Weeble Solutions (1)

The Weeble's solution to jet-lag:

Live permanently in the wrong timezone.

[Our friend The Artist, just returned from a trip home, came out with us the other night. I ventured that hanging with The Weeble until 4am was perhaps not the best way to fix her body-clock.]

Last night's text message highlights

To Dapper Dan, the last of my would-be quiz team, in a vain attempt to discourage him from resiling from the plan to compete on the grounds that our chances of victory would be slim as a pair:

"It's not about the winning, it's about the drinking."

To the Choirboy, upon learning that he is trying to save money by staying in this week and can only be enticed out for "cultural" events:

"I call this piece 'Stamping on braincells'. Artistic enough for you?"

To the Weeble, when he complimented me on the "wisdom" of my assumption that he would be at least half an hour late for a promised rendezvous:

"If I were wise, I would not have imbibed 5 pints of Stella these past two hours."

And so it goes......

Tom Waits heaven

There is a lot of Tom Waits posted on YouTube, but in digging out that version of Eggs and Sausage (a wonderful unacompanied rap, rasped out at the counter of a near-deserted diner) I posted last week, I happened upon the truly wonderful kittykittylamb. She (?) has posted dozens of extended Tom Waits clips, including the whole of the TV concert programme, Soundstage, for which the Eggs and Sausage performance was just an introduction: 40 or 50 minutes of great music (in five segments) from Waits in his mid-70s husky balladeer phase. And there's much, much more besides. Do go and check out kitty's profile page for the full list.

This discovery could keep me happily occupied for weeks.

New Picks of the Month

In these meltdowny circumstances, it seems appropriate to revisit a favourite China joke that I first posted on Froogville back in the summer of '07.

On The Barstool, following on from last month's pick In defence of my 'love life', I think I'd better cite the related post from January '07, In defence of bars.

A bus with my name on it

Well, not quite, but nearly....

Courtesy of the Bus Slogan Generator. Try it for yourselves.

Bon mot for the week

"If you've forgotten what you were drinking to forget, keep on drinking anyway. There are always more things you're in danger of remembering."

Froog

A new band to follow

I am in need of some new excitement in my gig-going life.

Ziyo seem to have been playing more infrequently - and much shorter sets! - over the past year, and one rather begins to fear for their future, as vocalist Helen Feng devotes more of her energies to her new, rather lame electro-pop project, Pet Conspiracy.

SUBS are still the best live band around, but they haven't added much new material for ages.

Experimental Uyghur folksters Panjir are breaking up, with British founder member David Mitchell having already left Beijing and their other awesome guitarist Ekber Ebliz hoping soon to go overseas for study.

The best bands to emerge in the past year or two - Hedgehog, The Gar, Fire Balloon - are rather hampered by not really being able to sing. Vocal competence perhaps is Perdel's unique advantage over the current competition, but I fear they may be a bit too glibly poppy for my taste (they did a Coldplay cover at their last show, for god's sake!).

Ah, but on Friday I looked in at Jiangjinjiu and found a big (and just about exclusively Chinese) crowd waiting to hear a folk/rock group called Erguang. These guys could be worth looking out for. I had been seduced into going along to give them a try by the suggestion in one of the listings magazines that they had a bluesy quality to them, but I didn't find that very much in evidence. As with most Chinese bands, their musical experimentation is a bit too diverse, with funk, reggae and other elements sitting alongside each other rather incongruously, and most of the lyrics being spat out in a staccato rap style (which I do not love, although the monosyllabic nature of the Chinese language does lend itself well to this). However, there are lots of good things about this band. The vocalist is powerful and charismatic. There's a harmonica player who does add a certain flavour of the blues at times. My old friend Tianxiao, one of the proprietors of bijou music bar Jianghu, sits in with his alto sax (most of the time squonking away rhythmically, in imitation, I think, of a kind of traditional Chinese trumpet.... whose name escapes me for the moment.... probably more properly classified as a kind of oboe, I guess, since I'm pretty sure it must have a reed in it.... ah, I think it's called a suona). The guitarist has some extremely nifty licks. The drummer is punchy and loud (most of the time battering his kit with the fat end of the drumstick). And I adore the amplified guzheng acting as a rhythm guitar: this is the element that really gives this band a distinctive sound.

Yes, I think these boys are ones to watch. I'm looking forward to their next show.

