乒乓球走进伦敦夜店

It’s a familiar conundrum to single nightclub goers. You’re by the dance floor, drink in hand, and meet the eye of a potentially significant other. Do you talk to them, buy them a drink or go dance together? Or should you instead challenge them to a game of ping pong?

对夜总会单身客人来说，这是一个经常遇到的难题。你站在舞池边，手里端着酒，与自己中意的女孩眉目传情。你是与她们搭讪、为她们买杯酒或者一起跳舞？还是应该和她们打一局乒乓球？

This last, improbable, courtship catalyst is the basis for Bounce, a cavernous underground nightclub in Holborn, London, where drinking and dancing is organised around 17 table tennis tables. By coincidence, it happens to be the same building where, in 1901, the British manufacturer J. Jaques and Son trademarked an after-dinner parlour game for the upper classes as “ping pong, in reference to the noise of the ball bouncing off the wooden bats.

对伦敦霍尔本的一家洞穴般的地下夜总会Bounce来说，乒乓球这一离谱的媒介是泡妞的基矗在这家俱乐部里，喝酒和跳舞都是在大约17张乒乓球台旁边进行的。碰巧的是，在1901年，也正是这幢建筑物里，英国制造商J. Jaques and Son将上流社会饭后玩的一种室内游戏申请注册为“乒乓球商标——因乒乓球撞击木质球拍时所发出的声音而得名。

“I was the geek playing [ping pong] and my mates wouldn’t play with me – so we wanted to put it at the centre of a club, says Bounce’s co-founder, Dov Penzik. “I played table tennis my whole life and decided there was an opportunity to create something where people would socialise.

Bounce的联合创始人多夫·潘奇克(Dov Penzik)表示：“我是乒乓球迷，我的伴侣不会与我打球，因此我们希望把它作为夜总会的重点来经营。我一生都在打乒乓球，所以我断定开设一家人们借助乒乓球进行社交活动的夜总会将是一个机遇。

Mr Penzik’s business partner, Adam Breeden, was never a serious player. “People want to do something else rather than the ordinary on a night out, he says, justifying the duo’s ￡2.5m outlay, a third of which came from bank and the rest from private investors.

潘奇克的商业伙伴亚当·布里登(Adam Breeden)从来都没有认真地打过乒乓球。他表示：“人们晚上外出消遣时希望有些别的活动，不要总是平常那些活动。他以此说明两人250万英镑的投资是合理的。这些投资有三分之一来自银行，其余来自私人投资者。

Ping pong, also known as table tennis, is an unlikely trend spreading through clubland. Other venues offering it include east London-based Pongathon, which hosts a “Tunes to Pong to DJ night, and a Dr Pong club in Berlin.

乒乓球又名“桌上网球，不太可能在俱乐部流行开。其他可以打乒乓球的场所包括位于伦敦东区的Pongathon和柏林的Dr Pong俱乐部。Pongathon举办了有DJ助兴的“乒乓球之夜的活动。

In June 2011, in a psychedelic variant of the game, Dan Kuper, an events organiser, co-founded Ping Tron, in which individuals play each other in a blacked-out box with UV lighting and glow-in-the-dark bats and balls. After testing it at music festivals he has now rolled Ping Tron out to corporate events and London nightclubs.

2011年6月，在一场梦幻般的乒乓球比赛中，活动组织者丹·库珀(Dan Kuper)与他人联合创办了Ping Tron。Ping Tron是指选手们在一间只有紫外线照明的黑屋子里打球，他们使用的球拍和乒乓球能在黑暗中发光。

“It helps break barriers between strangers, he says. “Club promoters are seeing the value in getting people to enjoy themselves more by using space creatively, which is not just about music or alcohol.

库珀表示：“它有助于消除陌生人之间的隔阂。俱乐部创始人看到了通过创造性使用空间（不仅仅提供音乐或酒品）让人们找到乐趣的价值。

The vogue for ping pong can be traced back to SPiN Galactic, a company that is credited with bringing it to the dance floors of urban America in 2009. Boasting Hollywood investors such as the actress Susan Sarandon, a self-described “ping pong propagandist, SPiN has clubs in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto.

乒乓球在社交俱乐部的流行可以追溯至SPiN Galactic。2009年，SPiN将乒乓球引入了美国城市的舞池。SPiN号称拥有自诩为“乒乓球宣传大使的女演员苏珊·萨兰登(Susan Sarandon)等好莱坞投资者，在纽约、洛杉矶和多伦多开设了俱乐部。

After initial meetings with private investors, Mr Breeden says the duo were told no bank would take a punt on a nightclub whose centrepiece was a Jackson Pollack-like conceptual sculpture of six smashed ping pong tables and bats hung in a pile on a wall adjoining the bar. “We were told there was no way we’d get bank debt?.?.?.?it was a recession, we are a start-up and a leisure business, he says. Despite this, Royal Bank of Scotlandbacked them.

布里登表示，在与私人投资者的初次会晤中，他们两人曾被告知没有哪家银行会愿意押注于这样一家夜总会：正中央是6张快要散架的乒乓球台——有些类似杰克逊·波洛克(Jackson Pollack)的概念雕塑——靠近吧台的墙上挂着一排球拍。他表示：“我们得知不可能获得银行贷款……当时经济低迷，而我们又是一家从事休闲业务的初创企业。尽管如此，他们还是获得了苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)的投资。

Bounce has only just opened but its business plan envisages four more clubs in the capital. So far, its sole outlet has attracted 800-1,000 people a night between Wednesday and Saturday, according to the founders, each spending an average of ￡20 on food and drink excluding rental of ping pong tables, with bar staff doubling as ballboys.

虽然Bounce刚开业不久，但其设想的业务计划是在伦敦再开四家夜总会。按照其创始人的说法，迄今为止，这家店在从周三到周六的每个晚上可以吸引800到1000名顾客，除了乒乓球台租赁费用以外，每人在食品和饮料上的平均支出为20英镑，酒吧员工兼任球童。

Not that there haven’t been teething problems, such as committed ping pong enthusiasts hogging tables. “The club won’t work if it’s just pairs coming in, not eating and drinking, so we have tried to make it an experience, to increase the dwell time, said Mr Breeden.

这并不是说他们在初期没有遇到麻烦，比如痴迷的乒乓球爱好者霸占球台的问题。布里登表示：如果只有成双结对的顾客光顾俱乐部，他们既不吃东西也不喝酒，俱乐部将很难维持下去，因此我们尝试推出打乒乓球活动，以增加顾客在俱乐部的驻留时间。“

Potentially more worrying, however, is the persistent thievery of balls.

然而，或许更令人担忧的是乒乓球总是失窃的问题。

“I was surprised at how quick our stock went down – but at least they’ve got our logo on, says Mr Penzik, who estimates the club will run through 15,000 in its first year, 10,000 more than had been expected.

潘奇克表示：我很意外乒乓球消耗得这么快，但至少乒乓球上印了我们的标识。“潘奇克估计，夜总会第一年将消耗1.5万个乒乓球，比预计的多了1万个。

“The bats are more expensive, so we do deposits on those.

“球拍更贵，因此我们要求支付球拍押金。