Why we drink (or why we shouldn't)

This is a 'sketch' only, not really ready to see the light of day. But I wanted to post a 'drinking poem', by a proper author, and couldn't root one out (in the present chaos of my apartment, my 'Drinker's Verse' anthology has mysteriously disappeared); so, this is all I have.

We drink to lay the dust
Of old dry thoughts
That sting our eyes
And clog our throats.
But drink soaks down
And fills our minds
Till the drains overflow
And raise from deep
The sullied trash, the debris
Of our earlier lives;
The flotsam and the jetsam,
The sewer stench.
And our eyes are moist again,
Our voices stopped.

The Stone Boat

Stone Boats are quite a fashion in China - little pavilions at the edge of lakes, fashioned to look like Imperial barges or whatnot, but actually solid structures rising from the lake floor. The most famous one is on Kunming Lake in Beijing's Summer Palace, a folly built by the infamous Dowager Empress Cixi (there's an oft-repeated story that she chose the boat design to justify reallocating funds from the naval budget to pay for it, but that sounds like a myth to me). I've no idea if that started the craze (somehow I rather doubt it), but you find quite a few of them around now.

My favourite one is on the tiny fishing lake in the south-west corner of Ritan ('Sun Temple') Park. Beijing is generously provided with parks, most of which are free or negligibly expensive (admission to Ritan used to cost 1 kuai [about 6.5p, or 13 cents], but in recent months they seem to have given up the attempt to collect it); all of them provide welcome havens of calm amid the city's bustle. Ritan is one of the largest and most diverse, and has a very central location - on the east side of the city, slap-bang in the middle of the embassy district. Since my first arrival here, it has been a regular haunt for meditative afternoon strolls. In fact, it is home to my favourite 'melancholy place' - The Dead Kite Tree (The 'altar of the Sun' is a 5ft-high brick platform in the middle of a large circular walled enclosure in the middle of the park. This is a popular spot for kite-flying, and other recreations. Alas, the circular wall is hemmed around with trees, which are quite a hazard for the kite-flyers. One tree in particular - because of the direction of the prevailing wind, I suppose, rather than because it is notably taller or spikier than the others - seems to act as a malign magnet for kites: there are rarely less than 4 or 5 forlorn kite-carcasses skewered on its branches..... prompting reflections on fragility and mortality, when I'm in a certain kind of brooding mood.).

At some point in my second year, I think, the Stone Boat in Ritan Park - which had originally been just a kind of groundkeeper's office, I think (well, on second thoughts, it might have been some kind of cock-eyed 'commercial' operation; I now recall they would hire out fishing rods and attempt to enforce a payment of fees for any fish caught) - opened up as a bar/coffee shop. It must have lost money hand-over-fist at first. Passing trade in the afternoon was thin. Nobody could get to it at night, since the park was closed (in fact there was access, after a fashion: either by brazenly walking through the premises of one of the bars or restaurants on the south side of the park which had doors opening both on to the park and on to the main road outside; or by persuading the gatekeeper that you wanted to go the bar, rather than indulge in any more nefarious and individualistic after-dark activity in the park). The service was wildly haphazard; the prices weren't that keen; they didn't do anything to promote themselves. Hardly anybody knew the place was there. And those that did - like me - enjoyed it as a solitary afternoon chill-out spot rather than as a place you'd want to bring your friends of an evening.

Did I say the service was haphazard? Oh, huge understatement. In their second year they added milkshakes to their menu. These were quite a hit with my then girlfriend, eccentric American academic, The Buddhist. They were a fascinating time-and-motion study for me. I really couldn't believe how long it took them to make one. Something like 10 minutes on average!! And they only had one small blender, so could only make one at a time. If we both ordered one, and ordered different flavours (so that they had to rinse the blender out), one of us would have nearly finished before the other's drink had come. The Buddhist used to like the pina colada one - although I think she was more entranced by the tropical fantasy of rum-and-coconuttiness rather than the drab reality of the Stone Boat's rendition. I exposed the fact that there was little or no alcohol going into their 'cocktail' shakes. Even more alarming were the occasionally bizarre substitutions they would inflict on us. One day, when they ran out of vanilla ice cream for the 'pina colada' or whatever it was, they decided that mint was an appropriate alternative and knocked up a drink with that instead, without saying a word to us. A pina colada really shouldn't be GREEN - that's not nice.

Ah, but then, a couple of years or so ago, there was a change of management (I suspect the place 'belongs' to the park, and has only been leased to the various entrepreneurs who've tried to make some money out of it): a rather sassy young Chinese woman called Amy took it over; she'd had some experience in the F&B industry (working for a while at a well-known foreigner restaurant here, during a spell when it was being managed by an American friend of mine); and she was brimming with ideas to make the place viable. Obvious, simple things that 95% of bars here seem to ignore: lowering the drinks prices a bit, adding a decent snack menu, finding some English-speaking staff, spending a little money on advertising, touting for party business. And persuading the park authorities to leave the gates (and the nearby public toilet) open late.

