Fun Town goes from being lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree to impersonating a mortuary in the space of a few minutes at or just before the appointed hour. It’s like a massive power outage has hit the assorted playrooms and booze bars.

The places that really must be suffering terribly with the 2:00 a.m. closing are Hollywood and X-Zyte Discos as well as Tony’s and the Marine Bar. For these four places the bulk of their turnover comes after the closing of the ogling dens as dancing maidens catch up with their Thai boyfriends or go looking for a bit of action.

The Dollhouse does Dirty Dancing: Sunday, August 26 saw The Dollhouse ogling den (Walking Street) hold a Dirty Dancing Contest that made Jennifer Grey, the female lead in the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, look like a vestal virgin.

Chrome pole molesters representing such esteemed establishments as Classroom, Vixens, Champion, TQ 2, Bubbles, Rodeo Girls as well as The Dollhouse Bangkok went into competition against the crack troops of The Dollhouse Pattaya.

All told, 23 dancing maidens faced the starter in a series of rounds, the battle lasting from 9:00 p.m. until almost midnight. It was three hours of almost unbridled excitement, the type of entertainment for which Pattaya is justifiably infamous and which occurs all too infrequently.

In a family newspaper such as this, it is impossible for me to go into much detail about some of the more risque scenes. Suffice to say that the Dollhouse took hedonism to new and exhilarating heights.

The antics of some of the girls on-stage, especially those batting for the home side, left me reaching for the heart attack pills. The packed-to-the-rafters crowd was on their collective feet, cheering, clapping and whistling as the dancers got raunchier with each song.

Copious amounts of beer and champagne finished up being sprayed around the place by dancing girls who seemed to be impersonating Formula One Grand Prix winners. Pity our own Dr Iain wasn’t in the crowd, I’m sure it would have excited the racing driver in him.

The winner, who justifiably represented The Dollhouse Pattaya collected a cool 10,000 baht for her efforts while the runner-up (from The Dollhouse Bangkok) came away with 5,000 baht. The third-placed dancer, from TQ 2, received 2,500 baht, donated by Feigling.

A slice of lemon on your newsprint: The Chippy munching den, parked right on the corner of Soi Buakhow and Soi Chaiyapoom, has recently undergone some internal structural changes aimed at making it a more attractive place to actually sit down and partake of a feed of fish and chips.

The takeaway counter has been moved and a glassed-in air-conditioned restaurant section has been installed, so now punters can watch as the cook fries, batters and bastes the fish. I’m not sure if the resultant dining delight is served on a plate or yesterday’s newspapers, but all tastes are catered for.

Pat’s Pies and Deli (Third Road), which also handles The Chippy, has just invested in a Bangkok-style tuk-tuk, brand new off the factory floor, painted yellow and blue that will be used to make home deliveries.

Is that a Haggis in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? A couple of weeks ago I made the comment that it was difficult to find good long term managers - especially for ogling dens - simply because over a period of time they tend to get less and less interested in the job at hand.

However, one long-serving den boss who still exudes a rare enthusiasm for the job at hand is the Tartan Terror in the Cat’s ogling den (Penthouse Hotel, Pattayaland Soi 1). He might have a head like William Wallace - after the Scottish hero was hung, drawn and quartered - but, apart from the dancing kittens, he is definitely one of the main drawcards in Cat’s, although to the best of my knowledge customers more interested in his Tartan waggle than a dancing maiden’s wiggle have never propositioned him.Degree of Difficulty 9.9: I’m beginning to think the Viking beer boozer and comedy store (in front of Pinewood Condo, just up from Soi 6) is located in some form of bar equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle as a number of out of the ordinary incidents keep happening there.

The other night an imbiber, who originally hails from the Bavarian region of Germany (think lederhosen, beer steins and oompah bands and you’ll be on the right track), fell down. Now before you say, ‘hah, so what, that happens hundreds of times in boozers across Fun Town all day every day’, this was a performance worthy of Greg Louganis at his best, albeit sans water, swimming trunks and a diving board.

The punter had just hopped off his bar stool, reached forward to inspect the bills for the booze he had consumed and, stepping backwards, misjudged the location of his seat and instead of connecting posterior with vinyl he continued his gravitational spiral towards the waiting concrete. In a perfectly executed backward tumble, legs akimbo and arms outstretched, the most impressive aspect was that his cancer stick never left his mouth.

The German claimed his gold medal performance was brought about by the shock to his wallet when he discovered that the draught beer price at the Viking had gone up from 49 to 50 baht.