Bonanza

Cornucopia

Looking back through a Pernod-induced haze on this outstanding Friday night in Top Gun my main problem is where to start this narrative, and when to stop it. Yes, I really hit the jackpot – but I very nearly didn’t get to the Blok at all. The story starts in my taxi on the way home from work when I receive an out-of-the-blue phone call from the Shagger, who issues a peremptory instruction that I am to report for duty without fail as I was AWOL on his last visit to Jakarta.

Feeling somewhat jaded after a stressful week I look forward to meeting the dear chap and swapping yarns with him – and in particular catching up on his exploits with that notoriously complex network of consorts, concubines and casuals that he manages. The Shagger is a man who takes his carnal pleasures extremely seriously and plans his nooky with meticulous and military precision.

The Shagger cornered

As I stroll into Top Gun just after eight I’m surprised not to see the maestro slouched at the bar and dripping with Sweet Young Things, so I take a sideways step and scrawl my initials on the pool list. On turning back to the bar I hear my name called out – but where from? Peering into the penumbral murk at the doorway end of the bar I espy the Shagger and his sidekick, both beaming with pleasure and waving their beer glasses in welcome. I deduce from his furtive glance round the bar that he’s sitting in the corner for a reason – and knowing his rampant proclivities, that can mean only one thing: he’s trying to avoid at least one – more probably two, or possibly even three – erstwhile paramours.

What attracts them all to him? I ponder, as he bawls at a distant waitress to pour out a double Pernod double quick. What’s the secret of his amatory success? It can’t just be the money, as although he’s not short of a bob or two he doesn’t throw it around. As I watch him eyeing up a brace of trim young beauties who casually take up the seats next to our little group, I have the rare privilege of watching a Master at work. He smiles, makes a joke, gets them chatting, starts them giggling, and within minutes has them eating out of his hand. And minutes later, hands are all over the place.

Surfacing for a moment to return to our conversation and his ale, he asks me if I don’t think they’re a bit young and innocent for an old roué like him. “Young maybe, but older than they look,” I reply – and innocent is not a word that immediately springs to mind as I watch the lascivious antics this delicious duo are using to regain the Shagger’s venal attentions.

“I wonder if William Gladstone had this problem?” I quizzically interject, referring to the great prime minister’s private preoccupation with seeking out and helping fallen young women on the streets of old London. Indeed, on reflection I notice that there’s a rather unsettling physical resemblance between our friend the Shagger and that eminent Victorian statesman.

We get to chatting about life, the universe and everything, and agree on the richness of our lives. While our contemporaries are huddled over their lukewarm pints in the ubiquitous Rose and Crown back in Blighty, watching the pub telly or vicariously replaying a recent football match, we’re having a bawdy blinder and enjoying a scintillating conversation whilst contemplating a range of carnal possibilities beyond the wildest imaginings of our homeland doppelgängers.

The conversation veers round to what’s been happening in and to the Blok since the Shagger’s last visit, and he remarks that Top Gun is definitely now the brightest star on the street. He’s given up on D’s Place and My Bar, places that he used to frequent regularly in his Jakarta days. We get to discussing what motivates the bar owners and their cronies, why they sometimes seem unresponsive to the needs of their mainstream customers, and why a stiff dose of criticism and comment from the Reveller should evoke such a vitriolic outburst as happened recently. “Well,” I ponder, after a thoughtful pull at my Pernod, “look at it this way. When we’re all pushing up the daisies, what’s going to be remembered about our beloved street? The bar owners, or the Blok M Chronicles? They make money, but I make history.”

Watermarks

As any bibliographer will tell you, a lot can be learned about a book from a skilful analysis of the watermark in the paper it’s printed on. It’s possible in some cases to identify the mill that made the paper, and even the approximate date of its production. The point about a watermark, and its relevance to my thoughts on Blok M, is that it’s an indelible and immutable signature that can best be seen when the paper is held up to the light.