Last year showed promise, but rather fitfully. This year, the place is one of the roaring successes of the summer (keeping it 'alive' in winter remains something of a challenge!). Damn it, it's almost too popular now. I used to like it in the good old days (however crappy the drinks and the service might have been), when you could have the place to yourself most of the time. Nowadays, on weekday evenings after work, there's often quite a crowd (not enough to deter me, though; in fact, my new job is only a 25-minute walk away, so I am likely to become more of a 'regular' than ever from now on). And every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through the summer, there's a live music event on.

Last night, the Stone Boat Bar hosted the launch of the first CD from Panjir - guitar-based modern jazz, with Central Asian folk influences. The group's leader, Brit David Mitchell, is another of my guitar buddies, and I've seen them play many times over the past year-and-a-bit. Now that they've finally got a good demo cut, they are hopeful of getting some major distribution. It's a multinational outfit, with a tabla maestro from Mexico, and a pair of 'Western Chinese' (Xinjiang isn't really China...) completing the line-up. I think Akbar Abliz, the second guitarist, may in fact be an even better player than David - and that's saying something. His command of the instrument is awesome, effortless.

There was fine support from the Mongolian folk band Hanggai (I happened to catch a couple of the band playing as a duo at Jianghu a few weeks back - that was a great show). They also have a CD out now - but they all left early, before I had the chance to buy one. Next time, next time....

A big thank you to Ed of Red T Music for setting up the concert (I'm not sure how he's ever going to make any money as a 'music promoter' in Beijing; but I'm grateful for his efforts, and wish him well). And big congratulations to Amy and her staff for making the Stone Boat one of the coolest places to hang out in Beijing this summer.

(And I'm so glad hardly anyone reads this blog as yet - otherwise the Stone Boat would now be overrun with 'tourists'!!)

HBH 34

Floating on music,
Unshackled from earth, soaring -
Open courtyard sky.

OK, yes, I do feel like a bit of a slut composing a Jianghu haiku. Jianghu is not really 'the Haiku bar' - but it has become probably my most favoured hangout over the past few months

13

There are several great little rock music dives in this city. Well, OK, there are four. There are around four more - which suck mightily, but have to be endured occasionally because they do sometimes showcase good music. (Then, there's Star Live - which is looking promising, but is a 'special event' venue rather than a regular club. And there's one other that's so new I haven't had a chance to form a judgment on it yet.)

It's tough to choose an outright favourite from this select little group; but if pressed, I suppose I would have to award the prize to Club 13 (or '13 Club' as is says on the sign outside - although that seems to trip off the tongue much less easily, so the former word order is almost universally preferred).

It's in the heart of the university district, a few hundred yards west of the south entrance to Beijing's premier university, Tsinghua. This is, no doubt, an ideal location for attracting a young, hip crowd of students, both Chinese and overseas. It's a little bit of a pain-in-the-arse for me, since it is a 30min subway journey + 15min walk (or 20-30min cab ride) away from where I live; and there are not really any other decent bars or restaurants in the vicinity (rival music bar D-22 - foreign-owned and oh-so-up-itself - is two doors away, but I don't count that). There's quite a thriving 'student scene' that has grown up there in the last few years (in the area known as 'The Wu' - short for Wudaokou, site of the light-rail station in the middle of Chengfu Lu); but it thrives only on the basis that most students are too poor or too lazy to venture often into the city centre; it has just about nothing to appeal to the more 'mature' expat community. Except, that is, for the delightfully grungy Club 13.

13 is an ideal space: big enough to accommodate a few hundred people on a really good night, but compact enough - and dark enough - not to appear too empty when there are only a handful of punters in. There's quite a long bar, at the back, facing the stage. A few small tables can be deployed in front of it, but most, if not all of the area in front of the stage is usually left empty for anyone who may wish to 'mosh' (and on their regular punk and metal nights, there will certainly be a few of those). The two wings adjoining this, segregrated by a low railing, offer, on the left, a comfy seating area, and on the right, a games area with bar football (not 'foosball', please) and the best pool table in town (regularly re-covered, 4 or 5 decent cues, and just recently, a brand new set of balls - AMAZING: it even puts my beloved Pool Bar to shame!). The area just inside the door always has a good selection of CDs and magazines on sale. The sound system is LOUD. The acoustics (unlike its woeful competitor, D-22) are good. The air-conditioning works. Above all, it feels like a rock club ought to: no-frills, utterly basic decor; windowless, subterranean gloom; the walls remain slick with sweat for 2 or 3 days after a big gig.

It is probably pure chance that these elements have come together so well. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to lay out your space such that your bar was readily accessible and large enough to service a decent-sized crowd, and that people would still be able to see the stage from it; or, indeed, that you would be able to see the stage from pretty much anywhere in the room. But this is China. This is Beijing. Club 13 is unique so far in having pulled off this trick!

The music is pretty damn good too. I really wish I could make the effort to get out there a bit more often. One of their regular bands I particularly like are called 'Oxygen Can' (OK, it's a bum translation, but I've got used to it now; it's too late to start thinking of them as 'Oxygen Cylinder' or 'Oxygen Tank'), a pleasingly unrestrained metal act - whose gimmick is that they have a second drummer who beats the shit out of an oil drum with a pair of billets of wood.

