Inspiration for the New Year

I was thinking of giving up drinking this month. Not for ever, you understand; just for a few weeks, maybe a month or two.

But then.... I was reminded of this old English pub favourite (my brother used to have it on his bedroom wall!), and I thought, Why bother?



The horse and cow live thirty years,
And nothing know of wines and beers.
The goat and sheep at twenty die,
And never taste of Scotch or rye.
The sow drinks water by the ton,
And at eighteen is nearly done.
The dog at fifteen cashes in,
Without the aid of rum or gin.
The cat in milk and water soaks,
And then at twelve short years it croaks.
The modest, sober bone dry hen
Lays eggs for years, then dies at ten.
All animals are strictly dry;
They sinless live and quickly die.
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten;
And some of us, the mighty few,
Stay pickled till we're ninety-two!

Anon

Great Drinking Songs (14)

I posted a bit of Tom Lehrer over on Froogville for Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever - but I'm feeling in need of some more already.

I suppose dear Tom should really be one of my 'Unsuitable Role Models' too. I first encountered his wonderfully warped comic songs (no-one was ever better at torturing a rhyme) in the '70s BBC Radio show Frank Muir Goes Into...., in which that venerable comedy writer and raconteur would introduce a selection of classic comedy clips from the archives, themed around a different subject each week. Tom Lehrer was pretty much a weekly fixture (as were the marvellous early stand-up routines of Woody Allen - something I only managed to acquire my own recording of a couple of years ago), and I was immediately inspired by his playfully louche persona, and the wickedly non-conformist, often downright surreal viewpoints he espoused on love, death, religion, drink, drugs, and sex. For years I had supposed that mine was an isolated enthusiasm, freakishly rare; but at university I discovered that an affinity for Lehrer was, though by no means universal, not so very uncommon either; and I soon began to recognise this as a key indicator of suitability for friendship. Ah yes, many's the time that I have seen closing time at the Oxford Union bar celebrated (or rather, protested against) with renditions of We Will All Go Together When We Go or The Old Dope Peddler.

Given the direction which this reminiscence has taken, I suppose the most appropriate example of Mr Lehrer's oeuvre for me to now share with you would be his Bright College Days. There's no video with this, unfortunately (there seems to be very little performance footage of him at all), but it is the live version from the brilliant An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer album, which includes the most perfectly timed pause after the infamous 'razor blade' analogy - magnificent!

This holiday just never quits, does it?

I ate the last of my curried turkey leftovers on New Year's Day, but I still have a mound of stuffing to consume.

And sprouts! Oh, god!! Why did I buy so many sprouts??

HBH 113

New Year's novelty:
Long day of sobriety,
Night of fitful sleep.

I Am A Man

Last night's text message summation of the New Year's Eve entertainment at Yugong Yishan:

"I have now seen Kang Mao in ripped black tights and a red tutu. I can die HAPPY."

Damn, that girl is sexy!

The Froog Bar Awards - 2008

Time again for my year-end roundup of the best and worst that Beijing has to offer in the bar & music scene.

I find, in fact, that in many categories my thoughts are quite unchanged from last year. There have been scores of new bars opening in Beijing this year, but I haven't tried most of them, and am unlikely to do so. Most of those that I have tried suck most mightily. Perhaps I am a person of rather fixed habits (although I'd prefer to think of it as a case of my being a person of clear judgment and robust loyalty: once I've found a place I like, I stick to it.)

Anyway, to mix things up a bit this year, I've added some new or modified categories - highlighted in red.

Best Live Music Venue

Winner: 2 Kolegas


Runners-up: MAO Live House and Jiangjinjiu

(Last year I had a separate category for the smaller music bars, but that seemed a bit of an extravagant and superfluous distinction, so I've dropped it this year. Amongst the other contenders, Room 101, alas, did not survive the year, Salud and the Stone Boat were banned from having music for a number of months [bloody Olympics!], and - while I'm delighted to learn that it's still soldiering on - I haven't actually been to the tiny and obscure What Bar in 2 or 3 years. Jianghu, alas, is not what it once was. And Yugong Yishan, as I have bewailed often, is just shite. Club 13 is too far away to be on my radar very often. MAO is still far-and-away the best venue for rock'n'roll - great ambience, great sound system - but gets dropped from the top spot this year because of its overpriced beer and its infuriatingly haphazard scheduling.)



Worst Music Bar

Winner: New Get Lucky


Runners-up: D-22, Guitar Bar

(No changes here!!)



Best Gig Of The Year

Winner: Blues harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite and the Alex Wilson Band at Cheers in January.

(His Sunday afternoon spot at Jianghu was quite magical, but really more of an intimate fireside chat than a show. Cheers is an ideal space for the blues - small, dark, smoky - and the performance that night just rocked. I saw all their performances here in Beijing, and that was way the best.)


(Very close) Runner-up: The stonking 2 Kolegas 3rd Anniversary Show at the beginning of June (after which I lost the hearing in my right ear for a couple of days!).



