Recently, on The Barstool

Continuing my occasional series of recommendations of 'highlights' from my drinking blog...   A couple of weeks ago on Barstool Blues I offered up a 'Top Five' list of Beijing's Best Dive Bars (which, for once, provoked a little reaction in the comments, although mostly only from the usual suspects).  All but one of these bars, alas, is long since defunct; that tends to be the way of things here in Beijing - nothing good lasts for very long.   And just the other day I relaunched my 'Great Dating Disasters' mini-series (which had been in abeyance for a while) with a recollection of the last time I "got lucky" in Beijing (four years ago, almost to the day!): it is a cautionary tale, not a celebratory one.     [There is a thematic link between those two posts, which you will soon grasp if you read them.]