For most of last year they had a 'house band' who played on their - mostly pretty dead - Wednesday nights: Freebird, playing 'Southern rock' (they did some pretty fine covers of Hendrix [first time I'd ever heard him in China], ZZ Top, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and of course Skynyrd - although I had to introduce them to Creedence). I became quite a regular at their gigs last summer, and made that the venue for the first of my 'leaving parties' before my summer break (I had been concerned that the Football World Cup would interfere with regular party-going, so I scheduled my main going-away party before that started, and some two or three weeks before I actually flew home - needless to say, a number of other impromptu celebrations occurred during that subsequent period).

Freebird, alas, relocated to Guangdong (Max, the very impressive lead guitarist, was going to marry his gorgeous vocalist, Orlando [she was impressed that I got the Virginia Woolf reference - ah, Chinese students and their name choosing!]). Now the mid-week slot is filled by a trio called Bisq, who also knock out some decent blues rock (but are not, I think, at quite the same level), and are occasionally accompanied by interesting guest acts. On Tuesdays, there's a Chinese band who do Gypsy Kings-style stuff - rather fun. And recently, they've been supported by an acoustic trio who play Turkish folk songs (an intriguing new experience - you can find almost anything in Beijing!), and are fronted by probably the most gorgeous girl in Beijing (I've always had a special fondness for the women of the Eastern Mediterranean, but this girl is something else again - and she has a good voice. Yes, I'm definitely a bit smitten. [Not seriously smitten - she's far too young for me, and has a steady boyfriend back home. But she is extremely nice; I was introduced to her a few weeks back by a mutual friend.]).

This week I was out there again, to celebrate the birthday of a cute young American girl who's been working behind the bar there occasionally for the last 18 months, while studying Chinese. That was a fine night, another 2am session - has left me feeling rather depleted for the rest of the week.

Lately, though, I've been going out there mainly for the pool table, the good draught beer, and the occasional drinks specials (last year on Wednesday nights they were offering absurdly generous 'free pour' measures of Jim Beam for 10 or 15 yuan; I got well away on those a few times) - and because it is a convenient 'half-way' meeting point for my principal pool opponent, The Chairman, who is languishing this year in one of the far northern suburbs. The music has become only a secondary attraction. I really must try to get out there again on the weekend some time.

Bar jokes

Another joke 'collecting box', to add to the one I've been running for the past few months here (originally/primarily for Irish jokes, but now for pretty much whatever takes your fancy).

Since this is a bar-themed blog, I thought it would be appropriate to accumulate some bar-themed jokes.

The "animal goes into a bar..." genre is a particular favourite of mine. The classic example of this is, of course:

A horse goes into a bar and orders a double whisky.

"There you go," says the barman. "But tell me, why the long face?"



And then there's this variation, which I like even better.


A polar bear goes into a bar.

"What'll you have?" says the barman.

"Oh, I'll have...um....er.....(the bear scans the spirit bottles on the optic and the shelves for several seconds before making up his mind)......... oh, can I have a gin & tonic?"

"Of course you can, sir," says the barman. "But tell me, why the big pause?"

There are some in this genre involving people rather than animals.

Quasimodo goes into a bar.

"God, I've had a terrible day at work," he moans. "Give me a large whisky."

"Of course, sir," says the barman. "Any particular brand?"

The hunchback ponders his options for a moment. "Oh, the Bell's, the Bell's."



And then there are the really silly ones, like this.


Shakespeare goes into bar.

"Get out!" roars the barman. "I've told you: you're Bard."

A few years ago I even invented one about the bingmayong, the famous Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an.

A terracotta warrior goes into a bar.

"Will you have something to drink?" asks the barman.

"I'm afraid I can't," replies the warrior.

"Why not? Are you on duty?" asks the barman facetiously.

"No," replies the warrior, irritatedly. "I'm made of terracotta, aren't I?"

You get the idea. The great surrealist gag from Tommy Cooper that I posted a week or two ago would fit here as well. What are your favourites?? Please, add them to the 'comments'.

"And if you're looking for your friend, the playwright - I threw him out ten minutes ago."

Sheep on the pull

Another great Gary Larson bar gag. Yes, chatting someone up is so much easier when you're confident you're going to have something in common.

More wise words from Mr Nathan

"Whenever a man encounters a woman in a mood he doesn't understand, he wants to know if she's tired. "

I have decided to use George Jean Nathan for my weekly bon mots, both here and on Froogville, for a while - because he had so darn many smart things to say. Unfortunately, not many of them seem to have been on the subject of drink; but love & sex are also among our preoccupations here on the Bar Stool, so I deem the above observation eligible for inclusion.

Musicology

Today was a long day, a full day, a day of many pleasures. Not a day on which I should have stayed out late and got steamingly drunk. Ah, well, I suppose I was seduced by the rare luxury of not having to work on Monday morning....

