Greet­ings: it’s The Masked Bar­fly here, and I’ve been keep­ing my com­pound eyes peeled for drinky stor­ies to keep you informed, enter­tained and inebri­ated. With the Fest about to kick off, and the Fringe well under way, it’s going to be a busy time out on the town for a while.

Bars near the Fowl-house and Town Hall are likely to be hum­ming, and while I don’t expect the luv­vies and K‑block mat­rons to be hit­ting Blend or Down­town Loc­al (now, that would be a scene to see!), cafes like Felix, Finc and The Lido will be crammed with eth­ic­ally-faux furs and ren­ted tuxes. Pon­ci­er bars such as St Johns will be taken over for spon­sors’ drinks, such as for tonight’s open­ing Ornette Cole­man, though I won­der what most of the bray­ing suits would make of the squawk­ing sax?

While there’s nowhere brand-new to take advant­age of the free-spend­ing boomers, the fly is noti­cing a buzz build­ing around the Cour­tenay Place and Blair St area, and is get­ting quite excited. No, not over The Tem­per­ance (while any bar­fly can appre­ci­ate the iron­ic monik­er, three floors of tanked-up boof­heads is not my idea of fun), but over a couple of highly-anti­cip­ated and long-rumoured open­ings. UU (did any­one ever call it that?) has been closed for renov­a­tions, and a sneaky peak revealed the mir­rors giv­ing way to brick. That, com­bined with the appear­ance of bull­fight­ing posters in the win­dow, has me won­der­ing: could this be a prop­er tapas bar at last. And as for what’s hap­pen­ing in Blair St … well, my mand­ibles are sealed.