Worst Gig Of The Year

Winner: A toss-up between the dire White show at D-22 at the start of this month and the Elevator Music Hell that was last week's Ruins/Zhou Yunshan gig at Yugong Yishan.



Best Bar Food

Winner: Luga's

(Last year's winner Saddle now re-branded, but almost identical; in fact, improved in many ways - the burritos are fantastic value and the burger is one of the best in town).


Runner-up: Luga's Villa

(I've found the food a bit spotty in Luga's new - much grander - place around the corner, and the 'authentic Mexican' dishes are mostly rather a disappointment. The portions, however, are HUGE: the burger and the fajitas are popular choices. I was reluctantly prepared to include The Den as a runner-up last year, but the place is in a nosedive, in my opinion: I never liked it much, but the booze, the food, the service, and the decor have all taken a turn for the worse this year.)



Most Overrated Bar Food

Winner: The Tree

Runner-up: There are no runners-up in this category. The Tree is the only place I can think of that has built up such a ridiculously overblown, undeserved reputation for its food. (Once again, no change this year.)



Best Place To Drink While Eating

Winner: White Nights

(Best of the cheap Russian joints these days, I think [though how I miss the old Traktirr!]: the food is hearty; they have an accepting attitude towards people who want to drink more than eat; the draft beer is usually pretty good and not too expensive; the bottled Baltika beer is exellent; and then there's the vodka....)


(Very close) Runner-up: BiteAPitta

(No changes from last year here. Kro's Nest makes the best pizzas in town, but the place lacks charm as a bar. The service is all over the place at the best of times, and on their "cheap beer Tuesdays" they get completely overwhelmed: you can wait an hour to get your food or a drink. I hear very good things about Pyro Pizza - but it's way out in Haidian, so I'm afraid it's highly unlikely that I'll ever go there.)



Best Place To Go For A Cocktail

Winner: Reef

(Especially if one of my friends has been allowed behind the bar to mix the drinks.)


Runner-up: 12 Square Metres

(I'm not really that much of a 'cocktail person'. Most of the places in this town that fancy themselves as 'cocktail bars' are outrageously overpriced, and don't in fact make very good cocktails. Q is the one honourable exception [on the latter point, at least], but it's still ridiculously f***ing expensive, and I don't like the clientele. If you want a decent cocktail that won't cost you an arm and a leg, you should stick to one of these cosy neighbourhood bars on Nanluoguxiang, I say.)



Best Place For Sitting Outside
(Category suspended - because of the bloody Olympics. Sitting outside on the street was banned almost everywhere in Beijing during the summer months, and that ban seems to have become permanent on Nanluoguxiang [probably a good and necessary thing, since the street is so busy these days]; Chen at Reef has got rid of his outdoor furniture, alas. Roof terraces were also supposed to have been banned, but that wasn't actually put into effect - or, if it was, it wasn't enforced. However, thanks to the over-zealous weather management by the authorities here, we had an absolutely dreadful summer in the lead-up to the Olympics anyway: there was not much sitting outside to be done this year.)




Most Pointless New Bar
(rather than Worst New Bar or Most Disappointing New Bar, as we had last year; so many of these new places are somewhere beyond merely bad, and have never raised any hopes to disappoint)

Winner: Lugar's

(A would-be 'upmarket', very expensive Taiwanese whisky/cocktail/wine bar - hidden away in an oscure, unfashionable hutong. There's dumb, there's unfathomably dumb, and then there's this. [Not to be confused with Luga's, of course!])


Runners-up: Nearby The Tree and Drei Kronen and Tsingtao Beer Palace

(Nearby The Tree tries to trade on the popularity of its parent bar The Tree, but is completely dissimilar - and conspicuously fails to draw any customers at all. Drei Kronen is a cavernous and charmless German brewhouse which conspicuously fails to draw any customers. And a Tsingtao theme bar?? What kind of monstrous, idiotic hubris is that??)




'Sign of Desperation' Of The Year

Winner: Nearby The Tree giving away FREE BEER for a month, and still not attracting very many customers.


Runner-up: Drei Kronen giving away scads of free beer vouchers, and still not attracting very many customers.



Foot-Shooting Of The Year

Winner: The steadily degenerating Rickshaw's batty decision to impose a (secret) 15% surcharge on everything during the Olympic month of August - a policy which resulted in it being almost entirely deserted that month.


Runner-Up: Any one of a number of daft and custom-harming ideas that contributed to Room 101's demise, though the leading contender would surely have to be the decision to scrap the enormously popular midnight-1am 'happy hour'.



Redemption Of The Year

Winner: Room 101, which made a pretty dismal start 15 months ago, but was a really great little bar for the first half of this year.

Runner-up: D-22 - which, despite still sucking rather as a music venue, has managed to transform itself into a pretty darned good bar (it's the staff that make all the difference).