Nighthawks

For anyone who missed the reference earlier....

Yes, I was of course thinking of Edward Hopper's famous painting of that name.

In searching for a good copy of it to post just now, I happened to turn up this variation on it, from a website called Worth1000.

Then I recalled that on my old computer I had this scan of a Simpsons postcard as a screensaver.

And then, of course, as an avowed Tom Waits fan, I couldn't resist throwing in the cover of his marvellous live album from 1975.

And here's the song that includes the line, Eggs and Sausage, in a brilliant unaccompanied performance from a TV show called 'Soundstage'.

HBH 121

Nighthawks at the Diner (Chinese style)

A timeless haven:
cares recede, bed forgotten;
cheap beer and kebabs.

Easy come, easy go

I just wrote an uncommonly tedious post over on Froogville about my current financial woes, in which I outlined my policy of attempting always to spend no more than I earn in any one month.

One of the drawbacks of this approach to budgeting is that, particularly in times of scarcity such as now, it rather too easily inverts into spending everything you earn - as soon as you earn it.

The other day I picked up a very welcome 400 RMB for chairing a discussion group with some nice lady lawyers..... and immediately afterwards went out in Sanlitun with The Choirboy until 3am or 4am and pretty nigh blew the lot.

Naughty, naughty, Froogie - you must rein in these reckless bouts of self-indulgence.

Drama!

There was a bit of high excitement in my 'hood last Sunday around midnight.

Everyone's favourite Muslim joint (getting a bit too popular for its own good, really: it's just over the road from MAO Live House, so the bands and their groupies regularly pack the place out pre- and post-show) nearly burned down. Well, the chuanr stand at the front did, anyway.

The road was closed for a while, but I didn't see a fire engine in attendance. Luckily, somebody was able to dump large quantities of water on the blaze to snuff it out. The initial response, though, seemed to be dangerously, er, casual. A fire like that in the hutongs might quickly engulf the entire block if allowed to take hold. One young chap had climbed up on to the roofs, I assume, to check whether any sparks had spread up there.... and he was for a while dancing around very agitatedly as if to suggest there was a rooftop fire as well; but it seems not.

I was seriously concerned for a while because I thought I'd seen flames coming out of the front door (though perhaps they'd merely been beside the door) and the smoke was so thick that it was impossible to see anything inside. Nor was there was any sign of the laoban outside (a very sweet guy who once chased me down the street to apologise for having inadvertently overcharged me by a few kuai). Fortunately, everyone had got out safely, and the fire seems not to have spread inside.

They'd managed to clean the place up enough to reopen the following evening (although it's still smelling a bit smoky in there). The only evidence of the previous night's close call was the anxiousness with which laoban was supervising the chuanr boy as he got to work at the replacement barbecue stand.

I know, I know - pretty trivial compared to the CCTV fire the other week; but we don't have a lot to keep us entertained around here.

In the worst possible taste....

Ultimate rock star death - crashing your plane into a swimming pool full of vomit.

Plug of the day/week (2)

Simon Cockerell (of Koryo Tours) is holding another of his occasional series of North Korean film shows tonight, Tuesday 24th - from about 7pm, once again upstairs at Bar Blu.

Tonight's programme is supposed to be Americans in Pyongyang, a 50-minute documentary about last year's ground-breaking visit by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; followed by the (curiously - not to say disturbingly - named) Our Fragrance, a North Korean rom-com.

I don't suppose it will quite match the thigh-slapping hilarity (sorry, I meant chin-stroking political allegory) of the "Godzilla" romp Pulgasari that we saw last time, but it sounds interesting. I'm hoping I'll be able to make it.

Plug of the day/week (1)

Joseph, the Aussie proprietor of 12 Square Metres ("Beijing's smallest bar"!), was back home in Oz for several weeks at the beginning of this year, and thus missed Australia Day on January 26th.

He's decided to have a belated celebration of his nation's foundation exactly one month on - this Thursday, February 26th.

The rather fine Cooper's ales are all going to be reduced to a very tempting 15 RMB per bottle, and there will be some discounts on other booze too - including 5 RMB shaved off the already rather reasonably priced malt whiskies on the top shelf.

It's likely to be a busy night, I think.

I aim to get there early, before the crowds.....

