainly for storing his garden tools. It was cold and pokey, but it was painted in a very restful shade of blue; so we hauled our living room sofa in there, and pinned a Jamaican Tourist Board advertisement for Negril Beach in the middle of the blue wall opposite. Then we laid in stocks of rum and ganja, pooled our handful of reggae tapes... and proceeded to get absolutely blitzed for about 8 or 10 hours.

4)  The veranda of a rock star's bungalow

Yes, a real live rock star. Not that I ever met him. Which might be just as well, given that I had never heard of him, or his band. They'd had one very big, poppy sort of hit in the late 1960s (dimly familiar to me, but I'd had no idea who was playing it; still turns up regularly on Best of the Sixties compilations), and had been able to retire on the proceeds. Not many musicians seem to have the self-restraint to decide that they've made enough money, and just give up like that. This guy, one of the guitarists, I think, had sunk most of his money into a small coffee plantation on the upper slopes of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica. He'd become friendly with an old college buddy of mine (occasional haunter of these comment threads, The Mothman) who was studying means of controlling an insect pest that ate the leaves of the coffee plants, and let him stay in his bungalow high up the mountain whenever he was doing fieldwork up there. I went to visit The Mothman for a couple of weeks after finishing university, and got to spend a night or two in the guitarist's bungalow. Only a small place, but an absolutely gorgeous location - the kind of place where you could lean out of a window to pick fresh fruit for breakfast - and a gorgeous view, looking down on the lights of Kingston far below. We got a bit mashed up on the local rum one night...

3)  The cabin of a Yangtze river cruiser

One of my favourite memories of my first visit to China in the '90s. I was going upriver through the famous Three Gorges (the huge dam project at Yichang was just nearing completion, but they wouldn't start filling the reservoir for another year or two; so, this was one of the last chances to enjoy a lot of the scenery in the gorges before it was flooded) on a mid-price cruise ship - not quite the grottiest possible (not the like the boat I came back downstream on, which was nothing but a tramp steamer), but a long way short of the swanky affairs that the better-off Chinese and nearly all foreigners favoured; I was the only laowai on this boat, and hence something of an instant celebrity. One day, I got chatting to a trio of young men who invited me back to their cabin for a drink. I was staying in the second cheapest class of accommodation - bunk beds, sharing with a noisy Chinese family; but at least there was a little bit of space, and a small TV on the wall. These lads were staying in the cheapest class - two double bunk-beds crammed into such a small space that there was almost no standing room; but at least there were only three of them in a four-berth cabin. We couldn't understand each other much (my Chinese was better then than it is now, but not much), but we mugged and smiled our way through some general pleasantries about international goodwill. One of them, I gathered, had just got out of the army - possibly invalided out after an accident (he showed me an horrendous scar on his upper arm, a large piece of it missing; but it didn't seem very new, and I couldn't make out how it had happened) - and the others were two old schoolfriends who'd come to escort him the last part of the way home. We spent a pleasant hour or two drinking beer and baijiu.

2)  The roof of a train

There's only one rail line in Jamaica, winding through the mountainous interior of the island between the capital, Kingston, on the south coast, and the main tourist centre, Montego Bay, on the north coast. It's a single track, with a passing place at the mid-point, in the heart of the jungle high up in the mountains. One train sets out from each end once or twice a day, and whichever reaches the passing place first has to stop and wait... and wait, and wait. They're not big on keeping schedules, the Jamaicans. No, they're more of a party people. And it's a party train. Vendors pass constantly through the carriages selling bottles of the local Red Stripe beer (very palatable and deceptively strong) which they somehow manage to keep refrigerated. And if the weather's nice - which it mostly is - a lot of people head up on to the roofs of the carriages to get some fresh air. It's relatively safe, since the train only moves very slowly. But it does lurch alarmingly from side to side on occasion; and I wouldn't have wanted to be up there after drinking a lot of beers!

But in the top spot, it must surely be...