I really wasn't intending to come back so late, though. I was quite pleasantly exhausted after.... showing friends round Panjiayuan flea-market in the morning, having a big Chinese lunch, hanging out with the cutest girl I know in Beijing for a while in the afternoon (well, she's only 20 months old.... but her mum's rather lovely too), helping to fire up a rooftop barbecue in the evening, and then squandering a couple of games against my new pool nemesis, Mr Yang, in the Pool Bar on my way home. 10.30, full belly, dog tired, mildly tipsy - that would have been a good time to call it a day.

However, I had learned that a couple of friends were in Huxley's, my favourite local sleazepit, so I looked in there - purely to be sociable, you understand (and it really is on the way home). And it was quite a large, raucous crowd, most of whom I didn't really know - so I was not inclined to stay. That was my 'Jeffrey Dahmer time': "Just one drink," I thought. But then...... well, the bar staff's choice of music was a bit shite (how we miss The Barman, now 'retired'), but we persuaded them to hook up the sound system to Josh's i-Pod..... and Josh really does have an excellent and diverse taste in music. I found myself wanting to wait around a little longer and a little longer, just to see what song would come on next. Yes, it was only my love of music that was keeping me there.

But of course, while I was waiting, I had to have another drink, and another, and another. Gassy Tsingtao beer was not sitting well on my over-full stomach, so I decided to switch to more refreshing gin & tonic. Then, worrying that the G & T's were not particularly strong, and that I wasn't really getting high quickly enough, I started slamming them. And that did get me high.

And that is how I come to be blogging here at, oh, 2am or so.

I suspect there was probably also an element of desperate escapism at play here, wanting to take my mind off the possibly momentous job decision I may have to make tomorrow (later today). Aaaagghhh...... to BED.

Traffic Report - blog stats for May

Well, my 'resolution' to try to cut down on my verbal incontinence seems to be meeting rather limited success so far: last month, we still managed 32 posts and some 12,000 words here on the Barstool.

Hits are still averaging around 100 per week, but that's now falling significantly behind Froogville. Not to worry. My regular visitors here know that this is where the 'hidden gold' is to be found. Thank you for sticking with me.

Ideal job??

One of the questions I was asked in my momentous job interview the other day was - inevitably? - "What would be your ideal job?"

What is one expected to answer to something like this? Do they really want you to gush, "Well, I really think this position has all the elements I'm looking for in terms of challenge and responsibility..."?

I can't now remember quite what I answered. Not 'beachcomber', I don't think (Damn! Missed a trick there!!). Well, I believe I managed to avoid saying that my ideal was not to have to work at all..... but did say that my ambitions tended to focus on my creative endeavours rather than my job, that I'd like to be a novelist, a film director, a blues guitarist, a kamikaze mime....

Of course, I came up with an esprit d'escalier answer, and it was this:

On a few trips to Greece in the late '80s, early '90s I noticed that every little taverna had a token old geezer who would take up station at an outside table fairly early in the day (i.e., shortly before noon), and apparently idle away most of the day there, watching the world go by. I never saw these guys pay anything for their little dish of olives and their hourly-refilled glass of retsina or ouzo, so I assumed that they were being comped by the bar owner in return for 'advertising' the fact that the place was open and worthy of looking in on. Free booze and snacks, while gently baking your brain in the Mediterranean sun, and calmly watching the pretty girls go by (I have a big weakness for Greek girls....).

That is my ideal job.

By the way, the greatest illustration of esprit d'escalier I can think of occurs in Patrice Leconte's film Ridicule: Et avec le même utensile.

HBH 33

The music cascades,
Dazzling as running water.
Two guitars as one.

Even a fairly major bout of exhaustion and depression is briefly pierced by the charm of another Jianghu moment......

A brief introduction to the Beijing jazz scene

There's not a lot of jazz in Beijing. Probably not a lot in China as a whole. Hell, there isn't all that much original music in any genre. But jazz is definitely a tiny minority interest. (And it may be a rare example of something they do better in Shanghai. Shanghai has just about no rock scene worthy of the name, and its modern art scene seems to be a pale shadow of Beijing's, but..... it has long been a thoroughly "Europeanized" city, and plush hotel bars like their cocktail jazz. More random prejudices and provocations to try to spur my Beijing v. Shanghai comment-thread into life!)

Although you would from time to time find a little bit of jazz going on in a hotel lobby somewhere, or at one of the grungier music bars that usually specialise in rock and folk, the only regular jazz venue in Beijing for the past x years has been the CD Jazz Café - and it's really not all that good. It has gone through a number of major re-modellings and redecorations in the time I've been here, but despite these many changes of 'look', it's never hit on a winning formula: it just keeps finding new ways of being charmless and anonymous (its latest reorganization is at least a major step forward in terms of the decor, but now a good third or so of the bar area has no view of the stage). It doesn't help, either, that it is right beside the Third Ringroad - and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, a mile or more from anything else of note that you might want to visit on a night out. And, of course, the service isn't all that great, the air-conditioning never seems to work, and it is rather pricier than the bars I mostly like to hang out in. Much of the music I've heard there has been fairly unremarkable too: we tolerate it and even enjoy it here in China because it's such a novelty, but it wouldn't create much of an impression in New York or London (god, I get an occasional pang of nostalgia for Ronnie Scott's Club [on London's Frith St] that's so acute it might actually be angina!).

