The customers, crowded in the smoky cellar between narrow walls of papier-mâché rocks interspersed with tanks of gloomy gray fish, listened in silence, and applauded loudly after each number.

On the other hand, many of the less law-abiding citizens were wide awake and, for instance, climbing through windows that didn't, belong to them, slitting throats, mugging one another, listening to loud music in smoky cellars and genererally having a lot more fun.

The wide, smoky cellar full of Planetary Defence Force regulars were delighted to see some real soldiers at last, and fulminating at the governor for not letting them loose on the aliens years ago.

In an imaginary 1858, I went drinking in the dark smoky cellar of Pfaff's on Broadway at Bleecker Street, the first true outpost of the city's underground Bohemia, and met all the newspapermen, and bad poets, and hungry painters, and their women.

It has persuaded the Fondation de France to finance a major project, conceived by British Turner Prize nominee Simon Patterson and realised by French architect Jean-Christophe Denise, to reinterpret the "smoky cellar of the forester's house" in which Owen spent his last night.

The hottest jazz club in town is an always crowded, smoky cellar called Quasimodo (12A Kantstrasse, 312-8086; cover from none to $20).

There is a projected complete recording of this, which may help to tip the balance in favour of Weill as a theatre composer, rather than one whose songs are fast becoming the province only of the recitalist, whether on the concert platform or in a smoky cellar.

Perch on a bar stool in the street-level no-smoking area or head downstairs to the snug, smoky cellar, and order some of the pub's excellent grub to soak up the beer (authentic guláš with bacon dumplings for only 85Kč).