Le Club at Doha Mercure né Sofitel

By
A couple of years ago, I used to feature this place regularly on the Paranormal blog. But that was when Boggs and the Girls were performing nightly. He was a fine guitarist by any standards and all of his girls could really sing, (especially Ringlets). Bands here are contracted for eleven months, from one Ramadan to the next. The band that took over from Boggs, after Ramadan 2010, could only be described as dismal so for a whole year I hardly ever ventured in. Following Ramadan 2011, there was something of a hiatus as this year's band had some visa problems and missed their first few weeks, but they are here now and getting into the swing of things. The news is good and bad though. Philip (who preceded Boggs) is the player, on guitar, keyboards and the inevitable midi laptop. He's good and also sings well. But (there had to be a but) he has come with two new girl singers who- let's give them the benefit of the doubt- haven't quite warmed up yet. In fact, they haven't quite located concert pitch, except occasionally, and that more by luck than technique. Still it's early days yet; they've got all year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Centrifugal Governor

By
Image
Balls! with which Stephenson has tamed the steam and harnessed it to do the work of man, small as you are, each flywheel, shaft and beam is subject to your governance, your plan. Some, in their innocence, were unimpressed. 'A top, a whirligig, a childish gift, a bagatelle', they said, but little guessed: the faster you revolve, the more you lift. And even as you rise, you stem the flow through cylinder and piston, ease the thrust on cam and bearing, mollify the show to dignified decorum, as needs must.
Read more

How to weigh a car using a tape measure and a tyre pressure gauge

By
There are two pretty good ways to weigh a car: Drive it to the nearest public weighbridge and wait your turn. Look up the manual under General Specifications, ‘kerb weight’ But let's suppose the nearest public weighbridge is fifty miles away and you've lost the manual (and temporarily forgotten how to use public libraries and the Internet) and the burning urge to weigh your car just won't go away- what can you do about it? The good news is, you need hardly any equipment. All you need, for a reasonably accurate result is: a hand-held tyre pressure gauge which can be analogue or digital a retractable steel measuring tape a calculator, pencil and paper, or a good head for mental arithmetic The method Park the car on some clean, level concrete Observe that the car is held up by its four tyres (!) Measure the width of the tread of one tyre: e.g. 6 inches Measure the length of tread in contact with the ground: e.g. 7 inches Work out the area of tread touching the ground: e.g. 6 x
Read more

A bleak, dark place

By
Image
It's not that the landscape's so different from the UAE. Yes, it's colder. Snow takes the place of sand; conifers, of palms; stone walling, of concrete. One leaden sky is much like another, whether laced with ice crystals or with traffic fumes. And after all, what is a hill but a plane, tilted? Yet here, there is the suspicion, however unfounded, that were attrocities to be committed deep in this frozen wilderness, justice might follow , in due course.
Read more

The Gorilla and the Three Bells

By
Image
The Gorilla and the Three Bells is a serendipitous fusion of the lyric of Brother Gorilla by Jake Thackray and the original French melody Les Trois Cloches. (Les Trois Cloches is the song that was very loosely translated to become The Three Bells or Little Jimmy Brown). Of course, just because it is possible to fit Jake's lyric to that tune doesn't make it a good idea, but I had to get it out of my system.
Read more

We don't need no education...

By
When Matthew Gloag (no relation to his namesake who founded The Famous Grouse distillery) was five years old, he wrote, in his exercise book, "My cat is a nice cat" and was duly praised by the teacher who, unfortunately, did not suggest the obvious improvement. So it was that, satisfied with this construction, in his later school years Matthew went on to produce such sentences as, "The French Revolution was a very bloody revolution" and "The Tolpuddle Martyrs were notable m artyrs". Somehow, it matters not how, Matthew eventually found himself employed in a Health and Safety capacity by First Great Western Railways where, among other duties, he was assigned to produce platform signage. And that is why, on every lamp standard, on every platform between London Paddington and Hereford, we can read Mr Gloag's finest work to date: THIS STATION IS A NO SMOKING STATION We don't need no education...
Read more