Looking round the bar on any given night it appears much the same to the untrained eye – but to the dedicated observer each night has a unique character, its own watermark. It may be something as ethereal as the quality of the light and the smoke, or as tangible as the shape, size and age of the majority of the guys in the bar that night. It can be the mood of the girls, the timbre of the voices in a hubbub of conversation, even the uniform of the day that the bar staff are wearing. My job as a chronicler is to catch the essence of the evening, pin down its elusiveness, and find the best words to capture something of its qualities.

This Friday night, the quality of good-natured joviality is for me the watermark. The lively swell of conversation and laughter has an almost orchestral quality about it, and I find myself wishing I could record it. The sound comes and goes like ocean rollers, with a distinct and distant rhythm.

Convoys

One of the differences between Friday and Saturday nights that I’ve noted over the years is the group behaviour of the guys and the girls. On a Friday, they tend to move around in groups of three or four, what I call the convoy phenomenon. On a Saturday, the regulars tend to move individually, or at the most in pairs. I wonder if it’s something to do with primeval hunting instincts, when three was the most successful number for tracking, attacking and hacking the prey. Is there perhaps some atavistic impulse that makes even modern homo sapiens naturally fall into a threesome when on the prowl?

One loner who never hunts in a pack is my old friend Ray, whose trademark apparel is an ancient tee shirt, baggy shorts and flip-flop sandals. He wanders round the bar, known and warmly greeted by all the regulars, as in some ancient royal progress. Now Ray is one of those guys who exudes bonhomie and radiates happiness, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the bar lights up when he comes in.

Hornithology

As the evening wears on, the Shagger’s eyes almost pop out of his skull when he catches a glimpse of a Vision of Loveliness in a white miniskirt nipping into the ladies. His jaw drops in awe, and he whips round excitedly. “Did you see that?” he squeaks. “Yes I did,” I reply, “and there’s a story there”. I tell him that she frequently latches onto guys who are momentarily smitten by her, but they soon wise up to the fact that she’s a gold digger. “Last week she pulled the old ‘buy me a coke, then orders a whiskey’ trick on me”, I tell him. “I knew full well what she was doing, but what she didn’t know is that I then put the word round a lot of the guys that she’s a chiseller.”

Edging through the crowd in the Twilight Zone I bump into a very tall but badly faded beauty who gives me a rather forlorn “Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?” look. In fact she has. About five year’s ago in Oscar, when she dazzled all the guys with her stories of being a top fashion model and had a wildly optimistic estimation of her earning potential, she chalked up a lot of expensive drinks not only on my but quite a few other guys’ bar tabs. Now the management had been taking a lot of flack about crazy bills and short change at that time, and to their credit a week later this brazen beauty and several of her friends had disappeared.

All you fans of the one-and-only, ever-popular, totally gorgeous Anis – hold on to your trousers. The dear girl wanders into the bar wearing a stunning bright red top and black jeans, and made up to kill. I remember her all those years ago as a fragile but vivacious little waif, and promptly go into my Maurice Chevalier act humming “Thank heaven, for little girls” as she slinks past my table.

Another more mature beauty, immortalised as ‘Miss QuickFit’ on the Blok M web site and who for some mysterious reason changed her name to ‘Pavlova’ many moons ago, gives me a flashing smile and winks at me as she paces her latest victim. Still svelte and sexy, she’s rarely alone as the crowd wanders off homewards in the early hours of the morning.

As Pavlova fades into the gloom I suddenly catch sight of a stunning silhouette – an extremely attractive girl who has the finely moulded features of a Sephardic Jewish beauty. It’s the sort of face that you could look at for hours, and get completely lost in. She’s not a regular, and I doubt if she’ll be in the bar again, but while she’s there she’s without any doubt the classiest Sweet Young Thing I’ve seen on the Blok for a long, long time.

