Paul Weller At The Little Whale in Prague

“One should never make one's debut in a scandal. One should reserve that to give interest to one's old age.” Oscar Wilde

Tabloid tales are not my usual fare. But when we are out on the town and one basically falls on top of me, I gotta say something.

We stopped into The Little Whale (U malé velryby) last night for a quick drink and dessert. We ended up staying for a party.

The kitchen was closed and acoustic blues guitarist Brad Huff was celebrating his birthday by playing for friends.A gray-haired man with a much younger girlfriend stumbled in. He asked the guitarist if he could sing with him and was told that he could not.

Shortly afterward, Brad took a break. The girlfriend came over. I think the conversation went roughly like this.

"You should really let him sing with you," she said.

"No. He's drunk and rude," Brad replied.

"Do you know who he is?" she slurred. She was sloppy drunk, herself.

"No. Who?"

"Paul Weller."

"I don't care who he is," Brad said. The girlfriend was getting angry.

"I've heard of him," someone said to Brad. "You should let him sing."

No one, including me, recognized Weller when they came in. But I am familiar with his 70s and 80s groups, The Jam and The Style Council. He's also been a relatively successful solo artist since the 1990s. A few other people knew who he was, once his name was mentioned.

"OK," Brad relented. "He can sing a song with me." The girlfriend replied with a very nasty tone.

"Oh! Nowwwww you'll let him sing. Now that you know he's famous."

Weller didn't hear this contentious little conversation, but was still interested in doing a song. So, he sat down with Brad, and they did some blues riffing.

Weller repetitiously howled and mumbled his way through the improvised song, such as it was. He kept repeating a few phrases over and over again. Not his greatest performance.

Brad sarcastically exclaimed "Amazing!" toward the end of the song. When they finished, the girlfriend was hurling insults at the guitarist.

"Ladies and gentleman, the famous...." Then, she'd sneer, point at Brad, and shrug her shoulders.

And yet they stayed.

Despite the weird, bad vibes in the very small resraurant, the wobbly couple sat down for a while at the invitation of The Little Wale's owner, Jason.

Weller was too drunk to speak. He kissed Jason on the top of his head. The girlfriend seemed very unhappy and just kept saying, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

I'm not sure why. Very strange and a little disturbing. We tried, but no one could have any meaningful communication.

After a while, there were no good feelings or sympathy toward them from anyone in the room. The girlfriend was insulting the guitarist on his birthday. They were literally falling down drunk. There was pity at their pathetic state.

And as it got more and more pathetic, a few people, having been duly informed of the man's fame, took out mobile phones with cameras and recorded their final "performances" of the evening.

There's more to this sorry and sordid story. But perhaps a blog about Prague's food and drink scene isn't the proper place for it. Just doesn't feel right here.

For that stuff, you'll have to go elsewhere. If you are really into tabloid tales, head on over to The Sun or The Daily Mail.