Tequila rock 'n roll costs $140 at Fenwick, not $110 - unless the writer received a discount out of professional courtesy* or in exchange for the positive review. (The girl gets $80 commission on the $140 drink.) Just goes to show you can't believe anything you read in the scmp.

(* as in "why won't a shark eat a lawyer?" "professional courtesy")

That only adds to the humour of the situation. Perhaps our intrepid reported had had one or two already? Or do "good" reviews only cost $30 in the SCMP?

I especially like this in the main article in the SCMP:

One owner of the disco, who asked not to be named, said he would be shocked if there was drug dealing and that care was taken to maintain the image of the club.

Didn't the Standard do a similar story about a club...kind of similar.

And now that the editor has gone across the waters, there is another such story.

coincidence? I think not!

A similar story in The Standard? flabber, do you mean the one written by Doug in last December?

Yes - the one about Laguna. Such a shock - go to a wanchai nightclub and find lots of hookers - who would have thought.

flabber, no coincidence? So you mean Mark Clifford likes sending reporters to the pubs in Wanchai to see how hookers work? Interesting.

no, hthat's not what i mean, and i think to say so would be an exaggeration of my intention. I think that mr. clifford likes to wonder why the police don't do hteir job.

Mr. Crawford, on the other hand, must avoid cliches like ''swirl of humanity.''

hw about being more specific?

the first thing you notice when you arrive in Fenwicks are hundreds of hookers and their clients.

and they have forgotten their wives adn girlfriends at home?

sorry, but every man in a suit in wan chai cheats on his wife or girlfriend???

It smacked of rookie reporting to me too.

Mark Clifford has sent many reporters off to cover hookers but he doesn't like those stories one bit. And didn't Peter Kammerer stumble into Fenwick's with a similar story not long ago? And the Standard did Laguna because it was owned (shamefully) by an ESF principal. They also did a general piece on Wanchai hookers from the Phils etc. Pus a thing on Macau hookers. Sex sells.

Mark Clifford sent no reporters to cover any hookers. His subordinate editors did (over his objections, in at least two cases).
Mark Clifford seems to regard sex in general as shameful and tawdry - at best a messy necessary evil in order to procreate - whether it's paid for or free.
The school principal had/has a partial interest in Laguna. He didn't/doesn't own it.
The real story in Wanchai is the 7-Eleven House O' 24/7 Debauchery at which a certain underage offspring of a certain editor of a local English language paper has been seen bleary eyed, tongue tied and painless more than once in early a.m. hours.

It seems that we're having more inside stories here.

no shit, gloria. hong Kong is filled with inside stories that never get reported.

at the end of every one of barclay crawford's stories, I always tag on: ''the reporter did not purchase any drugs for this article.''

it's kind of like the game we used to play in the primary school. put ''in bed,'' at the end of every sentence.

I am going to have an omlette, now. In bed.