Bar Which Has Deteriorated Most This Year

Winner: The Den


Runner-Up: Rickshaw



Worst Bar

Winner: Centro

Runner-up: Paddy O'Shea's

(D-22 and The Tree are so much improved this year that they drop out of contention in this category, allowing the foul Centro to reclaim its rightful - almost unchallengeable - place at the top. Paddy's is also somewhat improved, I found on a recent visit; but it's still appalling.)



Most Overrated Bar

Winner: Ichikura

(Yes, they have a very nice selection of whiskies. Yes, the head barman is very knowledgeable and helpful. But it's way too expensive. They serve the whisky in sherry schooners - what the fuck? And that business with sculpting your ice into a golf ball is just tedious. I've had at least half a dozen people recommend this place to me this year - but I just do not get the point.)


Runners-up: Centro, Q

(As ever....)



Most Sadly Missed Departures

Winner: Room 101

(My most regular - at times, almost daily - haunt for the first 9 months of this year.)


Runner-up: The Sunset Grill - better known as Sammy's, a true dive bar!



Party Of The Year

Winner: The Jack Daniel's Night at Room 101 in April


Runner-Up: My birthday party at Salud in October (only modesty prevents me from putting this first; we certainly had better music at this one!); also, the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Room 101



Best Barperson/Bar Owner

Winner: Li Mei, of 12 Square Metres

(A charming lady, who works with remarkable thoroughness and efficiency behind that cramped bar - and she mixes some pretty nice drinks too.)

Runner-up: That new guy at Salud

(I never get around to asking his name, but he's friendly and fast - and he always gives me the most ridiculously generous free pours of whisky. [Later, much later, I gathered that his name was Bo Wen - or "Bowen"?? - but, sadly, he quit the place half-way through 2009.)



Most Promising New Bar
(rather than Best New Bar, as we had last year; the jury is still out on these places...)

Winner: Luga's Villa

Runner-up: Ned's



Bar of the Year
(rather than Best Bar, as we had last year: my personal favourites are unlikely to change much year by year, so I wanted a category title that was a little more in touch with the shifting zeitgeist)


Winner: Salud

(I fear it is now in danger of becoming rather a victim of its own success: it seems to be becoming impossible to have a party anywhere else. And in this year of so many departures, it seems as though scarcely a week, scarcely a day goes by without a leaving party of some sort there.)


Runner-up: Room 101

(It would have claimed the top spot if it had survived: it was a central part of my life for 8 or 9 months.)



So, here we are once again: my picks of the year. Any comments, complaints, additions, suggestions?

It's only fair to warn you, ladies....

Blue Frog partly redeemed?

I finally managed to round up a posse to test the burgers at Blue Frog this week, and.....

Well, they might just be the best burgers in Beijing.

My companions were all American, and thus apt to be hyper-critical in the matter of burgers: they restrained their enthusiasm, and would only concede that the burgers were very good "for China". Me, I thought they were way the best I've had here - or anywhere, for quite a long time. (I was throwing up much of the rest of that night, but - since my friends were all fine - I must assume that was down to a bug I picked up somewhere else... or perhaps just the blowback from the cumulative gluttony of the last few days.)

There are still problems with the place. It is now attracting a decent crowd (though perhaps only on Mondays?), at least, but.... the music was slightly less dreadful than on my last visit, but still crashingly inappropriate for that sort of venue (rather '80s disco-ey) and way too loud. It's still a fucking stupid name. The recurring blue theme in the decor is tacky and tedious. The draught beer was undrinkably foul. The cocktails are severely uninspiring. And the service is still a bit haphazard (although it looks as though they may have canned all the people I encountered there last time; and they now have a friendly and attentive English manager doing his best to keep things on track): we must have been served by 3 or 4 different people in all; and it really should not take 20 minutes to deliver a burger at the fairly rare end of the spectrum (they weren't that busy).

As for the burgers themselves, they're pretty darned big, the meat and consistency are excellent, and it's nice that they offer you a choice of how you want them cooked - and do it right (unique for Beijing, in my experience). On the other hand, the salads and relishes are a bit disappointing, and the buns (as seems to be inevitable in Beijing) have that nasty hint of sweetness about them.

The allure of a fine burger might possibly tempt me there just occasionally on a Monday night. But it will be a trial to endure all the other irritations just for sake of a slab of good ground beef.

And I shall feel ashamed of myself. This place really does not deserve to prosper - the prices are just ridiculous. A bog-standard burger ought to be priced at around 30-40 kuai. A really good 'gourmet' burger might be worth 50 or 60 kuai. 80 kuai is just preposterous! Their prices across the board are 1.5 to 2 times higher than most of their competition. In these meltdowny times, surely that can't be viable?

And, as the standard-bearer of the accursed Shanghai-ification of our city, Blue Frog should be boycotted by all decent, right-thinking people. (Except on Mondays, maybe......) Are you with me, brothers and sisters??

The final part of my Burger Review Of Beijing will have to wait until the New Year....

Bad taste quip of the season

Overheard in a bar the other day, from a fellow holiday over-indulger:

"Turkey has done more harm to me than to Armenia."

