It's haircut time.

Seems very reasonable

That works out to about £3.90 but it turns out the blow is when they dry your hair with a blow drier.

Never mind. It was the best haircut I've ever had. At that price it's almost cheap enough for me to fly out here every time I want  the Brittain bonce attended to.

Shangsterdam twinned with Amsterdanghai

I was struck by the similarity between Amsterdam and Shanghai recently. Allow me to list them.
1. There are bloody bikes everywhere. Admittedly there are more per capita in Amsterdam (or The Dam) but they are driven equally recklessly and without recourse to the Highway Code, common sense or even the instinct for survival.
2. There is nothing to eat. Well of course there are things to eat but nothing that actually tastes nice. Well of course there are things that taste nice but they are usually miles away. And expensive. The locals, naturally, are highly patronising and take great pleasure in belittling anyone who pales at the thought of eating predigested Pea and Sausage soup (The Dam) or Pigeon Sick(The Anghai).
3. On the pavement locals in both cities do not acknowledge the existence of anyone else on the entire planet.
4. Dog shit. It is ubiquitous. Though in The Anghai it seems drier. I have no explanation for this.

Shanghai...no wait... Amsterdam... errmm.... hang on a minute... it's perpendicular (albeit temporarily) so it's Shanghai.

5. Shoddy buildings. Shoddy, shoddy workmanship Ted. As you saw from my previous postings from The Dam, the whole city is in an advanced state of falling down. A lot of The Anghai HAS fallen down and what little remained was flattened. Instead hundreds and hundreds of poorly assembled high rises have been slung up instead. It's only a matter of time. Structural integrity, in both cities, is taken with a pinch of salt and is regarded by architects as being "for girl architects."
6. The absolute necessity of keeping your wits about you at all times. Not for crime. No. For absolute knobheads on Bicycles. Citizens of both cities use The Probability Method (TPM) of cycling. ie. There probably won't be anyone walking past when I burst out from a side street, that pedestrian will probably hear me hurtling towards them from behind and get out of my way, that red light is probably green, my parked bicycle probably won't be in anyone's way. You know, that sort of thing.
7. Both cities seem quite safe. Crimewise. In The Anghai it's because criminals get shot. In The Dam it's because no one can be arsed.
8. Mice. In The Dam they are on the stairs, where on the stairs, there on the stairs, right there, little mice with clogs on, going clip clippity clop on the stairs. In The Anghai they're on the plates, deep fried and eaten. With a nice Tsing TSao (if they can afford it). Thiffs, thiffs, thiffsz. Clarice.

Grab the shaft , play with the balls

That's right, my friends. Pool!

Look at the concentration. Look at that bridge hand. There's no question of where that ball is going is there? Hurtling round the table on the basis that if I hit it hard enough something's bound to go in and sending the cue tip through the baize with a satisfying ripping noise. Another pool table bearing silent but damning witness to my cueing skills. Truly, when it comes to putting on international displays of pool skills my game knows no boundaries. A style of play I have entitled Pool Sans Frontieres . Others have rather rudely entitled it Pool Sans Talent. The bastards.
And those aren't breasts. That's my T-shirt just flapping down a bit. Yu hustled me and I lost 3-2. This is in a bar called Kangaroo. You might think it would have an "Aussie" theme. But no. The theme was "A crappy bar with no one in it" which they pulled off spectacularly well. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing I like more than a crappy bar with no one in it, so I was as happy as a stick.
Funnily enough it's right next door to The Constellation (see below) who's theme, if it had one, would be "Exactly the opposite of a crappy bar."
Rest assured that even though The Kangaroo was crappy they were still putting a 376% mark up on the price of  a bottle of Tsing Tsao. I think, if I had a theme, it would be "Moaning about the price of a bottle of Tsing Tsao." In England my theme is "Moaning about the price of Fosters." This takes the form of me yelling "£7.50! That's what's wrong with this country!"on being served two pints of pissy Australian lager.
Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. The three C's.

Told you

This lady is combining the twin Chinese passions of wearing pyjamas during the daytime and doing incomprehensible things that to western eyes look a bit...you know...daft. In this case going for a jog with her slippers on.
Glad I got a picture of someone wearing jimmies during the day. I was worried people wouldn't believe me and it is bloody cold out here so the opportunities to capture one on camera are pretty rare. This lady got round the temperature question by running and by wearing quilted jim jams.

The Constellation

The Constellation is a stylish bar in The French Concession (see post below). It is a tasteful, very expensive Japanese/Old Colonial fusion.

We're talking dark wood, sumptuously upholstered leather chairs, smartly attired waiters and what conversation there is, is hushed and high brow. The bogs are smarter, bigger and smell better than my flat, the lights are low and one buys one's favourite tipple (mine's normally beer but it's not that kind of place - it's whisky, vodka, gin, that type of thing) by the bottle, which one writes one's name on and on your departure, they store it in darkened, padlocked, air conditioned cupboard from which they reverentially bring it forth on your return.

Yu and I were so impressed we splashed out £137 on a bottle of 12 year old, Single Malt Japanese whiskey.They proffered it to me and I checked the label, then they gave me the special pen for writing my name on the bottle. Oh dear.

I'm 4 arseing 7 years old. What was I thinking?
 

Hey Andy I thought you were in Shanghai! Not France!

Cite Bourgogne? Qu'est ce que c'est que ca?