A similar state of drunkenness

There's a theory I've often heard, and, I confess, often repeated. I've no idea what scientific basis it may have amongst the authoritative researches of cognitive psychologists, but I feel it has a commonsense plausibility about it.

The theory states, basically, that you have better recall of things when you are in a similar state of mind to the state you were in when you first learned them. In fact, you may only be able to recall certain things when you are in a closely similar mental state to when you first learned them. This is particularly true of the radically altered states of mind that can be induced by the consumption of drugs or alcohol.

In short, things you discover while drunk can usually only be recalled when you achieve a similar state of drunkenness. You may have forgotten them completely while sober. You may not be able to recall them when less drunk or more drunk than when you first learned them. But if you can get almost exactly as drunk again, it all comes flooding back to you.

This is particularly useful, of course, when trying to remember the whereabouts of that really good new bar you stumbled upon by accident in the middle of an epic pub crawl. Or the phone number of that utterly gorgeous girl that you wrote down on the back of your hand but then washed off in a moment of self-destructive carelessness.

This theory is troubling me again just at the moment because I am being urged to take part in a trivia quiz tonight..... for the first time in..... ever such a long time.

And I reflect that, while I have been quite a formidable quizzer at various stages of my life, most of the quiz-worthy information that should be stored somewhere in my brain was in fact acquired at quizzes..... and hence while I was in a state of some drunkenness.

At present, sleep-deprived and perhaps ever-so-slightly hungover, but severely sober.... well, I struggle to remember my own name (when I start answering to 'Froog' in the bar, I'll know this whole blogging thing has gone too far!). I worry I'm not going to be of very much use to my team mates at all.

I need to work out exactly how drunk I usually used to get at the quizzes I took part in 15 or 20 years ago..... and try to achieve that state again. Wish me luck.

The weekly bon mot

"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones."

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

And perhaps to persuade ourselves?

All blogging is self-exoneration. Discuss.

Dorian Gray

Don't look in the wing-mirror of the taxi.

Well, at my age, it's probably never a good idea to look in a mirror. Certainly not when you're tired and drunk.

But - never, never look in the wing-mirror of your taxi home.

Because you will almost certainly be tired and drunk. And the light will be poor. And there are going to deep shadows across your face (what light there is coming from streetlights, high up). That mirror isn't likely to be very clean, which may make things even worse. And it's a magnifying mirror, which is apt to distort your features in most unflattering ways. And...... Just DON'T!

I happened to catch a glimpse of my face in the wing-mirror of a taxi a few nights ago, and I was shocked, appalled, horrified. Hooded eyes, coarse skin, wrinkles like canyons; everything pallid and puffy, bloated and sagging. Just horrible. I was uncomfortably reminded of the face of my elder brother, who did not age well (lost most of his hair in his early 20s, poor chap; and, with a mostly sedentary job and an excessive fondness for spending all his spare time in the pub, he began to pile on weight shortly after that: he looked 40+ before he'd reached 30). I have always liked to think that I am rather the reverse: that despite having passed the baleful threshold of 40, I can still usually pass for 30. But perhaps the years have finally caught up with me. Caught up with and overtaken.....

No, no, it's not that bad. Poor light. A slightly convex mirror. A long day and too much booze. As soon as I got home, I marched into the bathroom to check on my appearance and was reassured to find that, with decent lighting, I looked much younger and sexier, far less raddled and ravaged, considerably further from death's door..... than I had in that bloody taxi wing-mirror.

Quest

I gather that there is another 'Japanese whisky bar' in town (not a phenomenon I particularly warm to; note my comments on Ichikura in my annual bar awards post!) that I haven't yet tried.

This one, I'm told, emphasises North American whiskies rather than Scotch or Irish ones, and has an enormous selection of them.

I was reminded when watching The Hustler again recently that Fast Eddie's favoured poison is a brand of bourbon called J.T.S. Brown. I hadn't remembered this detail from the film, and I don't think I've ever seen or heard of this whiskey. However, as an idolater of this film and this character, I feel I ought to find some and give it a try.

It seems as though this obscure Japanese place would be my best bet for getting hold of some in Beijing. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me remember what it is called, and I have no idea whereabouts in the city it is supposed to be. And if it's as crazily inconspicuous as its brothers Ichikura and Glen (no sign out front, entrance round the side, up a fire staircase), it could take me a very long time to track it down.