That was the year that was

Time, I think, to revisit the New Year's resolutions I set for myself last year. My success in adhering to them was - as you might have expected - rather mixed.

I think I need to repeat all of these for the coming year, and try a bit harder on some of them.

1) I am going to renounce Tsingtao beer

[Hmmm, well, as I predicted a year ago, finding a suitable replacement was hard. I'm not ready to drink gin & tonics all the time. And the only (affordable) Guinness out here is the slightly sweet bottled 'Export' - again, a nice change of pace occasionally, but not a regular drink. The sudden proliferation of draught Stella in this town has done some damage to my waistline (and my wallet) this year: I need to restrain myself from making that my habitual drink (it had become so for quite a while, at the now-defunct Room 101). I did manage to - very nearly - renounce the vile Tsingtao for 3 or 4 months. I think the Koryo Tours office party at the beginning of March was the start of my fall from grace with this one: they were giving the stuff away FREE and it seemed churlish to refuse. After that, I slowly slid back into the habit of - occasionally - buying it in bars. My consumption of Tsingtao has at least been much, much reduced this year. That's definitely progress. Moreover, we are finally seeing the emergence of some good beer alternatives: Baltica at Jianghu, Stella at Luga's Villa and the Bell & Drum, VB at Ned's, Cooper's at 12 Sq M, and cans of Asahi at select 7/11s and even a few xiaomaibu. And the Pool Bar has recently introduced Harbin Beer (crucially, at the same price as Tsingtao; everywhere else it is - off-puttingly - just a little more expensive)...... so maybe I can make another push for complete Tsingtao-abstinence in 2009. YES - I can, I will!]

2) I am not going to drink White Russians any more

(Other than on special occasions, of course; or when I have a particularly scratchy throat..... )

[Well, I kept to that one pretty well. It is essentially a winter indulgence, I think. And I don't see any harm in it as an occasional treat - rather than the daily habit it had briefly become at this time last year (under the The Chairman's wicked influence).]

3) I am not going to drink at home any more

(Other than on special occasions, of course; or when I have a particularly scratchy throat.... )

[Oops! I have to report a dismal failure on this one. I did cut back a fair bit during the early months of the year; but since then, I fear, I have been as bad as, or worse than ever. I've stayed in quite a lot this last 12 months, partly as an economy measure, and partly because I've been ill such a lot. And quiet - lonely! - evenings in with the stereo and the DVD-player aren't much fun without a couple of cans of beer or a nip of whisky or...... Must try harder next year.]

4) I am not going to eat instant noodles more than once a week

[My most conspicuous success of the year. There may have been a few occasions when I consumed 2 or 3 bowls of this insidiously convenient snack food in the same week, or even on consecutive days (getting caught short of groceries during a particularly gruelling spell of work, or during one of the national holidays when most of the restaurants are closed down for a day or two), but I more than compensated for these lapses by managing to go without altogether in many weeks. I doubt if I've eaten more than 25 or 30 all year, probably less than half of last year's figure. Well done, Froogy - keep up the good work.]

5) I am going to cook for myself at least 2 to 3 times a week

[Hm, well, perhaps that wasn't too much of a stretch; I think I had been managing that last year as well. I haven't been cooking for myself (not proper cooking, anyway; I survive too often on soups, salads, and sandwiches) quite as much as I'd like, but I have been keeping my hand in. Could do better - not only more, but more imaginative and varied cooking should be my aim in 2009.]

6) I am going to start hosting dinner parties at my pad around once a month

[Groan! This has been my aim for 4 years now, and I'm still no nearer to making it a reality. The logistical hassles of acquiring nice cutlery, crockery, placemats, candlesticks, tablecloths, etc. are just too daunting, a gumption-test too far. This year, I'll try again. Really, I will.]

7) I am going to be more selective in my gig-going

[Well, I suppose I can claim some sort of success here: my gig-going has been much more restricted this year - but largely because so much was shut down by the Olympics: no Midi Festival, no Chaoyang Pop Festival, no Stone Boat summer season, no outdoor gigs at 2 Kolegas. Bummer! However, this year has seen the emergence of some decent new bands - Fire Balloon, Candy Monster, Mr Mojo - and SUBS and Ziyo continue to be pretty awesome whenever they play. Maybe it's time to start being a little less selective again....]

8) I am going to get back into a daily exercise regime (weights, stretches, jogging, the whole bit - maybe even a bit of yoga or t'ai chi)

[Another sorry failure, I have to confess. I have made intermittent efforts to follow through on this one, but I've never managed to sustain a regular exercise habit for long. Even my jogging has been very sporadic this year. So much stress and hassle and illness, so much early morning working, such poisonous air quality for much of the year - I just haven't had the opportunity to get out and run regularly. I fear I am becoming quite a porker. Next year I am going to make this one work - oh, yes!]

9) I am going to blog less - and try to do some proper writing instead

[No, that just didn't happen at all. I worry that I am perhaps coming to think of blogging as proper writing. Oh, god, NOOOOO.......]

