Say it with PING for a real blast

ON your next business trip to Nanjing, why not call in at the new nightclub opened specially for visitors from abroad? Business people passing through the arrival hall at Nanjing Airport are being handed details of the new club, called Red Lips. A number of Inchcape Pacific executives at the airport, including Steve Clark, were urged to visit the club.

It certainly has an unusual taste in slogans. ''Here comes out a 'PING' so pronounced that you can depict your elegant demeanour.'' Does this have anything to do with Lu Ping? The attached description of the nightclub makes it sound a curious place indeed: ''Downwards along the steps there appears in front of you a full-closed shooting range of 600m2 with five target position to the international standard. It is well equipped with pistols, rifles and Tommy guns, as well as the machine guns. It is the only one in this metropolis of the East China. There are tunnels and trenches all over, with armed guns, you will feel you are at the battlefields heavy with the smoke of gunpowder.'' Should make Hong Kong visitors feel at home, particularly if they have an account with one of these ''customer friendly'' banks which have done away with security screens.

What Games? THE people who have the most immediate interest in the Beijing 2000 bid are Hong Kong stockbrokers.

After talking to half a dozen, the consensus is that a Beijing win will be worth at least 100 but less than 200 points on the Hang Seng.

Not everyone is following the bid process too closely, however. Very, very early on Sunday morning RTHK's Cheri Chan had a competition for a T-shirt to callers able to identify the English city that was bidding against Beijing.

Callers they were given a list of three to pick from: Manchester, Birmingham and London. Special congratulations to the caller who said Birmingham.