Still, it's good to set goals and objectives for yourself, isn't it?

Remembering 101

The other day, a drinking companion suggested having a bite of supper in a Muslim restaurant just off Andingmennei. It's rather a good little hole-in-the-wall, but I hadn't been there for 4 or 5 months, had almost forgotten about it completely.

This restaurant had, for a while last summer, started to become a new favourite haunt - primarily because it was just around the corner from Room 101, my premier watering-hole for much of last year.

So, while enjoying my chuanr that night, I found myself getting rather wistful again about the demise of 101.

It was an odd combination of circumstances that brought this bar to such a position of prominence in my life - and I rather doubt if any other bar could now repeat the feat. No, even if Room 101 itself were to be resurrected in its original form, I don't think I'd be going there very much now. It was a transient phenomenon.

How did this phenomenon come about?

Well, in the first place, there happened to be a vacancy in my life for a new bar; or a semi-vacancy, at any rate. I had been going to the Pool Bar just a little too much at the end of the preceding year, and needed a little bit of a change of scene. And, much as I love the place, not having any draught beer is a serious handicap. When I renounced bottled Tsingtao at the beginning of last year, I was rather left without anything to drink there! Also, to be frank, there were one or two people there I was trying to avoid at that time.....

So, the Pool Bar's monopoly on my affections was for a little while broken, or at least weakened. And amongst my other favourites.... Jianghu compromised its charm with some renovations and some price rises (and by breaking its relationship with my two guitarist buddies who used to put on such a great show there every Thursday night), Salud was prevented from hosting live music for much of the year (bloody Olympics!!), and 12 Square Metres (then a very recent opening) was not yet on my radar.

So - somewhat unusually - I had space in my life for a new bar; particularly one that was hosting live music once in a while. And particularly one that was less than a 25-minute walk from my home. And particularly one that had good draught beer (my weakness for Stella Artois piled the pounds on me last summer) and reasonable prices. And particularly one that had such a beautiful, beautiful island bar. The 6pm-8pm happy hour was a big attraction too: I'd often be tempted to start the evening there, especially on a Friday (or a Saturday, or a Sunday), before going on to eat or play pool or listen to music somewhere else.

Even so, it still might not have entrenched its position so deeply in my routine but for the fact that I started a twice-weekly evening teaching gig nearby. Through the spring and early summer, every Tuesday and Thursday I was finishing work - exhausted and thirsty - at 8pm.... with the allure of Room 101 only 10 minutes or so away and - kind of - on the way home. I got into the habit of phoning ahead or sending a text message to get them to pour me my first Stella on the happy hour tariff at 7.59.

And then.... my old friend The Barman went to work there for a while; and that really sealed the deal for me: it's great to have a bar where you know there's always going to be at least one person you can hang out and shoot the shit with.

But now..... everything has changed. The Barman has moved on to pastures new. I am refusing to accept any more evening teaching jobs because they make me horribly grouchy. I've given up on my attempt to avoid the dratted Tsingtao completely (and anyway, the Pool Bar has recently started selling the far preferable Harbin beer at the same price), and I am containing my Stella craving with once or twice a week visits to a couple of promising new bars, Luga's Villa and the Stumble Inn. The Wednesday music nights are restored at Salud. I'm growing used to the new ambience at Jianghu. And best of all, 12 Square Metres is now established as my preferred spot for drinking alone - because you can always look forward to an interesting chat with the friendly owners or one of the constant trickle of exotic visitors who pass through the doors.

Yep, if Room 101 had opened this year, I think I might have spurned it. Funny how these things go......

Now they've made a T-shirt for me

HBH 120

Night usurps the day,
Stealing half of tomorrow.
Four in the morning.

Yes, it happened again. Yes, I blame The Weeble.

The Anchor

Oxford is an idyllic place: a city in name only, it really has much more the feel of a medium-sized town. Its leafy northern suburbs are particularly gorgeous, but during my student days I wouldn't often venture that far out of the centre. One year, some friends of mine rented a house on Polstead Road which boasted a Blue Plaque commemorating the fact that T.E. Lawrence once lived there. They had two or three 'Lawrence of Arabia' costume parties during that year, but those were probably the only occasions on which I walked down that road, and, if I had noted the large-ish pub at the western end of it, it had not made any deep impression on me. I'm not sure if I'd ever looked inside it in those days.