1)  A prison cell

I spent a month or so in Fiji when I was backpacking around the world in '94. I grew rather tired of the main island, Viti Levu, which is rather too intensively geared toward the fleecing of tourists, and is overrun with Australians. But towards the end of my stay, I took a boat across to the second island of Levuka (site of the British colonial capital) for a few days, and found that a much more laidback and amenable sort of place. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I had become rather partial to kava, the traditional ceremonial drink of the South Sea islands (it's made from the ground-up root of a plant of the pepper family; it looks a bit offputting - like a muddy puddle - and has a slightly chalky, gritty mouth-feel; but it's quite pleasant to drink, with a mild aniseedy flavour, and a prickly, gently numbing effect in the mouth; and it's very, very relaxing), and was always keen to find somewhere to partake. Asking at my hotel if they knew where I might be able to drink kava, I was told to try the police station. It had seemed as though it might have been a joke, but I didn't see any harm in checking it out. The two young Brits who'd latched on to me during the boat crossing earlier that day were extremely wary about the idea (perhaps having had unpleasant experiences with police stations back home), but I persuaded them to accompany me. And sure enough, the three coppers there - with little or no work to do in such a tiny and well-behaved town - were brewing up almost every night, and were more than happy to welcome us to join them. We had to move into one of the holding cells, though, to keep out of sight in case anyone should come in to report some rustic misdemeanour or other. They told us that they would probably mix another bowl later, if we wanted to keep going all night, but the first one kept us merry until getting on for midnight, and that seemed good enough. It had been a splendid evening, full of memorable conversation (the desk sergeant's tales of the time he spent in Cambodia with a UN peacekeeping force probably deserve a post of their own at some point; he claimed to have been held hostage by the Khmer Rouge). I worry that this experience may have created in me some unduly positive associations with police cells.

Timely escape

The enigmatically delayed, ever-so hush-hush National Party Congress is finally taking place in Beijing this week. I believe the official start date is Thursday 8th, but there'll probably be some kind of welcome shindig on the 7th, and various preliminary meetings even before that. The delegates are already starting to roll in from all around the country.

A hotel a few doors down from me is usually used to house quite a few of the less important delegates for meetings like this; so, my street is likely to be swarming with armed police for the next week. And - of course - the Internet is being filtered to hell, and is slow, slow, SLOW.

It is an excellent time to NOT be in Beijing. And, as luck would have it, a stack of different pretexts to be elsewhere all presented themselves in quick succession - so, I'm going to be off on a little 'southern tour' of my own for the next three weeks. [And, oh boy, did my VPN get crashed a lot of times when I was looking for that link! The Kafka Boys are outdoing themselves at the moment.]

I have tried to pre-bake a few posts to maintain the semblance of my still being here at my keyboard daily, but in fact.... well, I haven't decided if I'll even bother to take a laptop with me, and I'm not expecting to have very regular Internet access, or to be using it if I do. I'm on holiday, after all.

Have fun without me.

By the by, if martial law is declared in Beijing this week - you heard it here first. And if it isn't, I was joking.

[And - oh god! - Beijing is now reeling from an early onset of winter, beset by snow, ice, and fog over the last three days. There is a dangerously high probability that my flight out of Beijing will get cancelled. Oh, woe!]

Bon mot for the week

"When a woman buys a drink, she's either trying to seduce you or break up with you."

Froog

Oh, sure, that isn't invariably the case, but it does hold true a hefty percentage of the time. Yes, I speak from bitter experience. My ex of exes, "The Evil One", tried to break up with me* at least once a week throughout the four or five months we were together; I always knew it was coming because these were the only occasions when she ever tried to buy me - or herself, or anyone - a drink. (For an ardent feminist, she was surprisingly comfortable with patriarchal customs that require a man to pay for everything!)

* It was, in fact, probably rather more than once a week, but not all of them were completely in earnest: perhaps the majority might be better characterised as teasing threats, or ominous discussions about the possibility of ending it. Even full-on dumpings were, it transpired, not necessarily in earnest. The first she repented of after 12 days, the second in a matter of minutes (she claimed she'd only done it to "test" my reaction). 'Volatile' hardly seems an adequate word for that relationship; but the good times were very good.

I would also like to point out that these frequent ruptures were rarely if ever precipitated by any 'offence' on my part. The dear girl just wasn't comfortable with committed relationships.

Wimping out - AGAIN

Four years ago - and several times subsequently - I was tempted to try out a speed-dating event organised by the charming people at Fishbowl Events; but self-doubt and inertia got the better of me.

There's another one today. And this one I really was going to go to. Oh yes. My self-image is better than it's been for years, as I've dropped a ton of weight and got back into a regular running habit over the past two months. And I must admit that I am, alas, feeling desperately randy of late.

So, this time I was definitely going to give it a try.

