Place Unpleasant

Every day you hear the wailings from the place behind the railings,
every night the sound of science gone astray,
as experimental therapies are plied behind the palings
(all your failings will be bleached and washed away).

And the chemical inferno is a wonder to behold
as it rages in the space behind your eyes
and you know your parents love you or they never would have sold
your possessions just to pay for this surprise.

Now the doctor comes at midnight as you lie in neon rest
lays a silent hand upon your sleeping head
lays a pill upon your tongue and lays a tongue upon your breast
as he uses you pretending you are dead.

And he calls his friends to witness that the deed was never done
and they take their turns, agree it must be so
for you're now a modern leper and the doctors must have fun
and the world outside is happy not to know.

If the money lasts forever then the cure will take as long
(unprofessional to rush - we must be sure)
but the day the coffer's empty is the day there's nothing wrong
with your mind or with your body. There's the door!

So you walk the streets disconsolate, your friends all look away
your parents moved, discreetly out of range
but there's solace in the pittance that the drunken fumblers pay,
and the enervating mantra - spare some change.

SoundSations - A Joe Cocker Moment

It doesn't happen often, but it did last night, in Doha Krossroads. A long time ago, Joe Cocker took a pleasant enough Beatles song, 'With a Little Help from my Friends', and showed us what it was really all about, how much deeper it was than the bland sing-along version on Sgt Pepper with Ringo on vocals. Last night, at Krossroads, we had another 'Joe Cocker moment'. Alan and the band gave us 'Don't let the Sun go down on Me' as I've never heard it before. It was a phenomenal performance, deeply soulful, almost anguished in its intensity. Alan took Bernie Taupin's lyric and Elton's music and turned them into something SoundSational that deserved to be captured for posterity, but wasn't, of course. I hope these guys know how good they are. We do, those of us that bother to listen.

Le Club, back in contention, maybe

le club, doha mercure grand, formerly sofitel - the last word in sophistication

The time has come, the Walrus said, to re-evaluate Le Club in Sofitel. Regular readers here may remember that some years ago the place was heaving every night. A succession of good lively bands coupled with a liberal entry policy more than made up for the general air of dilapidation verging on squalor. It was never a place to take the legendary maiden aunt; nevertheless, a good time could be had, dependably, for the moderate outlay of the price of a couple of beers.
Where it all went wrong was when the management decided a few years back to make it members only and restricted the membership to men and married couples. When people stayed away in droves, they 'compensated' for, or more accurately compounded their losses by increasing the prices and hiring cheaper bands.
But, it's an ill wind that blows nobody some good. Ramada/Radisson's recent decision to blanket ban Chinese girls with UAE or Bahrain visas, while it has killed the Orion at a stroke (takings can scarce be a quarter of pre-ban levels), has almost overnight corrected the extreme gender imbalance of Le Club. In fact, on Tuesday night, for a time the men were actually outnumbered, for the first time in five years. This happy state of affairs, so rare in Qatar, together with Le Club's recent refurbishment, together made for an enjoyable evening.
Were the girls happy with their new venue? Certainly they appreciated the open door policy. They had some reservations about the prevailing demographic of the clientèle (though they expressed it in simpler language) but hey, even that will change naturally with time, if the word gets out.
And if the management re-engages Boggs and his girls.

Over to you, David Cameron...

Paralleling the fatuous Western fashion for tattooing random Chinese characters on various body parts, there is an equally strange but happily reversible Chinese fashion, especially among the younger ladies, to wear T-shirts emblazoned with more or less random English words and phrases. A few I've seen recently include:

"Garage Snorkelling Crew",
"Feathers from an earlier time",
"The mist has spoken from the hill",
plus several that more resemble samples from the shredder bin. But until today, nothing as surreal as this offering:

CAN DAVID CAMERON 
(picture of horse here)
REDEFINE THE TORY PAPTY (sic)
AND POINT THE WAY TO A NEW KIND OF
AMERICAN CONSERVATISM?

Well, can he? And if not, why not? Surely his Papty could only benefit from his attempt? The wearer, unsurprisingly, had no idea what the words meant or even how they were pronounced, had never heard of David Cameron or the Tory Papty, far less the Party, but liked the horses, the cut and colour of the T-shirt, and thought it looked well on her. No argument there.
The front, by the way, had more horses. And no politics.