My good friend Michelle Liu (of 1221 fame) and friends are opening a dance club in the promenade, the heart of the Hengshan Lu strip. The name? I understand it's going to be Red. A color we're all in favor of, correct??!!. They're in the process of decorating the space on the second floor now, and plan to open in mid-April, I understand. Presumably aiming at a different market segment from Real Love just down the road. With it's opening, Michelle will then spend her entire life in a taxi, moving from her new winebar near Huaihai Lu, to Red on Hengshan Lu to 1221 on Yanan Xi Lu where her lao dian is. What a life! I know all about it!!!

The French actor with the prominent facial features, Jean-luc Depardieu, whose best film to date in my book is Cyrano de Bergerac, is due to pay a visit to Shanghai in April, diplomatic sources inform me. Which is desperately exciting. I'm hoping for a dinner invitation .... who knows? It all comes down to guanxi!! And I believe I have some of that in my pocket right here ...

The best value public Internet access in town by far is the Shanghai Library. You head in underneath the main stairs, sign in and pay just five yuan an hour for pretty snappy access. It's a bit cold there when the weather's bad, but that's just about as thing of the past until next winter.

Wines, particularly reds, seem to be becoming ever more popular in Shanghai. It makes sense. Shanghai people do not seem to be big alcohol drikers in spite of the combined promotional activities of the world's largest beer companies over the past few years. But good old wine has a couple of advantages. It has a trendy image, which fits in well with how Shanghai people see themselves, and it's a drink that the ladies feel comfortable ordering, thereby doubling the potential market. Expect to see a series of wine bars open up over the next year, followed by a flood of others next year creating a glut, which leads to people shaking their heads and saying: "You know, there's just too many wine bars in Shanghai." Remember, you read it here first!!!

The new trend in taxi-drivers? Females! Just a couple of years ago, you basically never came across one behind the wheel of a rentable chariot. Now, they're everywhere. The ladies are good, careful drivers and, thanks be to the heavens, they don't smoke. The word is that the city has frozen the number of taxi licenses for a while, which should reduce the grumbling from the front seat.

The comedy night at Zoobaa a little while ago was entertaining. Two comics from England who found different ways of dealing with the surprising fact they were in Shanghai. The trick in the act is to say or do things which connects to the moment, and Australian Brendan Burns, who showed little respect for the "Seven No's" in his routine, managed that quite nicely when he spotted a couple of people looking in at him through the round windows on Zooba's door. "I feel like I'm in a submarine," he said. "And they probably think I'm singing karaoke."

Byeeeee!!!