Am I "en France" (literal translation - in France)? Non (no).
The simple explanation is that this building has been built in an area of Shanghai known as The French Concession but I don't know when. Parts of Shanghai were divvied up and ceeded to other countries such as good old Blighty, The French, the USA and other countries and the Chinese government were obliged, by the use of artillery and gunboats bobbing about on the Huangpu river, to rent these areas to foreign powers.
The British and Americans and all the other nations eventually just lumped their bits all together and called it The Shanghai International Settlement. The French, as per, kept their bit separate and went about doing what they always do ie. exactly what they bloody well please and more or less the opposite of anything anyone else wants them to do. Whatever it is. Even if it's sensible. Like women.
No doubt their typically haughty Gallic preference for keeping themselves to themselves went down rather well with everyone else in 1920's Shanghai. It meant they could get on smoking opium and shouting at Chinese people in English, without bumping into Guy de la Nez or whatever his bloody names is, looking down his enormous French conk at one.
These days it's probably the nicest area of Shanghai and home to many expats. So it is now full of Oirish bars, British bars and other bars which think that just because they have a flappy velvet curtain over the doorway, play Bryan Adams and turn the lights down a bit, they can sell a bottle Tsing Tsao (really quite tasty) for £3! When it only costs 40p in the tatty shop next door to where I live.
I ask you.
Not only that, they're full of exactly the kind of people you try to avoid in London.

New Year fireworks

 

Bit of an experiment really. To see if I could upload video. 

These fireworks were going off from about 4:30 in the afternoon. Slowly at first but building up until midnight, when the whole of Shanghai burst into goddam flames. This occurred every night for 5 days. And during the day firecrackers were going off just to keep everyone in the mood. I think some of this is anti-aircraft. Some high jinks from the army boys lead to the gun getting away from them a bit.

Can't blame them for going a bit mental because it's the only public holiday they get. It's now work work work until next year. Needless to say I got thoroughly involved in the celebrations by introducing a little bit of noble English culture into the proceedings. Ha ha ha. Yes. I got  a bit drunk. Like a great big fat idiot. Well I see it as a cultural exchange. Hands across the ocean. You know. That type of thing.

I don't know why this copy is centered. 

Weird. 

And unpleasant.

How to be a Chinese pedestrian.

Today you discover me strolling the boulevards of Shanghai town of which the picture above is a typical example. What better time to jot down a few pointers of how to walk “The Chinese Way”? All the experience I’ve gained of walking in the UK by alternately putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again is of no use here. Walking and being Chinese is a much more complicated task requiring concentration, excellent peripheral vision and an uncanny ability, a sixth sense if you will, of being able to detect the approach of someone directly behind you, so you can really get in their way.

For this is the prime object of the Chinese pedestrian. It’s not enough simply to get from Ai to Xhoujiabang Lu using your legs. No. It must be combined with stopping other people doing the same thing.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the pavements are narrow. This is so that one tiny little, bandy-legged Chinese lady can block an entire pavement with a well timed dither. So what are the rules?

1.                     1. As mentioned above, only dither in bottlenecks. It’s a narrow pavement but if you can stop to examine some air or whatever the hell it is that’s suddenly so important you have to screech to an abrupt halt, next to a tree, a row of bikes or a stationary little old lady, so much the better.

2.                   2. Better still, make sure that it’s a pavement with railings so that people can’t even take their chances in the traffic to get past you,

3.                 3. If you detect someone approaching fast from behind, perhaps someone with somewhere to go or          something to do, try to veer into their path.

4.  If they change direction veer back again. And keep veering. 

5. Walk at a speed that is too slow for a person who actually has a life, to stay behind, but too fast to overtake before another Chinese person approaches from the other direction to block any fleeting overtaking “windows”.   

6. If there are three of you, so much the better. Simply walk very slowly in line abreast, preferably holding hands. No one’s going to get past that slowly rolling pavement block.

 iv.  If you approach someone “head on” DO NOT make any effort to allow them a space to pass. Keep going straight at them. Preferably just walk into them and barge them out the way (note – If a collision does occur, be surprised that there’s another person on the planet except you. I know it’s one of the biggest cities in one of the most populous countries in the world but be genuinely surprised. Almost as if you are a bit selfish).

8.                  f. Spit.

xi     If all the above fails, you have to play dirty. Drive your motorbike on the pavement. At pedestrians. Fast. If you’re approaching from behind do it on an electric one. That way they can’t hear you coming. Beep your horn at them at the last minute and yell something in Mandarin. Puts the shits right up them.

There it is. The 9 step guide on how to walk the authentic Chinese way.

Look what I saw in a posh car on Shaoxing Lu.

Shaoxing Lu (literal translation Shaoxing Road)
It was parked up, all shiny, with a chauffeur in it. I wonder if it pulls the birds. Sophisticated wit like that is pretty rare so I imagine it does. Maybe Mr. Leon Jaume is in town for the New Year. In which case, lock up your daughters.

A hearty Ni Hao from Shanghai

Happy New Year to the people of the Chinese People's Republic of China. It's the year of the rabbit and anyone born in one of the previous year's of the rabbit should wear red pants all year apparently. It's good luck. I think it may be a ploy by the Shanghai Red Pant Trading Co. to shift some red pants.
Anyway, Chinese people don't celebrate New Year by buying expensive tickets to get into a pub you otherwise go to for nothing the rest of the year, getting pissed as a newt, bursting into tears and having to walk home because there aren't any fucking cabs. The weirdos.
No.
Theirs is a more traditional, sophisticated, honouring of the gods. That's right. They set fire to their city.
They do this using fireworks and fire crackers.
Other traditional Chinese New Year celebration techniques involve keeping Westerners awake all night using fireworks and firecrackers, frightening Western pedestrians who have just popped out to buy beer using fireworks and firecrackers and setting off fireworks and firecrackers.
It all adds up to quite the conflagration.
Here are some of the magnificent blow offs I witnessed from the balcony on the 32nd floor.

A Shanghai Hairy Crab

Three Whizz Bangs.

From left to right: A Xhao Jia Bang, a Maiden's Starfish and a little Parper.

A Giant Let Off and, on the right, that building there just blew up.