Blok M diary, June 2004

Writer’s blok

For those avid followers of the Blok M Chronicles out there gnawing their nails in anguish at the lack of a June Diary, the reason is prosaically simple - the Reveller has been low on inspiration and consequently taken a bit of a break from writing. Obeying the old but true adage that "if you haven’t got anything to say, then don’t say it", he’s been drifting in and out of the Blok just savouring the ambience and relaxing.

Blithe spirits

The highlight of the month is a long-promised binge in D’s Place which starts with a slew of tequilas, progresses through glasses of Ricard intercalated with bottles of Carlsberg, to culminate in a seriously weird mix of spirits. Groping in his pocket the Day After, the Reveller extracts a crumpled paper napkin with what look like proto-hieroglyphics scrawled across it. Closer scrutiny reveals it’s the scribbled details of the last two combinations he recalls ordering. One appears to be a Cointreau and tequila concoction, the other an unholy combination of peppermint Bols and Martini Rosso on ice. The Reveller dimly recalls that this last mixture has a colour redolent of green-scummed swamp water, so he christens this new cocktail a Stagnant Pond.

Sunday redux

Back in the Old Country, Sunday was always a bummer. It even inspired a bitter-sweet comedy back in the early seventies - "Sunday Bloody Sunday". So one Sunday the Reveller swings by late afternoon to meet an old friend, and is surprised to find that not only D’s Place but all the other bars are open for business. What has brought about this sea change? Good old-fashioned competition. Since the genesis of My Bar, the other owners have dimly woken up to the fact that the new kid on the block might just turn out to be a cuckoo in the nest, so now they throw open their doors on Sunday afternoon and keep going until late.

Wandering into the blackness of D’s Place out of the broad daylight is a traumatic experience - there’s thunderous music slamming the eardrums, and as his eyes adjust the Reveller realises that the place is packed solid with guys and girls having one whale of a time. The attraction of Happy Hour drink prices all afternoon, and eight or so Ladies’ Lucky Draws, is an offer that the regulars just cannot resist. Shutting off the upstairs disco and cramming everything downstairs is a great idea - the result is high-octane fun and frolics in the downstairs bar.

VIP RIP?

Nothing has polarized opinion so much in D’s Place recently as the third floor VIP bar. Most of the guys who paid their ante and took out membership give it a thumbs up and drop in fairly frequently - the card school that’s now a regular event attracts a fair gathering, and the exotic dancers are always a popular turn. But there are murmurs from many of the regulars down in steerage that it’s nothing more than a money-grubbing ruse and offers little in return for a hefty outlay.

One of the guys sourly comments that the Reveller’s report on the VIP bar opening was somewhat sycophantic. The Reveller replies that at the time it was seen by a lot of the regular punters as a novel idea and worth the effort, and welcomed as a laudable initiative in using otherwise waste space up in the attic. Whether you like it or not is a personal thing - and as it’s an optional extra, no-one who doesn’t want to fork out has to join.

Rumblings of discontent

No, we’re not talking about incipient insurrection or the rising of the downtrodden masses, but the visceral palpitations that result from eating and drinking unwisely. Now the Blok has, over the years, had a pretty good track record - in the Reveller’s seven years of nibbling and noshing down Pelatehan he and his cronies have never once had an attack of the nasties that could be pinned down to the local eateries.

It’s the more worrying, then, that over the last couple of months the Reveller and two of his associates have been stricken with nasty attacks of gut rot that were almost certainly picked up on the Blok. One was put down to prawns in My Bar, another to suspect draught beer in D’s Place, and one to a delinquent beefburger in Top Gun. Now these are suspicions, not accusations, but they add up to a worrying possibility that hygiene standards need tightening up.

Rare footage

The Reveller is a creature of the night. Apart from his job he doesn’t see all that much of Jakarta in the daytime, so he gets a real whack of culture shock when he ventures down Pelatehan early one afternoon. Whipping out his trusty Canon he quickly snaps a batch of piccies for posterity - the street as most of the late-night crowd never see it. (But don’t be fooled by the photos - it’s actually a narrow thoroughfare, and looks like a full-grown boulevard only because it was snapped with a 16mm wide-angle lens!)

If you’d like to see more piccies of the street in daylight, click here to go to the gallery.

Epilogue

The Reveller’s creative juices are flowing again after lying fallow for a few weeks, and he’s already penning the July Update. It’s been a fruitful pause, a time to relax and reflect and just go with the flow. As he wanders down the street after a pleasant and sociable night on the Blok and hails his bajay, he reflects on the therapeutic power that the old place has to restore equanimity in the most troubled breast.