10) I am going to find a girlfriend (maybe not Madame X, but someone, dammit, someone)

[Well, I did try. These things are not entirely within one's own control. My efforts, of course, were marred by episodes of unaccountable recidivism with regard to Madame X. And I wasted the first 6 months or so of the year by allowing myself to become completely smitten with a woman I never even managed to talk to (I might rebuke myself for shyness and indecisiveness on this, but really - I only ever saw her 4 or 5 times, and none of them were auspicious occasions for an introduction: mounting her bicycle to go home outside The Rickshaw late one night, completely surrounded by friends at a noisy rock gig, showing her dad around Houhai when I was out jogging..... Cruel Fate, how you mock me!). Then there were 2 or 3 other proto-infatuations - or perhaps, 'doomed flirtations' would be a better term - over the summer, with women who were about to leave. And then, and then..... ah, well, I made the mistake of starting to become 'involved' with someone who's been a friend for a while, and probably ought to stay just a friend: she's absolutely lovely, but it's never going to work. Damn! My heart has worryingly self-destructive preferences. Definitely need to work at this one again in 2009.]

A bon mot for the New Year

"The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise, when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears."

W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

Auden said that? Well, I can see his point. Maybe I should go to Maggie's this New Year's Eve....

Last call

It's not quite yet too late to pitch in with a suggestion for a favourite post (from either or both of my blogs) to republish as part of my Review of the Year series over on Froogville.

If you'd like to nominate your favourite, let me know soon. Leave me a comment here.... there.... somewhere.

Just like Ol' Man River....

.... the Possible Band Names thread just keeps rolling along....

Almost entirely thanks to the egregious Gary, who is a veritable band-naming machine and has been keeping the feature going pretty much single-handedly for the last several months.

I have omitted to give him due credit for his latest contributions, in October and November. These were particularly excellent lists, and I find it hard to pick a 'winner' from among them.

At the end of October, the upcoming American Presidential election was obviously a dominant influence, and so we got the sinisterly punning Welcome To The Palindrome and the more directly sinister Soccer Moms For Satan. I think my favourite of this crop, though, was Pitbull Lipstick. Other highlights from that list were Nemesis Schmemesis, Infinite Monkeys, Daggers Of Megiddo (I'm sure there must be a metal band of that name somewhere!), Suffocation High, Lemming Trampoline, and The Suburban Shamans (oh, that was so nearly the winner).

His Foreign Band Name that month was Weltschmerz, and his Cover Band the alarmingly plausible Pogue Minogue - " a bunch of mad Irishmen who do frenetic punk/folk covers of Kylie's hits".

His November offerings included Spartan Martin, Exiles From Atlantis, Mindnumber, and Suspect Device. Nude Newsreaders, Legends Of The Mall, and Strangers With Candy were very close runners-up, but I have to give the top spot to Tsunami Surfers.

In November, our Foreign Band Name was Ay Caramba! (shouldn't that have an inverted exclamation at the beginning?), and the Cover Band nomination was The Who tribute outfit Pinball Wizard.

Fantastic stuff, Gary. Thank you so much for all your contributions over the year.

(I have myself just added a few of the 'found band names' I've been hoarding over the past few months.)

I hope we may soon entice a few new readers to take part in this game (or goad early contributors into having another go).

Sometime in the New Year I'll try to run a poll to determine the Best of the Best from the first year of this thread (nearly 120 comments now - although probably half of them have been mine!). Tell your friends!

YY still sucks

I commented a little while ago on how disappointing I find the new Yugong Yishan music club.

It really pains me to say this, because I've known the owner Lu Zhiqiang for years, and he's probably done more for the Beijing music scene than anybody else: his long-since demised Loupe Chante bar, over by the west gate of Tsinghua University, was one of the first rock venues in the city; and the original incarnation of Yugong was for 2 or 3 years beyond question the best music club in Beijing, and probably in China.

However, his new place is just too big - it's an atmosphere-free barn. And the proportions are somehow all wrong. The stage is just a bit too high: when you're down the front, you feel strangely cut off from the performers towering above you. The "mosh" area is just a bit too deep: if you stand on the elevated level further back, you feel as though you're miles away from from the stage. And that main elevated area at the rear is rather too high, somewhat above the level of the stage - which tends to make you feel even more disconnected from it. The best place to stand, in fact, is on the narrow stairs to either side of the (enormous) sound booth; although that, of course, is rather anti-social because you get in the way of people who want to move to and fro between the stage area and the bar in the rear. (Funnily enough, the sound is always reasonably good if you're near the sound booth - I wonder why that is?! If you're anywhere else in the room, it can be pretty dreadful: that high, high gabled roof makes for an appalling acoustic.) I've had so many disappointing experiences there - even bands that I really like seeming off form, or suffering from poor crowds, poor sound, or poor ambience - that I have practically boycotted the place over the last 8 or 9 months.

