When the Weather Machine rests...

Yesterday was one of the most hellish we've seen in Beijing all year - a return to the choking levels of pollution we saw just before the Olympics.  An unseasonal mistiness - early autumn fog or late summer humidity? - is clogged with dust and smoke.  A cough starts to develop within moments of you stepping outside, and you can feel the abrasive grit in your throat and lungs.  The air, as I quipped to a friend last night, is like "asbestos porridge".   And today is not looking any better.   I assume that this is the price we have to pay for ensuring continuous blue skies through the October National Birthday celebrations.  The guardians of the secret Weather Machine are not, after all, omnipotent.  Some sort of karmic balance has to be struck: three or four days of toxic miasma before the week of sunny perfection.