Sarikei Karaoke Okey Cokey

Another birthday has whizzed past.  Fifty-seven and counting.  I spent this one with Sue and a group of her mentor colleagues at a karaoke bar in Sarikei, our nearest largish town, where we go to buy things like yoghurt and margarine, when there is none to be had in Saratok.  You enter the place through an anonymous door in the high street and go up a flight of stairs to a single large room with a bar and some beaten up tables, chairs and sofas. It's the latest happening place where the coolest dudes in town hang.

The attraction for us English speakers is that they have a grainy selection of English language karaoke videos.  These mainly comprise people with 1980s clothes and hairdos singing songs we've never heard of whilst walking around middle European towns.  Still we did manage a passable version of "dream, dream, dream" to the backdrop of a black and white film of the Everly brothers and "don't cry for me Argentina" supported by someone who I would guess was called Elaine von Paige.

Sarikei being a mainly Chinese town there was plenty of beer to be had and most of us ordered lamb and chips for the sheer novelty of seeing it on the menu.  To paraphrase Doctor Johnson "it was like a dog walking on his hind legs. It was not done well; but we were surprised to find it done at all."  Actually the lamb was done well, so well it was almost inedible.

The locals politely applauded and cheered our efforts, then got down to the real business in hand - singing sentimental Chinese pop songs.  Everyone seemed to be having fun and one could recognise the regulars - the ones who dream of making it in the next series of "Sarawak's got talent".

We left early and in my case slightly the worse for wear and made our way back to our cars.  The streets were dark and empty, apart from the odd emaciated cat chewing determinedly on a desiccated fish head.

Happy birthday old man!