First Tuesday in November: That’s the day one of the most famous races in the world involving thoroughbreds is run, namely the Melbourne Cup. Contested over 3200 metres (two miles in the old Imperial measure), it attracts potential pet food from all over the world and this year, as usual, the race will be beamed live onto the TV screens of the Boxing Roo beer bar (Third Road, opposite Soi Lengkee). Unfortunately, due to the time difference between Thailand and Australia, the Melbourne Cup action at the Boxing Roo starts around 9:30am (that’s in the morning) with the race itself starting at about 10:30am. Anyone interested in ‘getting set’, as the racing parlance goes, should approach Uncle Kenny (he’ll be the one in the pork pie hat and looking as shifty as one would expect of a keeper of the tote) and whisper, “What price is that nag in the nose roll?”

     Like a Revolving Door, so are the Days of Our Go-Go Bars: As nightlife entrepreneurs in Pattaya slowly move into gear with fingers crossed for an expectant high season, this past year has looked more like a re-arranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic in the go-go bar arena.
     Read the following very carefully, because even I started to go into a mental spin just writing it. By my own limited calculations there have been 14 openings and 14 closings this year, so far. I am aware of at least another two and possibly three more go-go bars due to open, possibly by the time this column reaches the streets.
     Some of the closures look potentially permanent: for example, Loma on Naklua Road and Wet & Wild off South Pattaya Road. Others just changed their names. Counter Soho opened in the struggling Soho Square complex at the bottom end of Walking Street and soon changed its name to K, and then closed. Utopia, another in Soho Square, opened in late 2008, closed in March this year, has been remodelled and started up once more at the beginning of October.
     In the nearby Covent Garden complex the former Babewatch, which had changed owners and become Taboo, started life again under even newer owners as Black and White and then transmogrified into Sin City.
     Pinky Girls, one of the crutch of dens owned by the enterprising Khun Nui, closed early in the year and the area was demolished to make way for a new bar complex. Fun Room, another of Nui’s burgeoning empire of dens, was re-opened in May after a year of closure, then closed again after just two months, and re-opened yet again in August.
     Funnily enough, away from the environs of Walking Street the only places that have closed -apart from the aforementioned Loma and Wet & Wild- have been Spicy Girls in Soi Post Office and Popcorn in Pattayaland Soi 2. Ice, situated in Soi LK Metro, just up the road from the highly successful Champagne, had a brief attempt at being a go-go but has since devolved into a coyote dance bar and then simply a place for people to drop in and try and work out what it is trying to be.
     On the other hand, First in Soi 8, Betty Boum in Pattayaland Soi 1 and Mandarin in Soi 6 have opened -or more correctly in the latter case, re-opened- and managed to remain viable.
     I think being in the sign-making business in Pattaya could well prove a profitable enterprise, or even in the nightlife broking caper.
     And the Real Survivors Are: Given the revolving door nature of business in recent times I think it’s worth noting some of the palaces of the chrome pole exponent that have not only survived but seem to have prospered.
     Of the 78 go-go bars extant across Fun Town at the beginning of October, about 15 have been operational since last century, including such evergreens as Tahitian Queen (on Beach Road) and its younger sibling Tahitian Queen 2 in Soi BJ, Carousel, Diamond, Super Baby, Super Girl, and Paris (all in Soi Diamond), Classroom (Pattayaland Soi 2) and Classroom 2000 (Soi 2).
     The ones who have opened in more recent times and seem to be doing very well include Baby Dolls (in October the den had its third anniversary), Club Boesche and Catz (both opened in 2005), Club Oasis (set to be three years old in December), Heaven Above (opened 2004), Living Dolls Showcase (due to celebrate seven years of operations in November), What’s Up (opened 2002) and Windmill Club (which will celebrate its fourth anniversary on 19 November).
     Rolling with the punches: Mentioning Club Boesche (Soi 16, off Walking Street) among those soon to celebrate three or more years in business, I noticed the place was awash -at least they were in the Jacuzzi anyway- with new dancing damsels as well as some old stagers. With over 30 wallet emptiers on show I was at first surprised that customers were thin on the ground, but not long after the place started filling up. Club Boesche is definitely a long way from being the spent force it looked in danger of becoming just a few months ago. The rumours about its imminent closure are now back where they always belonged: in the never-empty dustbin of Fun Town ill-informed prattle.
     One of three ain’t bad: In almost complete contrast to the aforementioned Club Boesche, on my infrequent visits to the Paradise go-go bar in Soi Buakhow I have yet to encounter more than a handful of dancing maidens, no matter what time of the night I have gone in. Such was the case again on a night when, admittedly, Paradise’s nearest competition Club Oasis and Champagne were holding parties. This time it was worse: a grand total of three exponents of the art of chrome pole fondling. Admittedly, one of the trio was attractive, so I guess the operators can claim a 33 percent ratio of good sorts to average lookers. That’s better than many places, although the one good sort had all the personality of a garden snail on methadone.
     The problem for Paradise has always been its relatively poor location: parking is difficult and there are no other go-go bars or good quality beer bars close by and there’s nothing about the den to make people veer off the beaten track to visit the joint.
     Bird Noises: After a while it is easy to become inured to the same old stories told across the froth of a thousand draught beers over a few hundred bar stools, but the following tale I think is a classic.
     It begins in the usual fairytale way. A walking wallet makes his testosterone-charged way to the fleshpots of Fun Town and falls in lust with a nubile young lady of free-and-easy virtue. After a suitable period of time (10 minutes at least), the walking wallet pops the question to the lady of his carnal desires: ‘how much do you require me to send you to take you away from all this depravity and debauchery?’
     A deal is struck but the walking wallet isn’t quite as stupid as he may appear. He has to return to the Land of Onan and recognises the pitfalls of letting the lust of his life remain amidst the bright neon temptations of Fun Town. So, he insists on the damsel returning to the warmth of home and hearth in the wilds of Amphur Anywhere where he can telephone her mobile at any time and make sure she is adhering to the conditions of her parole. Naturally, mindful of the sizeable stipend she will earn each month, she initially complies.
     After about 15 seconds of being back on the farm and with not a neon light in sight, she realises the lure of the Pattaya nightlife is far too strong. She hatches a brilliant plan and returns to Fun Town, unbeknownst, of course, to her absent paramour.
     Being an attractive lady she quickly finds men with money willing to part with some of that cash in order to spend a few hours in her company. One of these happened to be resting between sighs in the company of the said damsel one late afternoon in her room in a back soi. The mobile phone by the bed begins to ring. She looks at the number, says to her newfound bed partner that it’s her ‘boyfriend from the Land of Onan’ ringing and to be quiet. Jumping from the bed she moves quickly to the CD player, turns it on and inserts a disc. At the same moment she answers the phone. The CD kicks into life and what does it play? Not the latest hits on MTV, nor the slash-your-wrists maudlin sounds of look thung. Instead, a series of chicken crows, cow moos, buffalo drones, and bird noises fill the background as Khun Cunning tells her walking wallet about the rice growing in the fields and her interminably early nights and equally early mornings back in the village.
     It just proves the best laid plans of the Western-educated and financially solvent male are no match for the wonders of modern technology, a 99-baht CD from a flea market, and the innate cunning of the average wallet emptier.
     Piece of Pith: The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in the dark.