When she walks away my eyes slowly focus on the line-up of Sweet Young Things thronging the space between the two bars and on the border of the Twilight Zone. They’re a colourless lot, somewhat sour and rather bored looking. Some of the dowdy OEMs are poised against the mirrored wall, and those jaded creatures nailed as Wallpaper in the Types of Girls page.

One person who’s not around later in the evening is the inimitable Dumb and Dumber. She was last spotted dashing towards the bar door with a handbag swinging from one hand, her cell phone flashing gaily in the other, in the company of two of her hunting pack. I have a quiet chuckle, as she’s obviously doing a mail-order delivery service tonight, another of her personas. Once again, I salute the myriad talents and techniques that made her one of the highest earners on the Blok until she got too greedy.

As I sit savouring the refined sleaze of the Twilight Zone I witness a most peculiar scene. A Sweet Young Thing that I haven’t seen before is wandering between the bar tables with a straw in her hand, surreptitiously sipping from unattended drinks that she comes across. Yes, just as you think you’ve seen it all in the Blok M bars, along comes something completely novel.

Having sated myself on a veritable pantheon of Blok M beauties I decide to pop across the road and see how My Bar is doing tonight, in accordance with my promise to give the place a very fair chance to redeem itself.

Paying the piper

Friendly service is of the essence in keeping your customers, making everyone feel that little bit special. A smiling face, a welcome by name, remembering your regular tipple, mean a lot. Imagine then my surprise when my beer is handed to me by the My Bar waitress with a brusque “You want to pay now or later?” Now this is a first for me in Blok M. The time-honoured tradition is for the bar staff to ask your name if you’re not a regular, and to start your tab with the first drink. Now this may be a small niggle in the great scheme of things, but it definitely gets the night off on the wrong foot for me.

Wandering around the bar to see who’s there and get into a late-night mood I hear a tune that I know and like, and smile with pleasure. But the delight is short lived. It turns out to be a crudely syncopated remix of the original classic: gone is the familiar rhythm, in its place a leaden ga-thumpa ga-thumpa. Why they can’t just play the original and let everyone enjoy its tunefulness and tap their feet to its catchy beat is beyond me. Well, as I said before, music is a matter of personal taste and it’s entirely up to the management what they play. But let them never forget that timeless law of commerce – he who pays the piper, calls the tune.

As I weave my way towards the far end of the disco I’m accosted by an old harridan that I rate as the nastiest mamasan in the whole of Blok M. “I have girl you like,” she whines as she blocks my way. “No thank you,” I politely reply as I edge my way past her. “Money no problem!” she hoarsely whispers right into my ear. I give her a withering glare and off she slinks, dragging her joyless meal-ticket behind her to try her luck with the guys sitting at the disco bar – each of whom gives her a more-or-less polite brush off.

Observing the assembled crowd I notice that there are more girls than guys, but not very many Sweet Young Things. The guys seem to be a generally cheerless lot, and there’s hardly a smile in sight – no animation, no joie de vivre. My honest reaction is “thank goodness they’re all in here, and not spoiling the fun and frolics elsewhere”. As I leave My Bar upon finishing my prepaid drink I find myself pondering the age-old chicken-and-egg conundrum: do these guys congregate here because the bar plays their style of music – or do they play this kind of music in response to the character of the clientele?

And calm of mind, all passion spent

This apt and poignant quotation from John Milton’s epic poem, Samson Agonistes, pushes its way unbidden into my sated consciousness as I return home after a memorable night on the Blok. I reflect that the older I get, the more I treasure the literature that I studied for so many long years in my youth. This, I muse, is the true value of a literary education – the rich trove of words that I plunder every time I sit and compose my thoughts and observations for these humble chronicles.

In a world of sound bytes, synthetic wisdom and the instant playback, it warms the proverbial cockles that there are still people out there who enjoy a good read, a tale well told, and love the English language as much as I do. In the immortal words of Casablanca, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”