Now, there's nothing so objectionable about CD Jazz Café that it would make its way into my 'hate list', but it wouldn't find a place among my favourite bars either. I would only ever go there for the music; and the music wasn't good enough to tempt me out to that side of town more than 2 or 3 times a year.

But in the past couple of years, there's been a proliferation of small, occasional music venues, and now we have the chance to hear jazz - once in a while - at a number of attractive little bars much closer to my home: Jianghu, Jiangjinjiu, Baie des Anges, Salud. The more distant rock music bars D-22 and Yugong Yishan (yet to be memorialized on this blog, but it will happen soon) are now hosting regular jazz nights too. And there's now a regular Sunday afternoon 'jam session' at a bar called X-Change (in a hotel [I forget which one] in the new - barely finished - 'financial district' to the north of Xidan). Thanks are due to Hortense Hallé, who distributes a more-or-less weekly jazz('n'folk) listings round-up on this burgeoning scene by e-mail.

Best of all, the guy behind CD Jazz has opened up a second venue by Houhai (my local lakes area), immediately above Zoo (scene of my birthday party last year): the East Shore Live Jazz Café.

It's hard to put a finger on what East Shore has that the CD Café never did, but.... it's certainly got something. Location is a big part of it: it's got a great view of the lake from the big picture-window in the right-hand half of the bar. Remarkably, however, that big window doesn't seem to mess up the acoustics too much, or detract from the suitably gloomy jazz bar ambience. A good sound system, decent staff, stage visible from pretty much everywhere in the bar.... and it's only a 25-minute walk away. Heaven.

They seem to have found some really decent acts as well (I don't think it's just that I'm getting less picky after months, years of comparative jazz deprivation....). I caught a marvellous show there on Christmas Day, a foreign band led by a great French pianist called Pierre Pradat. Some of the local acts are even better. For the past few months, the Golden Buddha Trio (nucleus of an occasionally much larger group) have been playing a Friday night residency there; band leader Kong Hongwei has a spectacular command of the ivories (and, perhaps somewhat unusually for China, is ineffably musical rather than just technically flashy), and is well worth a look any time you're in this 'hood at the end of the week. And don't just take my word for it: fellow Beijing blogger Jeremiah was raving about him just last week - and he's quite the music aficionado, and a decent pianist himself, so his opinion carries rather more weight than that of an enthusiastic but unschooled fan-boy such as myself.

Alas, the oracular Hortense has disappeared from our lives for a couple of weeks..... so I am at a loss as to what I will do this weekend. Might just head down to East Shore to listen to Kong and the boys again.

Join the great Smoking Debate

I had hoped my observations on the new Face bar last week might prompt an interesting discussion in the comments on the evolution (or decline?) of the Beijing bar scene, or kick off another round of the ever-ongoing Beijing v. Shanghai debate.

Well, the comments are still open for such contributions, and I would welcome them.

However, at the moment that particular comment-thread has been taken over by a ding-dong debate between me and my opinionated bar buddy The British Cowboy on the issue of public smoking. Anyone else care to join in that one?? Go on......

The Queen lives....??

According to my buddy The Choirboy (although I have no idea what the source of his "information" may be), his favourite grotty Muslim restaurant, The Kebab Queen, is "not dead, only sleeping".

When it abruptly shut up shop last week, I had assumed the worst; but he claims that they are merely closed "for refurbishments", and will open again in a week or so.

I still have my doubts about this, and worry that he may just be the victim of wishful thinking.

The Kebab Queen is not the sort of place you can imagine being refurbishable - that level of squalor is impervious to the paintbrush and the plasterer's trowel. Moreover, whenever in the past I have seen a small restaurant like that attempt some such 'updating', the process has begun while customers are still in there dining.... and has been completed within two or three days. Two or three days after KQ's closure, there was still no sign of any activity in there. I can't think why they would have had to strip out all the furniture and equipment either.

No, I fear The Choirboy's hopes here may be cruelly dashed. But we shall see.

Watch this space for further updates.

This week's 'reason to drink'

"I drink to make other people interesting."

George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
See Froogville's weekly bon mot for a thumbnail introduction

Misheard

The original of that disturbingly upmarket bar I visited in Beijing a few days ago, the Shanghai Face, is located inside a small park in the foreign concessions district, in a building called the Rui Jin Guesthouse.

The first time I went there, receiving directions to meet an old friend over the mobile phone, I could have sworn she said "Raging Death House" - which sounds to me like a good name for a metal band. Or, indeed, perhaps a new musical genre?

I find amusement in the simplest things.

The hilarity of 'found objects' - eccentric uses of the English language, particularly - is an easy source of entertainment here in China.

The 'possible band name' game is a narrower variation of this, and for a long time it has been a favourite for SMS exchanges with my friend The Poet.

For example, there is also in Shanghai a chain of specialist pharmacies called The Sex Health Protection Monopoly - which sounds to me like it could have been one of those po-faced European electronic bands of the '80s.

Go on, you have a try.

