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Step past the bouncers and into the battle zone. It's a battle for Jeanne Lee to salvage what's left of her clubbing experience in this square-footage deprived Singapore.

The long queues in M.O.S (Ministry of Sound), eases quickly, but when ushered in, the only space you have is probably the space next to the wall. (No wonder I saw a group people gyrating against the wall the other day... the same wall every other time too.)

Fine, you get past the crowd, you're there frequently enough to tolerate the laser beams in your eyes, and get yourself a table. Battle across the sea of people, to the table, get some girls to chop seats , look pretty, and perform some photo op, while the guys wait on for 5 hours at the bar getting some drinks. Before you know it, hey! The house lights are on! Time to go home.

In the past, when ChinaBlack was around, with the free flow of drinks, getting anything over the bar, was like trying to break through the wall of China. Impenetrable! Then we've got the toilet problem.

When the club is excessively crowded, it makes you think twice about answering nature's call. It's like, by the time you make your way there and back, you've effectively wasted 45 minutes of dancing time. The solution? Dance while you're on your way to the loo, like a jiggle-loo!

We should start coining these new phenomenons. Like the 'Zouk-vibra' (a dance famous in Zouk where people just vibrate in their little space on the dance floor), or the 'Pea-butt' (a dance in M.O.S where there's space to move your head and shoulders forward, and move your asses left to right).

Alcoholic Water Rationing

Seriously, do these clubs really care about the fire hazards in there? Or if someone is Zouk-vibraing in Phuture and suddenly faints from heat stroke - the person beside her is probably going to think she's just being lazy keeping her head up, because with the tight fit of the people surrounding her, she's going to look like a Barbie doll held upright by a stand (made of the people around her).

While sitting on one of the high chairs in the old Zouk, the ubiquitous queue at the bar was almost like the havoc modern version of the old-school water ration days where people queue up for water.

The withheld pee could possibly result in UTI cases - I'm surprised no one is finding correlations between their UTI infections and their night at the club. (We'd know when someone starts suing under the Law of Tort...).

I'm sure there must be some form of fire hazard limitation and the clubs must be doing something about it, but is their thirst for business letting that limit slide? Or are clubbers getting so big that they seem to be taking up more square feet?

Maybe one day, clubs would start implementing a system of admission by the amount of space you take up.

"Hey dude, how many square feet you taking up?"

"Uh, say two and a half?"

"Opps, sorry you're not allowed in. Limitation is only one and a half square feet."

We'll start to get more 'staring incidents' too! Two men, standing one and a half square feet, side by side. One man thinks, "This lady's boobs are on my right, I can't face her or I might end up with sexual harassment".

So he makes a little 180o rotation, and is facing another man eye-to-eye. Not a good idea if the other guy is wearing an almost unbuttoned shirt and a killer silver criss-cross necklace... on black string. Pray tell he won't ask, "See, what see?"

When in a situation like that, that man would probably scan the room for an empty table to take cover under. He sees one, empty. He'll scurry over and there's this stinking "Reserved" sign. The "Reserved" signs have so far, in my opinion, been known as the sign, "To ignore until further notice".

It's not that Singaporeans aren't law (or 'reserve sign') abiding; no one is going to stand next to an empty table like an idiot in a roomful of people, because others can't see that black thing with a sprinkle of gold words in that dark place.

A utopia for clubs?

Would it be possible for clubs to be able to exercise controls to alleviate the current situation? How would it then affect their economic gains and are my clubbing experiences really justified? While eating with a friend of mine who is an ardent fan of clubbing, he shed some light to me on my disastrous clubbing experience.

Him: Do you go to Zouk's member's only area?

Me: Huh? Can I go in if I'm not a member?

Him: So you mean you've never clubbed in an area where you can dance freely while you're high and sh*t?

Me: No?

Apparently I was pretty loser-ish to not have enjoyed my clubbing experience. He said that when you're in the member's only area, you have tables and real chairs to actually sit on. You could easily enjoy dancing the night away with assorted alcohol to compliment the experience. So does that mean you have got to be part of the in crowd to enjoy clubbing?

Or does it really mean that the general club-goers constantly strive to be in that crowd. To be able to go past the Nazi-clipboard bouncers in events, or come to the club and say, "I want to reserve a table" an hour before the club starts opening its doors to the ever-growing queue.

I gave my clubbing experience another go at the Heineken Green Room, Chicks on Speed event, hoping that something will change. The two bouncers whom I spoke to told me that they didn't like clubbing, but since they are the bouncers who keep some people out of the club, they weren't really a good reference, though an interesting affirmation about any point in clubbing.

At the event, there were people dressed as robots trying to catch you and bring you in as alien hostages. You could wear a longhaired wig with feather boa, wear a pink-feathered tiara, or even cut up white tee shirts and go crazy with it. (A friend of mine stuck a sticker of a neck tie on his white shirt and wrote, "I am White." On it.)

The experience definitely left a good mark amongst all my bad experience. However, this was an event organised by a group of people, which would be a misrepresentation of a usual club day out. Some things never change though, the floors were still too crowded, and the place was too much like a choked chimney.

I absolutely adore good music, but there are so many ways to enjoy it, and going to the club just seems to be the more undesirable option at the moment.

Fire hazards, bad bladder, and smoky hair for the next 3 days? Maybe in time to come. There's always St James Power Station. Now that's huge. Meanwhile, keep the good music alive, but do try to remember to keep yourself alive too.