Until I realised they were holding it at Switch. Oh, I'm sorry - SWITCH!, I should have said. Now, this place is fairly new, and I've never been there; but nothing I've heard about it persuades me to try it. The name is fucking STUPID! for a start. Exclamation mark - really?? Moreover, it's run by Culinary Capers, a catering company whose food I have found - at a couple of events they've catered, and at the most godawful Thanksgiving Dinner I've ever had - to be pretentiously over-elaborate and just not very good.

Still, I was really keen to try this speed-dating thing, so I thought I'd do some more research: and I discovered this online review (the only one it's yet garnered on the City Weekend website) which complains that the place is outrageously overpriced. I'll say! 62rmb for a Stella? WTF??!! That's at least 25% more than anyone else in town is charging (assuming that's the price for a 500ml glass, and not a piddling 330ml!), 35-50% more than most places, and more than 100% more than the keenest 'happy hour' price. OK, I gather they have a two-for-one 'happy hour' deal; but that doesn't count for much if their base prices are twice as high as they should be. The 35 or 40rmb we usually get charged these days is already way too fucking high (there's simply no way the price of anything in Beijing should be higher than it is back home in the UK); 62rmb is simply obscene.

And I gather the food is similiarly exorbitantly priced, without the quality to justify it. I'm afraid this is the kind of place that I MUST boycott on principle. I'll have to wait for December's round of speed-dating....

[Furthermore, of course, it SNOWED last night - so I fear the event is likely to fizzle anyway. It would be hard enough for me to hack just a few miles across town to Dongzhimen. I can't see people making the effort to come in all the way from Shunyi or Shuangjing or Wudaokou with the roads and sidewalks in this sort of condition.]

Great Drinking Songs (36)

Tom Waits's Frank's Wild Years album has a special place in my heart. Well, they all do; but that one more than most. I played it to death in my first teaching job in the early '90s.

This is one of the many songs that I'd tried and failed to find online many times in the early days of Youtube; now, it seems, more or less everything is becoming available.

Innocent When You Dream is a wistful/hopeful ditty that sounds - is meant to sound - as if it might have been an early 1900s music hall song. It somehow lends itself particularly well to a maudlin bar-room singalong. And indeed, on the album it appears as both a maudlin bar-room singalong and again, as epilogue, in a "78rpm" version recreating the ambience - crackles and all - of a very early recording.

Here's the bar-room version (accompanied by an unfortunately heavy-handed photo montage)...

You can hear the 'original record' version, a different style of melancholy, here.

And here, for a culminating treat, is Tom performing it live, some time towards the end of the '90s.

New Picks of the Month

Three years ago this month, I was busy moving apartments, but... that didn't stop me blogging!

On Froogville, I select Plumbing the depths as my pick of the crop - a particularly egregious example of the pitiful levels of Chinese scholarship I have to deal with in my academic editing work. 
[Although, this one on how the Chinese introduce statistics, this one on the difficulty of keeping a Chinese apartment clean, or this one on the inevitable uselessness of any utensil made out of Chinese plastic were also strong contenders.]

On The Barstool, my top pick is Shit happens - some entertaining wordplay between myself and my erudite friend The Weeble. 
[But, in an unusually rich month, I might equally have plumped for this list of my favourite Beijing dive bars (the inaugural entry in my Top Fives series), this description of how I like my Manhattans, or this contemptuous analysis of an over-fussy Thanksgiving menu.]

Traffic Report - the blog stats for October

Oh, dear! Last month turned out to be rather too prolific - for mine or anyone else's good. Partly, no doubt, it was not having any work. Partly, perhaps, not drinking - and hence not going out very much - also boosted my output. And, since I have decided to call time on my blogs next month, there may be an element of trying to get a lot done in these last few weeks, tidying up loose ends and getting some long-contemplated, oft-deferred posts off my chest.

Last month, there were 38 posts and around 20,000 words on Froogville.

There were 34 posts and some 11,500 words on Barstool Blues.

Too much, I know. Forgive me.

Nothing much of interest happening with the stats, except that my post on 'Oneiric' Films last Saturday is racking up a record number of hits according to Google/Blogger's own traffic monitoring. Ordinarily, I only get about 10 to 15 single-page views recorded for each post, within a day or two of them going up. So, I assume this is mostly regular readers (if I have any such). The numbers climb a little thereafter, but only very slowly and intermittently - unless I've been writing on something that has obvious search engine 'sex appeal' (which, as often as not, means just sex appeal). The word 'oneiric' would appear to be super-sexy to search engines, because that post achieved 100 single-page hits in just over 24 hours, and has now amassed more than 250. Alas, I fear this does just mean turning up in search results, rather than actually attracting anyone to visit the blog.

