March Update
Blok M update, March 2006
Status report
Aficionados of the Blok M web site will be well aware that there’s been a serious gap in the Reveller’s reporting, an unforgivable lacuna of several months. To the boringly mundane reasons such as pressure of work and shortage of money may be added the loss of a very good friend and the usual gamut of angst, Weltschmertz and alienation that we humans seem doomed to suffer. These things now put far behind, the sense of public duty reasserts itself, and the Reveller is back in action.
The Reveller has already commented on the growing number of overnourished young ladies that are frequenting our beloved bars, but this particular Saturday night is a vintage turnout. There are four massively-endowed girls in Top Gun, one of whom is so broad in the beam that she overflows her creaking bar stool. But the most amazing sight of the evening is a really beefy specimen who is wearing a vivid lilac-coloured stretch-Lycra mini skirt and matching top. A ghastly impasto of inexpertly applied make-up completes the gruesome picture.
These girls are clearly not in the knocking stakes, and many of the guys are perplexed as to who they are, and why on earth they are here. They’re obviously on the hunt, but never get more than polite (and sometimes puzzled) brush-offs from the objects of their optimistic desire.
It’s been suggested that they may originate from BATS, where the management has carried out a cull of their have-beens in an attempt to raise the standard of the in-house totty. Whatever the facts, it’s clear that these poor souls don’t even have the redeeming virtue of personality and sociability. They hover around the bar like overfed piranhas, and after a forlorn circuit of the disco simply drift out into the night.
It’s been remarked in the forums that yobbishness is on the increase down the Blok. Now guys getting belligerent and picking fights in the bars when a bit pissed is bad enough, but when this sort of behaviour reaches the pool table things are really getting out of hand.
On several occasions over recent weeks there’ve been unpleasant altercations in Top Gun, but last night’s takes the biscuit. The Reveller appends his name to the long waiting list, and is duly hauled out of the disco when his turn comes. But lo and behold, there’s a guy already standing at the table and ready to play. When it’s pointed out to him that he’s out of turn he says that the initials ‘ML’ - with which the Reveller has, since time immoral, signed his name on the list - are his name - Mike. When told that this is the Reveller’s regular signature, he changes his tune and says that ‘his name has been rubbed off the list, but it’s his turn’. The staff vehemently deny this and remonstrate with him, but he doggedly refuses to either back down or to apologise.
To cut a long story short, after a few pointed comments about fair play and etiquette the Reveller leaves him to it as he’s clearly in a bellicose mood. The Top Gun staff speak to him again, but to no avail. As the Reveller walks out of the bar later he’s asked if he wants to play. "I don’t play with cheats, and I’m not playing with that idiot" is the Reveller’s uncharacteristically sharp riposte. The guy’s reaction is to lunge somewhat unsteadily towards the Reveller, brandishing a pool cue and threatening to ‘rip his head off’. Amused by this eloquent display of olde worlde charm, the Reveller graciously gestures farewell and turns towards the door as the demented chap is gently restrained by the security staff.
This fellow is now a marked man, having incurred the Wrath of the Reveller.
The Reveller’s good friend and fellow lecher the Shagger has been laid low. Not, it must be said at once, by his usual nocturnal sandwich, but by the malign forces of mother nature. On one of his roaming missions around the nastier parts of our poor old world he ends up in Russia, where it’s snowing heavily. No longer used to the perils of slush and ice (which he, alas, now associates only with the stuff that goes into his glass to chill his drink), our doughty comrade slips and breaks his leg. No sooner have the local sawbones set the fracture than he has another nasty accident in a car park, which results in a broken arm.
So walking into Top Gun one evening the Reveller hears a familiar voice calling him from the street, but looking round he can’t see who it is. Turning back towards the entrance, he hears the cry again. He swings round. Ah, there’s a car with the door open, and - yes - there’s the Shagger himself! But he doesn’t leap out with his usual alacrity - instead he clumsily shoves out a collapsible wheelchair, which is soon unfolded and clicked into shape with the exception of one odd-looking bit that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. "Aha, must be locally made!" chortles the Reveller.
After unfolding his wheelchair the shagger unfolds his tale of woe as he slides lopsidedly into the protesting vehicle and hails the security staff to help him onto the pavement. Now all you Top Gun regulars will know that this stretch of pavement is a lethal patchwork of potholes, broken slabs and slippery debris, and whilst negotiating these perils the wheelchair is backed into one of the large stone flowerpots that an ambitious management has strategically dumped on the kerb in front of the entrance in an attempt to give the joint a touch of class.
That obstacle having been successfully negotiated attention turns to the doorway itself, which is a wee bit too narrow for a wheelchair. So the Shagger heaves himself up onto his good foot and is hauled through the entrance by the friendly security guys. Graciously gesturing the Shagger through the doorway the ever-tactful Reveller cannot help but say, "You look armless, why don’t you hop in?"
Once inside, the indomitable Shagger sets up base camp in front of the cashier’s desk, gets his good hand around a bottle of ale, and surveys the assembled beauties with the lustful grin of one who has long been deprived of the Blok’s chief delight. After a few drinks and a chat with a bevy of old friends the Shagger summons his trusty companion, and they sally forth to pastures new.
Where there’s a wheel, there’s a way…
If, like the polymath Arthur Koestler, you believe in the phenomenon known as synchronicity, then you recognise that similar events can occur simultaneously far more than you’d expect by chance alone. And to be sure, this night in Top Gun there’s not just one, but three invalids. Just after the Shagger has left in limps a guy with a crutch and a leg swathed in strapped padding. Immediately after him, in struggles the old mamasan who recently suffered a stroke and now, poor thing, has to use one of those splay-ended mini-frame walking sticks.
The Reveller reflects that coincidence plays a significant role in the drama of the Blok. How many times has a guy just got himself nicely set up with a tasty new companion, when into the bar trots an old paramour he hasn’t seen for ages - large as life, and seething with jealousy. On one occasion recently in My Bar the hapless Reveller is confronted by not one, but two of his erstwhile (and long-absent) playmates - who are most dismayed to see him in the arms of a new (and exceedingly charming) Sweet Young Thing.
Epilogue
As March slips into the history books the Reveller reflects on the month. It’s been a good one, with New Top Gun firmly establishing itself in the Blok M psyche, and G-String successfully launching itself into the Jalan Pelatehan pantheon. Ever onwards and upwards, murmurs the Reveller as he strides across the road to mount his waiting bajay.