However, last night there wasn't much else going on anywhere in town.... and Yugong was advertising a 废墟 gig (fei xu = Ruins - one of the better names for a Chinese rock band). These guys are veterans of the Beijing rock scene, but they seem to be in semi-retirement now; at least, they don't play live any more; or not in any of the usual venues, anyway. I caught them once or twice at the old Yugong, and thought they were about the best rock act I've seen here - superb musicianship, and long, dreamy, semi-improvised instrumentals, rather reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd.

Last night, they were playing with a vocalist called Zhou Yunshan, who is said to be an enormously popular 'folk' singer. Or at least, he was sometime back in the '90s. And unfortunately, in China you only get to be a 'popular' success by pandering to the lowest common denominator. There was a big crowd of his long-time fans out last night (100% Chinese), who seemed to be revelling in it - former teeny-boppers, one suspects (a stage which, in China, can persist well into the twenties), but now getting into their thirties and forties. Perhaps if you could understand the lyrics, this performance might have revealed rather more substance; but I found him an unremarkable singer, and the songs were all desperately bland, at times almost Mando-pop naff. The band were as smoothly competent as ever, but they had nothing really to play: this was just anodyne cocktail lounge music, not to say elevator music. In terms of the crowd, the atmosphere, and the sound quality (I was stood right by the sound booth!), this was about the best gig I've been to there. Alas, the music was a huge letdown. I witheringly observed in a text message to a friend: "The Floyd analogy no longer works. Well, I haven't seen them in three years, I suppose. But Floyd got even better in that time. These boys seem to have got worse."

I was so disenchanted that I could barely force myself to stay until the end of the (mercifully, fairly brief) set at 11pm; and in my haste to leave, it entirely slipped my mind that there were supposed to be other performers on the bill that night, including the rather fascinating-sounding Sainkho Namtchylak, an 'experimental jazz/folk' singer who sometimes utilises the extraordinary 'throat-singing' techniques of her native Tuva (something I first learned of 15 years or so ago through Tuva or Bust!, an entertaining little book about the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman's fascination with Tuvan throat-singing). This hadn't been very widely advertised - what with it being Christmas and all - so I wasn't at all confident that she would in fact be appearing at all, or that she hadn't perhaps already been on (there were rumours that the show had started at the indecently early time of 8.30, and I didn't get there until 10.05). I am sorry to have missed her.

If you're curious about Sainkho, there's quite a lot of her on YouTube - this is probably one of her more accessible pieces. And this isn't.

Anyway, I'm now going to be even more wary of going to Yugong ever again. The place manages to disappoint me every time. Every single time.

However, they have got rather a good roster of bands lined up for the New Year's Eve show. And there's bugger all else to do.....

HBH 112

Honest toil uplifts;
The kitchen no drudgery -
With glass at elbow.

The experience of many of us this past couple of days, I daresay....

They do things differently here

On the left we see the typical behaviour of 'Westerners' at a party.

And on the right we see that of the Chinese.

This is why I don't go to many Chinese parties - all a bit rigid and formal!

Happy Holidays!!

Any similarity to the festive decorations here at Froog Towers is entirely imaginary.

A very merry Saturnalia to you all!!!

Boo! Boo!

I learned just a little while ago that my pal David Mitchell and his most excellent Xinjiang folk/jazz group, Panjir, will not after all be playing a Boxing Day gig at Gingko (the former Room 101) this Friday evening.

The owners apparently decided - at the 11th hour! - that they weren't going to attract much of a crowd this Friday, and thought they'd try to cut their losses by cancelling the band.

A highly questionable decision, I would say. Deplorable, in fact.

Maybe they won't draw much of a crowd on the day after Christmas. Probably bookings in their restaurant aren't going well this week (because they're new, not many people have heard of them yet, and they're not doing any Christmas specials - the next few days, most people are trying to arrange parties and meals at home; and, if they are going out, they're probably going to want some sort of Christmas meal). But they might have foreseen this a month ago, when they booked the band and advertised the gig in all the expat event listings. Once you've done that, I think, you've got to commit to it: publicise the show as much as you possibly can - and go ahead with it no matter what.

I think the negative impression made by last-minute cancellation will be far worse than that which might have been made by a thin turnout - especially for a new venue still trying to establish its profile. There will certainly be some people who look in on Friday expecting to see Panjir, or hoping to see some music, anyway, who are likely to be very pissed off. The disappointment of people who were hoping for a big crowd and find a small one tends to be much less - especially if there is still some good music to listen to. Bar owners in this situation really ought to just bite the bullet, and accept the possibility of a wasted expense on the band if only half a dozen people show up (it's not as if the band's fees are that high anyway).

And I can't believe the turnout would have been as small as that. It's a Friday night. There's nothing much else going on around town. There are quite a lot of foreigners (like myself) still stuck here and at a loose end. There will, for a certainty, be at least a handful of people who wander past Gingko/101 on Friday evening to see if anything's going on there; they'd be far more likely to come in, and to stay for a while, if there were a band on.