HBH 309

Virtue is outflanked;

Work forces you to the bar.

Fate weaves her mischief.

I was really trying hard not to drink last night. But then I lost my Internet access at home, just when I had a ton of work on for the first time in ages. So I had to, had to go to a bar, just for the wi-fi. And one drink led to another.....

These days, the road to Hell is paved with faulty Internet connections....

Strange companions

I, of course, have no truck with Halloween as a pretext for costume parties. But good luck to the rest of you. Just be careful who you stand next to at the urinals.

The Rule of Custom

Last Saturday evening, I found myself (as so often lately!) on my own for dinner, and so decided to try somewhere new. And this led to me to waive one (or possibly two) of the most basic rules of venue choice: 

a bar or restaurant with no customers in it is almost certainly no bloody good.

The corollary rule is that  if there's a place you've never got around to trying in years, there's probably a good reason for that.

On Saturday, with the streets thronged by premature Halloweeners, I was driven to trying a little Muslim restaurant on Gulou Dongdajie that had no customers in it at the time, and that I don't think I'd been in before. (Given that I've lived around this part of Beijing for a decade now, there aren't many long-established restaurants that I've never tried; most I've been into at least a handful of times, and the better ones some dozens of times.)

And it was indeed stupendously awful. The spicy green beans were undercooked, and so stringy as to be almost inedible. And not very spicy. And, despite being undercooked, they were not delivered to my table until several minutes after I'd received and eaten (or tried to eat) everything else. The egg fried rice was horrendously overcooked; very thin on egg, but doused in soy sauce which made it far too salty and gave it an unappealing brown colour; and I suspected it had probably been recycled numerous times. The beer was warm. The chuanr was OK, but a small stick for 3rmb.

5 young Chinese lads entered shortly after me (perhaps enticed in by the glamorous presence of a foreigner?). They still hadn't received any of their food when I left 20 or so minutes later, and were starting to look disconsolate and impatient.

Food service had perhaps been held up by the fact that the chuanr cook out front had dragged one of the indoor kitchen staff out into the street to have a protracted screaming row with him.

Ah, China.

Bon mot for the week

"What am I doing? Nothing. I am letting life rain upon me."

Rahel Varnhagen (1771-1833)

Drum & bass - a Top Five rhythm pairings

Music Mike was talking about drummers last month, and that got me to thinking about some of the great rhythm sections - drummers and bass players who were not only technically excellent individually but were especially formidable in combination.

So, for this week's musical treat, we have...

A Top Five Great Drum and Bass Combinations

5)  Keith Moon and John Entwistle of The Who

Mike will doubtless carp at my only putting these boys in at No. 5 - which is the main reason I'm doing it! The numbering here isn't really significant: there's no choosing between these guys. Here's a fantastic live performance of Won't Get Fooled Again.

4)  Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of Cream

Some might argue that Cream was an uncomfortable alliance of rogue individualists rather than a really together band, and Jack and Ginger had a notoriously volatile relationship which eventually tore the group apart. But individually they are two of the most outstanding exponents of their instruments, and when they were in a groove together it was awesome. Here they are doing the George Harrison song Badge, accompanied by a photo montage of the band in their heyday. [You can also try this live version from one of their 2005 reunion shows.]

3)  Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding of The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi's pyrotechnics on lead guitar can easily overshadow his backing men, but this was an absolutely outstanding band. Here they are doing Fire (not sure when or where, but it's a great live video).

2)  John Bonham and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin

The more I listen to Zep these days, the more I find myself enjoying the intricate interaction between the two Johns and paying less attention to those Jimmy Page guitar riffs that first captivated me. This is Fool In The Rain (unfortunately, I can't find a live performance of this; but I'm going to post it anyway, as it's one of my very favourites of theirs).

But in the top spot I put....