But then, a few years later, another friend of mine - a Distinguished Theologian, funnily enough - was living on that street while he laboured over his doctoral thesis. I was still visiting Oxford fairly regularly while in my first job (as an English teacher in a boarding school in Somerset), and then, quite soon, I found myself living in the city again myself.... in the northern suburbs, not too far from the Distinguished Theologian. And somewhere about that time, the early '90s this would have been, a remarkable thing happened to that pub on the corner of Polstead Road. For a year or two, it became very nearly the best pub in the world.

Now, in many ways, it really shouldn't have insinuated its way into my heart so. It failed to satisfy a number of the key criteria I have identified as crucial to a great bar. The decoration was a little too swish (lots of art deco fittings: tastefully chosen, quite gorgeous, but just too fancy for a down-to-earth boozer). It was a little too light and airy (that one year I was hanging out there all the time we enjoyed an exceptionally sunny spring and summer). The food - fantastic! - was rather more elaborate than we really need in our local (it was a pioneering 'gastro-pub', before that phenomenon had really taken off).

No, not at all my usual ideal, but..... so much love had been lavished on the reconstructed Anchor that it was difficult even for me to curmudge about it too much. It was a retirement project for an affable chap called Charlie, who had apparently spent most of his working life as a salesman for a brewery and so knew the pub trade inside and out.

If the place was just a bit too genteel and upmarket for my usual tastes, there were many things about it that were just right. This is the kind of place I dream about when dissatisfaction with my current bar options overwhelms me. It was a traditional Victorian 'corner house' - redbrick exterior and tiled walls within. Two stout wooden bars, of ideal leaning height. An excellent selection of beers on draught. And, ah yes, not one, not two, but three of the loveliest barmaids I have ever known. Heaven.

As with all things of beauty, of course it did not last. The custom, I imagine, was not quite strong enough to repay the massive investment Charlie had made in renovating the place, and he gave up on the project after a year or two. The Anchor quickly reverted to being an unremarkable neighbourhood dive, barely distinguishable from the dozen or so other pubs in that corner of the city. But, for one glorious summer, at least, it had come astonishingly close to pub perfection.

Midday drinking?

My regular leader-astray, The Choirboy, currently (like so many of us!) between jobs, had suggested some consolatory daytime indulgence this lunchtime.

As I have mentioned before, I rarely indulge in daytime drinking - but when I do, I rather enjoy it, because I actually find it possible to get drunk. My physiological and psychological adaptation to drinking at night is far too robust; but daytime drinking counts double, it enables me to exceed my limits and get into the happy floaty zone relatively easily.

So, having nothing else on this week, I had been rather looking forward to this interlude of irresponsible hedonism in the middle of the day.

And you know what? The bugger digs up a freelance assignment from somewhere and cancels on me.

So, once again I must content myself with the more purely intellectual pleasure of reading, & co.

Why we play pool

I bought myself a copy of The Hustler up in Harbin a year ago, but I only just got around to watching it again.

I suppose "Fast Eddie" Felson might rank as one of my 'Unsuitable Role Models'.

Here's his great - inspirational - speech about how he feels when he's playing the game.

"I just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it's great, when it's really great. You know, like anything can be great. Anything can be great. I don't care; bricklaying can be great, if a guy knows... if he knows what he's doing and why, and if he can make it come off. When I'm goin', I mean, when I'm really goin', I feel like a... like a jockey must feel. He's sitting on his horse, he's got all that speed and that power underneath him, he's coming into the stretch, the pressure's on him, and he knows... just feels... when to let it go and how much. 'Cause he's got everything working for him: timing, touch. It's a great feeling, boy, it's a real great feeling - when you're right and you know you're right. It's like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. The pool cue's part of me, you know; it's... the pool cue, it's got nerves in it. It's a piece of wood; it's got nerves in it! Feel the roll of those balls. You don't have to look, you just know. You can make shots that nobody's ever made before."

And, of course, immediately after that, his kooky girlfriend Sarah, suitably impressed, comments, "You're not a loser, Eddie. You're a winner. Most men never get to feel that way about anything."

It's a great, great film. And, while not being anything like the player that "Fast Eddie" was (nor half the player that Paul Newman was, either), I do know that feeling.

Bon mot for the week

"What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?"

Karen von Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962)