And a band always brings its own audience, anyway. If they were worried that no-one was going to come, the musicians would ring up all their mates to get together at least the beginnings of a crowd. And Panjir are a particularly good band. And this was scheduled be (probably) their last-ever gig in Beijing (because David's going home in a few days). Of course they would have drawn a decent crowd!

Yes, I'm quite confident they would have drawn at least two or three dozen punters out - which, for a new bar, in a slow week, is a very good crowd indeed. Anyway, I had been looking forward to this all week, as one of the highlights of my Christmas; and I had been expecting to bring quite a few people along with me.

Those boys at Gingko need their heads examined.

Boo!!!

Christmas draws nigh...

And with it, daytime drinking....

I was conferring with the friend who is hosting our festivities tomorrow. I was rather pleased with myself for having found what might just possibly be the only bottle of sherry in Beijing this Christmas (it was craftily hidden in amongst the Scottish malt whiskies in the Chaoyang Park branch of Jenny Lou's grocery!!), but then it occurred to me that she probably doesn't have any sherry glasses.

She suggested regular wine glasses would be fine.

"If we drink sherry out of wine glasses, we're going to be toasted in no time!" I objected (feebly).

"I don't see a problem with that," she replied.

Alas, poor Sammy's

I am an unashamed enthusiast for the 'dive' bar rather than the fancy-schmancy yuppy type of bar.

However, in Beijing the great majority of bars fall at the divier end of the spectrum, so one's parameters are re-set somewhat. It is strangely impressive - shocking, perhaps terrifying, but nonetheless impressive - when, against this pervasive background of diviness, one finds a bar that strikes one as a real dive.

One such was the The Sunset Grill. An unpromising name; but as I have already observed in passing (on the sadly neglected Great Bar Names thread), everybody referred to it by the name of its cheery proprietor - Sammy's. A much better name.

If you were looking for an equivalent of Moe's Tavern in Beijing, this was it. Indeed, it was several levels sleazier even than Moe's. It was a huge, bare spare space (an upstairs mezzanine giving it an extremely high ceiling), garishly lit, and with almost no decoration - all plain yellow walls and formica surfaces. The only decorative touch, really, was that the back of the bar was festooned with hand-written notices bearing ribald or downright uncouth 'bon mots'. And there were almost invariably a few tables of slightly sinister-looking individuals of some exotic nationality discussing some nefarious business deal or other. I almost wondered if they had set days for certain countries: Friday, Russian; Saturday, Serbian; Sunday, Liberian....

It offered some large-screen TVs and a satellite feed; so, for a while at the beginning of this year, The Chairman and I were considering it as a new option for watching English Premier League football. Unfortunately, Sammy was none too clear how the remote controls worked (and it was probably a pirated feed anyway, and hence likely to be disrupted by frequent re-encryption), so it was always a bit of a lottery as to whether you'd be able to watch the game you wanted or not. I remember there was one occasion where the best sport option available appeared to be South African schoolboy rugby, and another when the only football match we could get was from the Scottish 1st Division!! It's amazing what gets broadcast on satellite these days - anything but what you actually want to see.

However, the booze was very cheap. Very, very cheap. Suspiciously cheap. And almost certainly poisonously fake. But what the hey, it's still booze. The Choirboy and I were once foolhardy enough to try out Sammy's Long Island Iced Tea - priced at a very tempting 35 or 40 kuai and served in a knickerbocker glory glass! - and struggled to finish it, so strong (and toxic) was the mixture. Sammy then comped us another one, and we knew the evening - and perhaps the next few days as well - had got away from us.

The other major recommendation of the place, beyond its single-minded dedication to getting people falling-down drunk as cheaply as possible, was the geniality of host Sammy. He was so eager to build up his custom that he would generally comp you one in every two or three drinks if you were any kind of a 'regular'; and you were a 'regular' on your second visit. I found this heartiness just a bit overdone, to be frank; and - believe it or not! - I didn't always want the extra drinks (particularly if it was one of those liver-pulverising cocktails). However, Sammy's English was fairly limited, so I was perhaps missing out on much of his charm; the Man In Black, a big fan of the place, assured me that in Chinese Sammy showed himself to be a remarkable character, even something of a polymath, able to hold forth on almost any topic you cared to mention.

To be honest, it was never likely to become a regular haunt of mine. The draft beer wasn't much good; the sports coverage was unreliable; they'd use a DJ late night to pump up the 'atmosphere' (i.e. make it too noisy to have a conversation); and some of the clientele really were just a little bit too scary. Nevertheless, it filled the niche for bare-bones grunge that had been left vacant since the demise of the original Bus Bar a couple of years back; it was a useful option to have available, a 'safe haven' where you could be absolutely sure you'd never run into any of the tiresome cocktail bar crowd.