1)  Mick Fleetwood and John McVie of Fleetwood Mac

The understanding between these two is unparalleled. Not so overtly virtuosic as my other picks, but damn, they work well together! They've been playing together, in a variety of different styles, for over 45 years now - but they were tight right from the beginning. Well, tight in an unconventional way: I read once that a distinctive characteristic of their playing is that they're not classically tight, that they tend to be ever so slightly out-of-sync with each other, McVie just a little ahead of the beat and Fleetwood infinitesimally behind it. Well, at least they're consistent about it. And it somehow contrives to generate a driving tension in their playing. Here's Gold Dust Woman, from a 1977 concert in Japan (poor picture quality, but good sound).

HBH 308

Drink makes you feel young;

Alas, it makes you look old.

Oh, cruel paradox!

No, I still haven't recovered from the goddamned birthday last weekend. I haven't in fact reached any 'significant' round-number landmark (a few people speculated that I was turning 50, or even 55 - cheeky buggers!). It's just that I am, for the first time in my life, really starting to feel my age - and I DO NOT LIKE IT.

This, no doubt, is where the phenomenon of The Mid-Life Crisis comes from: a desperate urge to recover the illusion of youth, when youth itself is far beyond recovery.

I hope I don't fall into that pattern; it's always seemed rather sad and foolish to me.

Then again, there are those who say I've been having a mid-life crisis for my whole life....

Stop that!

Meandering in the diverting thickets of Wikipedia the other day, I came upon The Anti-Flirt Club, a short-lived social movement founded by a group of young women in the Washington, DC area in 1923.

It seems these girls, under the leadership of their President, Alice Reighly, were particularly concerned about the recent growth of the phenomenon of men making passes at women from their motor cars. But their evangelising efforts  were aimed at their own sex rather than at men, aiming to stamp out the dangerous vice of promiscuous flirtation. Their 'Ten Commandments' - a rather repetitive and glibly epigrammatic set of injunctions for more decorous feminine behaviour - included such gems as:

Don't wink—a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other.

... and...

Don't annex all the men you can get—by flirting with many, you may lose out on the one.

But my favourite was the bafflingly verbose No. 8:

Don't fall for the slick, dandified cake eater—the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard.

"Cake eater"?? Several online slang dictionaries I've just consulted are unfamiliar with the term, and it is not immediately evident why such a commonplace and innocuous activity should be associated, in men, with moral turpitude. Perhaps Ms Reighly's eccentric and obscure turn of phrase was to blame for the failure of the Club's great mission.

I am relieved at this failure. I'm rather partial to a spot of flirting myself. No harm can come of it - so long as the lady concerned is a safe distance away down the bar. And is leaving the country the next morning....

[Reading about this odd little campaign of yesteryear reminded me once again of The League of Health and Strength, a morally crusading organisation for young men that was active in Great Britain in the early 1900s.]

The King of Condiments

The food I made for my b'day party on Saturday may have been of variable quality, but I defy anyone to carp at the range of toppings I made available for their burger customizing.

We had lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, of course, and dill pickle and jalapeno rings. And mayonnaise, ketchup, HP Sauce, A1 Steak Sauce, barbecue sauce, Korean sweet chilli paste, brown mustard and dijon mustard, and salt and pepper. We also had a sweet pickle relish (another Heinz product, but jazzed up with some additional onion and garlic), a spicy tomato relish of my own devising, a yellow radish paste (made with the ginger & turmeric daikon radish pickle from the cooking class I went to a couple of weeks back), and some 'proper ketchup' - a puree of sundried tomatoes and garlic (a sop to my foodie friend The Bengali, who declares regular ketchup to be "the devil's work").

Of course, I still have most of this stuff left. I may have to eat nothing but burgers and hotdogs for the next three months to use it all up.

After-crawl

I only put myself through 15 hours of shopping and 15 hours of prep in the kitchen to distract myself from too much brooding on decay and death at the end of last week. The real party happened afterwards - the dwindling gaggle of 'survivors' migrating around the Gulou area: Chill, Mai, 12 Square Metres, Salud, and, finally, of course, the Pool Bar. 

It was nearly dawn when I got home. Well, it was dawn when I woke up on the infamous Man-Eating Sofa.

And then Sunday was one of those wretched grey drizzly days: when I got up at noon to begin tidying up, I swear it was darker than when I'd gone to bed. After another heavy night last night (rum specials at MaoMaoChong, and making a first dent in the ridiculously generous tab The Choirboy left for me at 12SQM), I am now thoroughly jet-lagged. I fear it's going to take me at least a few days to get back in the right timezone!

Bon mot for the week

"If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini."

