COMMENTS

I've been sent some interesting comments from those unfortunate enough to stumble upon my blog:

Great survey, Simon.

BATS - what is it with this place? As you noted, this place is eternal, and the stock of ladies is typically well past ripe. The lighting reveals more than the inebriation can disguise.

As for Tiga Puluh, my last trip there many months ago found women in evening gowns that presumably have been on the game since the Sukarno era. I would take my girlfriend there - the band can be entertaining, but as you alluded to, there is a bit of a caveman-esque thing going on, and escort is required for her every bathroom visit.

I haven't been in CJ's but once years ago, at which time they had a man band of some sort (boy band doesn't quite fit as most were well into their thirties) that was jumping around and making fools of themselves just as you have described, so I suppose not much has changed there.

If you feel you absolutely have to pay US$10 for a drink, then I'd recommend Mistique (or some such misspelling) at the Ritz-Carlton. Much like the BATS crowd - the guys, not so the freelancers, who appeared both more attractive and more scarce, but maybe it's the lighting again. Anyway, the place is more spacious (so less of the spilled drinks and cigarette burns) and perhaps most important to a good ornithologist, the band features a hot Taiwanese girl who doesn't like to hide her body.

As a postscript, how long before Will Ferrell tackles a movie in which he is in a hotel bar band? These people look thrown together by the tides, like a roster of deckhands from anonymous developing nations manning a cruise ship. Drift in, float away weeks/months later, singing crappy pop/rock/rap songs in between. Wouldn't this be pure artistic hell? Was this their dream?

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Thanks to Chijoker for that. I'll have a look in the Carlton and try and break the allcomers single drink price record. Let's see if Will is revivng his Ricky Bobby persona in the covers band. Actually the CJs band used to be my personal bete noir. Utter tossbloaters of the highest order. May they be sent to a hell resembling CJs itself upon their death. Also received this:
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Nice touch about Peter Butler. I did a piece about him a few weeks back but I understood from a W Ham fan he was commuting from KL to Balikpapan!
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Peter was a top bloke although most of his non footballing anecdotes seemed to end with the phrase,"She loved c**k". See y'all soon.