So, I rather miss it now it's gone. It got closed down just before the Olympics. There were rumours of illegal activities having been uncovered on the premises (drug-dealing and such); but then, that sort of thing goes on, to a greater or lesser extent, in most bars; I don't know that it was any more blatant there, and I doubt if Sammy was personally involved. One suspected that this was just another part of the great pre-Olympic crackdown: he wasn't that far away from the Workers' Stadium, and this was not the sort of place that the authorities would want any tourists to see! Upmarket brothel Maggie's was similarly a victim of this moral purge of the city (and was similarly beset by rumours of possibly terminal trouble with the cops, which seem to have proved unfounded). Maggie's has finally reopened again; I wonder if Sammy's will ever be back.

The advantages of age

There's been a rather terrifying hike in the price of most American whiskies just lately. Hard to say whether this is down to the decline of the dollar, or just to a bit of temporary price-gouging by the foreigner-oriented supermarkets like Jenny Lou's, taking advantage of the seasonal surge in demand.

Jack Daniel's - which could, occasionally, be got for as little as 120 RMB when I first came here six years ago, and which was still only 150 or 160 RMB a year or so ago - is now nearly 200 RMB in that store. Outrageous! Jim Beam, which always used to be one of the bargain bucket whiskies, has leapt, literally overnight, from 108 RMB to 145 RMB.

The one brand mysteriously overlooked thus far is Old Granddad, still available at a beguiling 93 RMB. I'm reasonably sure it's not fake. Perhaps it's just very old stock they've omitted to re-price. I'm wondering if I should buy a case of the stuff!

It's not a whiskey I particularly like - but it does the job. Economic exigencies dictate that it will be my Christmas nightcap for the next week or so.

I just hope the more boisterous younger members of his clan - Jack and Jim and their ilk, to say nothing of the overseas cousins Johnnie and Glen, and Paddy and.... - don't give the old fella too much of a ragging over this preferential treatment.

A pictorial bon mot for the week

Getting Christmassy - a Great Drinking Song and a Great Love Song (13+13!)

Can it really be 21 years ago that The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl first sang Fairytale of New York? It seems like only yesterday! Although it now fairly regularly wins polls in the UK as the "best Christmas song ever" (I'm not sure about that, but it has a special place in my heart - and many other people's, I'm sure - because it was so original, so subversive in choosing to celebrate the fact that love can exist even between deadbeats, and can survive arguments and abuse), at the time it only made it to No. 2 in the charts. It was kept off the top spot by The Pet Shop Boys' rather insipid cover of the Elvis classic Always On My Mind (an indignant Shane would sourly refer to them as "two queens and a drum machine"). Here's the original video - don't they look young?

If you're one of those people who just can't get enough of this song..... then you might want to look at this too, a great live performance from St Patrick's Day 1988, just three months after the original release, when the band were in their prime. And I learn from YouTube that last year they performed it on TV again, for the first time in god-knows-how-long (20-year anniversary celebrations, I suppose), with Shane once again reunited with the band and Katie Melua filling in for Kirsty. This one is chiefly interesting to see how they've aged (which is mostly not well, particularly with poor old Shane - but the way those lads used to party, you're amazed that they're still here). A rather more appropriate replacement for Kirsty is Sinead O'Connor, who performed the song in concert with the boys in Dublin last Christmas; unfortunately, her vocals don't come over too clearly on this bootleg, although the picture quality is good. This cellphone camera footage of the same concert is actually rather fun, in that it captures the frenetic singalong atmosphere (even though the sound and the picture are inevitably pretty piss-poor).

Not a dry eye in the house.....

A Merry Christmas to all my readers! (...if I still have any??)

Norman No-Mates (again)

It'll be lonely, this Christmas, lonely and cold....

The Weeble, my best drinking companion this year, flew back to the States a few days ago. The Choirboy is flying home this morning. The Bengali, who had been intending to stick around, just made an impulsive last-minute decision to take a holiday somewhere (he's not saying where, secretive chap). Nearly all of my other occasional bar associates - Aussie Rick, Big Chris, AA, The Man In Black - have quit the country too. Well, Mr Sex is still here..... but - surprise, surprise! - he has "a date" tonight. And as for The Chairman..... well, of The Chairman, nothing can be said. He is "out of circulation". Probably permanently. He is lost to us.

In recent months, I have been finding that I can escape my solitude by popping down to my new local favourite, the 12 Sq M Bar - where most nights there will be a few interesting strangers to chat to (they get a lot of passing trade, mostly short-term visitors staying in nearby hotels); and, if it's deserted, at least I can banter a little with the friendly proprietors, Joseph and Li Mei. Unfortunately (for me!), they're off on an extended holiday in Oz in a couple of days, so tonight will be my last chance for a little fix of companionship there.

Like I said, it's looking like it could be a very lonely Christmas....

HBH 111

Thursday would be BEST
day of the week, but for threat
of Friday following!

Yes, last night's gig was indeed an excellent and important occasion (so many friends saying goodbye); but I could really have done without having to get up so early this morning.

Ah, well - I've got at least 5 days clear, from Christmas Eve onwards....