Philosopher/barman Chet (Eric Stoltz) in Noah Baumbach's wonderful college comedy Kicking and Screaming

Great Drinking Songs (35)

Well, I've mentioned Jimmy Buffett on here once or twice before, have enrolled him as one of my 'Unsuitable Role Models', but, somehow, I haven't previously got around to posting his signature hit in this 'Great Drinking Songs' series.

Since today is going to be a day for drinking-and-maudlin-reminiscence - my birthday and my first day off the wagon after a month of abstinence! - Margaritaville seems particularly appropriate. (Although the weather is not tropical enough here any more to support the drinking of margaritas, alas. But I'm sure there will be a few tequila slammers consumed at some point.)

[There's also a little musical treat over on Froogville today.]

Party panic*

Throwing a party in Beijing is an exhausting task.

For one thing, almost no-one ever manages to give you a really firm and convincing RSVP: my expected numbers are between 15 and 45.

(I am guesstimating low-20s, but it could get crowded - or be deserted! You never can tell.)

For another, shopping involves massive treks across the city. Outlets of the two main supermarket chains specialising in foreigner-targeted imports are all clustered over on the east side; neither has a branch within the 2nd Ringroad. What's more, they are wildly inconsistent in their stocking: different branches of the same store may carry very different items, so you often find yourself traipsing to two or three different ones in hopes of finding something you crave - as often as not, ultimately in vain. This week, for example, I found that three different Jenny Lou's locations were mysteriously out of cheddar.

To add to my vexation, I discovered that my local Chinese supermarket has just stopped selling beer by the case. (There was welcome karmic compensation in the fact that one of the five or six 7-11 type stores on my street has just started selling beer by the case.)

In the UK these days, the major supermarket chains have started setting up numerous mini-branches in the middle of urban areas: in a big town or city, it seems you're rarely more than half a mile away from a Tesco Metro or a Sainsbury's Local - and they stock just about EVERYTHING you might ever want. Here in Beijing, you have to visit 5 or 6 different stores, and they're scattered all over the map. I've put in well over 50 road miles this week - the majority of them on foot!

And just when I was finally getting on top of the shopping list (lettuces are damned hard to come by... and the radish season has passed?!), I realised that I didn't have a serviceable barbecue - which is a pity, given that I had advertised an outdoor party and bought a ton of food for barbecueing. I had thought I had TWO barbecues left behind by previous tenants, but in fact I seem to have bits of three - from which I can only cobble together one complete one. And that's very small. And will take hours of cleaning to make fit for use.

I knew this was going to be kind of a problem. I had always planned to buy a similar barbecue of my own to boost my grilling capacity, but... I hadn't counted on them being such a seasonal item. Two local stores where I've seen them in the past (one of them, as recently as a month or so ago) no longer have any in stock. I also tried a multi-storey sundries market that stocks everything from plumbing supplies to My Little Ponies; after half an hour of searching, I ascertained that it did not stock barbecues. Well, no matter: I thought at least one of my friends would have one they could lend me....

Well, eventually, my problem is sorted. I had been contemplating building an open fire from pieces of broken furniture, but that will not be necessary: I have managed to procure a barbecue.

But that's another TWO DAYS of my life gone. And I haven't even done the BIG SHOP yet.

It'll probably rain, too....

* This post title cunningly chosen to aggravate the Chinese censors.

HBH 307

Days in the desert

Sharpen the pleasures denied:

First drink is sweetest.

I completed a full month of abstinence from beer on Wednesday. Naturally, I immediately began drinking beer again. My first sup was a Saranac - and boy, did it taste good!

Recommended Posts, January-March 2012

What were the highlights from the early part of this year?

Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 1st quarter of 2012

1)  Mess  -  3rd January 2012

I begin the New Year with my kitchen in a state of chaos after a - very modest - 'house-warming' party.

2)  Top Five Basslines  -  7th January 2012

The opening post in what has become an irregular music series on here generated my busiest comment thread of the whole year (about the only busy comment thread).

3)  Hitting the Naale on the head!  -  10th January 2012

I am briefly almost fooled by a wondrously naff piece of Chinese brand mimicry.

4)  A musical youth  -  14th January 2012

A brief history of the evolution of my tastes in music, prompted by recent online encounters with new blog buddy Music Mike.