A sudden moment of discomfort

I posted a favourite Gary Larson cartoon over on Froogville earlier today, and - knowing how bitter the sibling rivalry between my two blogs can grow - I felt I ought to follow suit over here.

We've all known this feeling at some point in our bar-hopping lives, I think.

And there's something about the cow bartender here that especially tickles my funnybone - something about the unsmiling concentration, the dour earnestness as he pours, that I seem to recall seeing in many of the more unwelcoming American barkeeps I've come across.

HBH 32

Amid the hubbub
Of the milling party crowds,
Sadness wells silently.

Shanghai'd!!

I have seen the future. And it's expensive.

I've just been to a networking event in a new(ish) bar to the south of the Workers' Stadium - and it was very nice indeed: subdued lighting, comfy seats, lots of dark wood, multiple bars, a couple of decent-looking pool tables (didn't get the chance to play), beautiful garden (not in use today, because we've been having another of those grey, dingy, drizzly days), dazzlingly clean loos, and a couple of high-end restaurants en suite. Damn it, they seem to be doing everything right: the staff are polite, attentive (well, one of the barmen tried to wrap up 'happy hour' 5 minutes early, but he soon gave up on that aberration!), and all seem to speak good English; the drinks are excellent - you can actually taste the alcohol in them! I was even offered a choice of gin brands for my gin & tonic. (If I'm ever offered a choice of tonic brands too, I'll know I've died and gone to heaven!) This place is like Centro - done right.

And then I realised there was something oddly familiar about it. Yep, it's a transplant from Shanghai..... the beginning of a super-swish franchise. I had thought I knew the name - Face - from somewhere, but just couldn't place it. The trouble with Shanghai - and especially with Shanghai's foreigner-friendly bar & restaurant scene - is that it's so bloody expensive!! Typically around twice the price of most comparable places in Beijing, and sometimes more. (I'm told there are some cheap, hole-in-the-wall dives - like my beloved Huxley's - down there, but I've never been able to find one on my rare visits.)

I'm not going to assign the Beijing Face to the 'love it' or 'hate it' list on the basis of one visit. I suspect it could make it into the former eventually (it's affordable during the half-price 'happy hour'; and, although somewhat hard to find, it's not too far away from some other decent bars in the centre of the city). However, as a portent of things to come, it worries me. Pre-Olympic Beijing is in the grip of a creeping gentrification: more and more fancy-dan restaurants, bars, and coffee shops are opening up with alarmingly high prices..... and clear aspirations to being like Shanghai.

Most Beijing residents prefer the capital to Shanghai because it is more friendly, more down-to-earth, more culturally vibrant, and more affordable; Shanghai comes across as smug, pretentious, excessively Westernized, at times strangely soulless.... and super-expensive. The contrast between the two cities is itself quite stimulating, a source of endless debate (Shanghai is a great place for a weekend getaway - but I wouldn't want to live there.) I don't want to see that contrast eroded - but it is in danger of happening.

A Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 'early days'

Gosh, this proved rather harder to whittle down than the similar list I culled from the early months of Froogville a couple of weeks back (though - by pure concidence - I once again seem to have come up with the "well-omened" total of 28). Despite being (still) the less-frequented of my two blogs, I really do feel there's a lot of quality on here.

I hope readers - new and old - will take the time to explore these recommendations and let me know what you think.

Pick of the Archive: Favourite Posts, Sept. - Dec. '06

1) The Worthy Opponent - 31st December

An appreciation of my best buddy in China, Tony "The Chairman", and his uncanny pool-playing skills

2) Zen & the Art of Playing Pool - 28th December

My fascination with the world's greatest indoor game

3) A GREAT gig - 28th December

The first of many posts about one of my favourite bars in my area of Beijing; and a description of probably the best gig I have seen in Beijing

4) In praise of drunks - 24th December

A superb quotation from 'unsuitable role model' Shane MacGowan: this might well be my motto in life, or a manifesto for this blog

5) Another Jamaican moment - 20th December

My favourite of a series of anecdotes about a trip to Jamaica, long ago

6) The Black Swan - 17th December

Fond recollections of a period living in Oxford in the early '90s - and of a pub that for a while came very close to being perfect

7) The Vomit People - 13th December

My favourite story from University days; not as distasteful as the title makes it sound!

8) Footprints in the butter - 13th December

Musings on my first 'drive-by' commenter..... and on the purpose and prospects of the blog in general

9) Late night frivol - 12th December

There is rather less of my poetry over here than on brother-blog Froogville; but this, I think, is one of my more successful pieces.

10) The Sanity Clause - 10th December

In which I play Santa Claus for the first time - and complain bitterly about how old it makes me feel!

11) Giving Bukowski his due - 29th November

The full text of my favourite Charles Bukowski poem, 'beer' (previously quoted only briefly)

12) Zelig - 22nd November

Some autobiographical reflections - and a refusal to be categorised


13) Haiku Bar haiku 5 - 22nd November

Probably my favourite to date in this weekly series of short poems

14) An Oxford man - 20th November

A great put-down from one of my e-mail correspondents


15) Certain Substances - 29th November

Confessing my occasional fondness for ganja


16) A Party for Two - 19th November

My wildest party ever


15) More on... The Otway Experience - 12th November

An attempt to describe the unique phenomenon that is cult hero, pub rocker extraordinaire, John Otway

16) The Planet of Beautiful Women - 6th November

In which my head is turned rather too easily....