5)  Starting the Wish List early  -  17th January 2012

I discover a wealth of oddball gift ideas on the splendidly named Unemployed Philosophers' Guild website. And I am thus inspired to launch an entirely neglected reader participation thread on favourite writer/drinkers.

6)  Positive feedback  -  20th January 2012

News (apparently genuine) that some Japanese urinals are being fitted with interactive video games controlled by one's piss-stream... leads me to suggest a few such game formats especially tailored to the Chinese market.

7)  Elements of a memorable Chinese New Year's eve  -  24th January 2012

Although I have come to loathe China's 'Spring Festival' holiday, I reflect that I did have a rather a good time on this day in my very first year in Beijing.

8)  This week's drinking excuse  -  26th January 2012

I celebrate Australia Day with a brief appreciation of the famous drinking exploits of former PM Bob Hawke, and with a posting of that most Aussie of all Aussie songs, Colin Hay's Down Under.

9)  Summoning the get-up-and-go  -  28th January 2012

Feeling rundown and lethargic after a strange week of insomnia, I rouse my spirits with a favourite 'happy song' from my student days, virtuouso electro-jazz ensemble Weather Report's irresistibly peppy instrumental Birdland.

10)  Limiting one's chances  -  3rd February 2012

I review the reasons why none of my attempted romantic relationships in Beijing have worked out.

11)  That's exactly how I felt  -  4th February 2012

The funniest and wisest comedy sketch I know: Peter Cook and Dudley re-enact the Fall of Lucifer - from their brilliant 1968 feature film Bedazzled.

12)  Alternate reasons to celebrate  -  6th February 2012

I find further necessary distraction from the protracted hell of the Chinese New Year festival in Bob Marley's birthday, which I commemorate with two versions of the song Stop The Train (one by The Wailers, and one by its composer, Peter Tosh).

13)  Singles get doubles!  -  14th February 2012

My idea for a Valentine's Day promotion.

14)  In praise of the tequila slammer  -  16th February 2012

How I developed a fondness for the crack cocaine of alcoholic drinks.

15)  The threshold of gloom  -  22nd February 2012

I realise that my spells of depression are closely linked to the hours of daylight. Thank heavens the days are getting longer!

16)  Great Dating Disasters (9)  -  23rd February 2012

This was actually one of my great romantic successes - but it didn't have staying power.

17)  Mardi Gras leftovers  -  25th February

Since I had recently been fretting (yet again) about having to miss the Krewe du Vieux carnival in New Orleans this year, I rounded up a selection of versions of I Wish I Was In New Orleans: a great live performance and the original album version (illustrated with a stylish animation utilizing some sketches by Egon Schiele) by its original composer, Tom Waits; an ethereal cover by Scarlett Johansson; and a different song of the same name by up-and-coming American roots music star Ben Prestage.

18)  Just what the doctor ordered!  -  28th February 2012

I have a new favourite cocktail - the Penicillin.

19)  Bon mot for the week  -  5th March 2012

One of my own, on why people find my personality so difficult to deal with.

20)  Drinks can be too cheap  -  8th March 2012

I explain why offering 5-kuai draughts sends out a negative signal.

21)  The allure of the bar crawl  -  9th March 2012

A haiku on the appeal of - occasionally - trying to fit in several different venues in one night of drinking.

22)  Return of the Band Names game  -  10th March 2012

Some friends and I come up with an idea for a tribute band honouring Beijing's new bluegrass favourites The Randy Abel Stable. Shortly afterwards, another friend asks me to suggest names for her new band. My input on the question is ultimately disregarded - but at least it provides an excuse to revive the long-dormant Band Names game for a week or two, and push it past its 200th comment.

23)  Great Drinking Songs (31)  -  17th March 2012

For St Patrick's Day this year, I post three versions of Whiskey In The Jar - by Thin Lizzy, Gary Moore, and The Dubliners.

24)  How not to do it - opening a bar  -  24th March 2012

A new Chinese bar in my 'hood, Zhou, does everything so spectacularly wrong, it's like an instruction manual for how to lose money.

25)  Hmmm, chilli!  -  26th March 2012

Tasting notes on the Chilli Cook-Off competition with which hutong brewery Great Leap saw in the spring. [I was not in sympathy with the judges' choice of winner!]

26)  Half-plugged  -  29th March 2012

An account of one of the year's most surprising gigs (and, after a faltering start, quite possibly its best): The Beijing Beatles playing semi-unplugged in the tiny, homely space of my favourite bar, 12 Square Metres.

27)  Oh, brave new world!  -  30th March 2012

I nearly get a job in nearby Tianjin. While attending an interview, I stumble upon an amusingly bizarre bar calling itself the Swiss Club. I couldn't help but be reminded of The Fast Show's improbable Lothario character Swiss Toni, and was inspired to try to launch another audience participation thread (another abject failure! no commenters any more!!).

28)  Another Top Five Basslines: 'Chuggers'  -  31st March 2012

The second entry in my basslines series - this time focusing on those unfussy but insistent lines that just keep throbbing away, relentlessly driving a song on its way.

Useful words

A few weeks back, I did a post on here about the enigmatic Russian word razbliuto (in fact, it is non-existent, a pop culture delusion). That had been prompted by a post a little before on my other blog, Froogville, about various unusual words in other languages, and the intriguing concepts associated with them, that I'd discovered in recent online noodlings.

One of the most interesting of my sources for these posts was this item (on the TED website) in which a conference of translators nominated their 21 favourite 'hard to translate' words.

On this list there were, for me, a couple of absolute standouts, words which I'd like to adopt into regular English usage:

sobremesa  -  the Spanish for the time after a meal spent enjoying conversation with the people you've just eaten with

merak  -  the Serbian for the enjoyment of simple pleasures like feasting and merrymaking

I am, of course, also fond of the Irish term craic, a somewhat nebulous concept of 'good times' that can be applied simply to entertaining conversation or more broadly to a pleasant evening out... or to improbable drunken adventures. The Irish being the Irish, the pub is most often the context and alcohol and/or music are almost invariably key accompanying elements; but its essence is simply good companionship. However, I learn from Wikipedia that the expression was originally English (or Scots English, anyway?), and only fairly recently adopted into Irish usage (mid-20th century). Moreover, the now common spelling is very new, and an affected Gaelicization; the word was originally just 'crack'. And this spelling is perhaps now even more entrenched in English usage than in Irish, as we have readily convinced ourselves that it is a uniquely Irish word and concept, and thus surely ought to have a Gaelic spelling. Oh well. Print the legend, I say. I think the word has acquired new and distinctively Irish connotations, and the transformation of the spelling is an appropriate reflection of that.

Shame about the name

Another interesting new bar has appeared in my neighbourhood, which is, strangely, still flying well below the radar, despite having opened its doors a month or so ago now.

It is pretty much the nearest bar to my home: a bit further than Cangku and Zui Yuefang, roughly the same distance as Modernista and Mai, but rather easier for me to get to than any of these, since it is adjacent to the Andingmen Qiao roundabout, where it is fairly straightforward to cross the 2nd Ringroad (there's even a tianqiao [footbridge] nearby, but that's hardly necessary).

It's a bit swish for my taste: a renovated siheyuan, with a loungey feel to it. But the standard of decor is most impressive, and the small open courtyard sandwiched between the two lounge areas will be a very mellow hangout in the warmer months.

The prices - at least, in this initial trying-to-woo-a-clientele phase - are extremely reasonable: most cocktails and mixed drinks are 25-40rmb, and even the formidably strong Long Island Iced Tea is only 45rmb - surely one of the cheapest in town these days.

There's a broad range of imported beers too, including one from North Korea (the Belgian proprietor has a six-weeks-on-six-weeks-off kind of job in Pyongyang, and gets friends to bring in the odd bottle or two of the stuff for him in suitcases). Because of its extreme rarity, this one is priced at an offputting 50rmb (and you're unlikely to want to try it more than once; it's OK, but nothing very remarkable); but most of the other brews are again quite a bit less than you'd expect in a joint this swank. I suspect these good times can't last - so get in there to take advantage while you can.

On the demerit side: there's no draught beer, only bottled (a major drawback for me), and the selection tends towards the poncey end of things (what can we expect from such beer-fetishists as the Belgians?!); the staff are still finding their feet; and there are currently only one or two menus, which are mounted in picture frames (an annoying affectation), and in such small print that they are quite hard to read.

Oh yes, and then there's the name... Chill. Words fail me. I can scarcely imagine a crappier name for a bar. I actually find it seriously off-putting. And I don't think I'm alone. Two or three people I've introduced the place to have cringed at the mention of the name as well.

A pity, because it's really a very promising bar indeed. I think a name-change is in order.

Bon mot for the week

"I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am."

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965)