17) Through a glass, snarkily.... - 4th November

Just a photograph, but one I am particularly fond of

18) We are sailing, we are sailing.... - 2nd November

Key Beijing drinking institution 'The Yacht Club' explained, for those not fortunate enough to be 'members'

19) Another great 'Hagar' moment - 17th October

A favourite cartoon joke recounted (see also the preceding post: A cartoon unsuitable role model)

20) A slightly blurry recollection of Crete - 12th October

Perhaps the best of a series of anecdotes about a school trip to Crete in the early '90s

21) Jeffrey Dahmer Time - 8th October

On the importance of knowing when to quit

22) More from Jeff - 6th October

Some favourite bon mots from No. 1 Unsuitable Role Model, Jeffrey Bernard (and for brief snapshots of my two meetings with him, see this: Another unsuitable role model)

23) The Koryo Hotel - 2nd October

On why it's not a good idea to fall for North Korean girls

24) Waitsiana - 30th September

A very early poetic effort: a homage to Tom Waits

25) Two Kinds Of Drunk - 28th September

A crucial post on the raison d'être of the blog

[I should probably try to put it in the sidebar one day]

26) The Wedding To End All Weddings - 25th September

In which my notorious 'partner in crime' The Bookseller is first introduced to my blog readers, and my current fatness is explained

27) The Time Warp - 18th September

I learn the perils of 'going home'.... and of fancying barmaids

28) Down to the 'Doctors' - 17th September

Festival time in Edinburgh, a convenient drinking station.... and a painful coincidence

The Queen is Dead!

Another one bites the dust.

I have complained many times, in a general way, about the extreme transience of our existence here in modern China; and I have, in particular, mourned the regular passing of my favourite bars and restaurants. Just a few weeks back, I complained about my inability to hang on to a decent Muslim eatery in my neighbourhood.

Well, we've just lost another one. It was not the one I mentioned in that earlier post as being my likely new local favourite. In fact, I'd never really built up any particularly strong affection for this latest victim (the quality of the food was rather too inconsistent; the service was rather too consistently surly and aloof); however, it was a great favourite of my buddy, The Choirboy, so over the past year or so I had become a more and more frequent visitor there, at his behest. In fact, over the past 6 months, it has been our regular default position for a Sunday evening rendezvous. We never found out its Chinese name, or even if it had one: to The Choirboy and his gang it was always known by the affectionate nickname 'The Kebab Queen'. The poor boy was quite distraught to learn that it had suddenly closed down a few days ago. Indeed, I fear for the health of his diet now. That was 'his' restaurant: he scarcely knew anywhere else!

It was located near the top of a charming little alley called Nanluoguxiang (these days, it is becoming known as NLG, for short), only about a 25-minute walk away. And it had the rare distinction of having an English version of its menu. It thus became hugely popular with the foreign residents of the adjacent Ju'er Hutong (one of the first Chinese neighbourhoods to be opened up to foreign tenants, so quite a little foreigner ghetto for the past several years), and more recently also with the increasing numbers of tourists being drawn to the area by the hotels and youth hostels that have been opening up along NLG.

I fear it may have been a victim of the progressive gentrification of the area over the past couple of years. The street has been heavily colonized by up-market restaurants, coffee shops, and trendy little boutiques; there are fewer and fewer bog-standard Chinese businesses hanging on there now, and, for me, it is a sad loss of the local character of the place. I quite like some of the new, smarter places down there, but I wouldn't want to see them drive the simpler, more traditional (cheaper!) restaurants into extinction.

Then again, there might be a more sinister aspect to this too. The Kebab Queen has been doing a better and better trade over the past year, and it is quite possible that the boss was getting fed up of being asked for bigger and bigger 'contributions' by the various local organs of power (police, gangsters, sanitation department, utilties people - in China, you have to pay everyone off). A number of times recently they have suffered mysterious one-day closures; they've quite often been warned off putting out their pavement furniture (not entirely unreasonable, since they were in fact blocking a fairly busy street); and on one occasion, they had a number of their windows broken. Definitely a whiff of foul play there. Maybe it was the landlord getting greedy for the prospect of a higher rent; or maybe it was a 'disagreement' with the neighbourhood racketeers.....

The Kebab Queen was a particularly tiny, particularly dirty 'hole-in-the-wall', but the beers were cheap, and occasionally even cold..... and during the summer we could take over the street outside with temporary chairs and tables. One phase of my day-long 'farewell party' (before taking my long summer break in the UK) took place there last June. I shall miss it for that alone.

The place also had two especially wonderful - and, I fear, unique - items on its menu. One was a kind of bing (a Chinese word seemingly applied to a huge variety of cakes, pancakes, and buns) made from potatoes and sesame seeds. The Choirboy and I never did quite work out what it was called in Chinese, despite always asking. We'd just say "that potato dish" and they'd always know what we meant. It was a large, flat potato cake, about 7" or 8" across. Now, the finely shredded potato interior was a little too soft for my taste, and it also - by some obscure process I'd rather not enquire into - acquired a rather unappealing dishwater-grey colour. And the coating of sesame seeds didn't really add anything to the experience for me. However, the contrast in textures between the squidgy insides and the crispy pan-fried outside was marvellous, it was a huge feed.... and I can never get enough of potatoes (perhaps it's the Irish ancestry?). I wonder if I'll ever find this wonderful dish again elsewhere.

Their other Unique Selling Point for me was in their presentation of nang bao rou. This is one of the classic Central Asian Muslim dishes from the far West of China - something that I recently honoured over on Froogville as one of my very favourite foods here. It's a rich stew of meat, vegetables, and noodles in a tomatoey broth spiced with lots of garlic, ginger, star anise, and chilli. Well, there are several variants of this sort of dish - but the twist here is that a flatbread is submerged in the yummy sauce, placed underneath all the other ingredients. Ah, but the KQ's remarkable innovation on this recipe was to cut the bread up into bite-size rectangles and lightly fry them, so that they would retain just a little bit of solidity even when thoroughly steeped in the tasty sauce. I have been to dozens of Muslim restaurants in this city, and I've never seen anywhere else do the nang bao rou like this - and I wouldn't have a clue how to request it. I fear I shall never see its like again. Ah well, any nang bao rou is good nang bao rou (wrestling large, pizza-slice segments of thoroughly sodden, hopelessly floppy bread out from under the pile of other ingredients - with chopsticks! - is one of the great joys of this dish); but I will miss the Kebab Queen's 'giant crispy crouton' variation.

But who knows? They may yet re-open again elsewhere in the vicinity...... I am keeping my eyes peeled, and asking around......

The world's simplest 'bar joke'

A man walks into a bar...... and falls down unconscious.

Well, it was an iron bar.

I wonder how well that one reads. It probably depends too much on the delivery. It is a classic piece of deadpan surrealism from the great British vaudevillian, Tommy Cooper - a glum, husky-voiced giant of a man who always wore a crumpled dinner jacket and a red fez, and who did a shambling - mostly disastrous - conjuring act (although he could make it work any time he chose; he was actually a very capable magician as well as a comedian).

He was also quite a notorious drinker, so I suppose I could enrol him as one of my 'unsuitable role models' - although I idolise him not for being fond of the sauce (which did become a terrible problem in his career and his private life), but for his glorious comic timing and for his relentlessly worldweary demeanour.

However, my main reason for tossing in this mention of the great TC - and that joke - today is to remind readers of my ongoing quest to collect favourite jokes of yesterday here. Please go and contribute something.

Actually, the following is my favourite ever line of his; probably in fact the most perfect joke I have ever seen/heard...... but I solicit other nominations from my readers.

Tommy was fumbling about with the props on his conjuror's table. He suddenly produced an electric light bulb from one of the pockets of his suit and set it down in the panier of an antique pair of balance-scales on the table. "Light bulb," he announced matter-of-factly.

Then he fished another one out of his pocket, and put it in the other panier of the scales - which immediately descended, as its companion rose into the air. "Heavy bulb."

Another literary drinker

"I drink when I have occasion. And sometimes when I have no occasion."

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1547-1616)

Happy Birthday, 2K!!

A few pictures from last night's birthday celebration for super-cool music club, 2 Kolegas.

Cheap rou chuanr ('meat-sticks') available from the Muslim food stall in the garden outside; they did a roaring trade.

A much smaller crowd than last year, but the staff behind the tiny bar were still seriously over-stretched at times. Punters were mostly pretty mellow about the long waits.....

Laowai blues band Black Cat Bone were the headliners. Unfortunately, my camera battery gave out at this point.

A rather smaller and more low-key event than last year's epic all-nighter for the 1st Anniversary (I think they perhaps hadn't expected to survive that long, and so really pushed the boat out) - probably less than half the number of people or bands, but still a lively evening. The weather was just a little nippy (an abrupt change after a baking day), and had threatened rain (a brief and ultimately unrealised threat) in the early evening; that probably discouraged quite a few people from turning out. And most of the friends I had tried to corral into joining me were out of town or otherwise engaged. Nevertheless, I took along The Barman and my Love Guru, and ran into several other people I knew there.

Black Cat Bone got the joint jumping, as always. The support bands were pretty damn good too. The gorgeous Quebecoise accordionist I saw at Jianghu a while back sang with one of them. God, she can sing as well. I've always had a terrible weakness for singers. Jazz singing in French, is there anything sexier?? I think I'm 'in love' (AGAIN).

Things were winding down by 3am or so......

After two ridiculously late nights in succession, today is threatening to be a SLOW day......

A glimpse of the party HQ

I just remembered that I took a few pictures of quaint little watering-hole Jianghu at a "leaving party" (he's only going to Suzhou for a year: I don't think that counts!) a couple of weeks ago. I thought you might enjoy.