Let's talk about Security (3)

Over the past few weeks, luggage scan machines have been introduced at most of Beijing's subway stations.

We've only just had them installed at my local station - and (at the entrance I usually use) it's been intelligently located at the far side of the ticket hall from the entrance. In fact, it's so inconspicuous and out of the way that a small squad of white-uniformed flunkies is kept busy ushering people across the hall to the machine. At busy times, it's quite easy to avoid their attentions and just walk through the barriers without running your bag through the scanner - although more and more people seem to be accepting their patriotic duty and queueing up placidly for the rigmarole (the gaggle of people waiting around the machine regularly blocks the exit barriers on that side of the hall!).

Many other stations seem to have sited these machines in similarly stupid places - such that it is quite easy to walk right past them and not even notice that they are there. The 'This Way, Please' flunkies seem to have been upping their diligence of late, but they're not exactly coercive...... not exactly efficient. Compliance is still largely down to the personal whim of the passenger.

I'm not sure if they even have these machines at the larger stations (I hardly ever board at Xizhimen or Dongzhimen). I just can't see it being feasible to bag-check everyone during the rush hour.

And are there any guidelines as to what sort of bags need to be checked? I haven't seen any. Again, that seems to be down to the discretion of the individual passenger/terrorist. Backpacks, even small ones, should, of course, be checked. But fanny-packs? And handbags (or man-purses?)? Well, those seem to get ignored (at least, the smaller ones). My laptop case seems to be a threshold item: sometimes it arouses suspicion, sometimes it is ignored. Carrier bags??? Uncertain.

What about prohibited contents? I usually carry a large water bottle with me (since Beijing is appallingly sweaty in the summer, and you can't ever rely on the people you're visiting to provide you with a drink), but this doesn't seem to arouse any interest. I occasionally visit one of the city's foreign grocery stores and bring my shopping back by subway; as often as not, this includes a bottle of whisky - which is, of course, moderately inflammable. But I don't think that would be a problem either.

The thing is - rather as with the similar scanners which have long been in place at the entrances to Beijing's two main railway stations - the staff who man these machines are numb with boredom and pay absolutely no attention to the screens at all. None.

And they don't appear to have any more useful equipment, like chemical sniffers, to supplement the X-ray scan.

What they should really have are DOGS. Not because dogs are better at sniffing out explosives than high-tech machines that cost 10,000 times as much (although this is probably also true - assuming there are enough dogs with this kind of training available). No, just because dogs scare the shit out of people. But they tend to scare the shit even more out of people who feel guilty about something. And most people believe that dogs are uncannily shrewd at sniffing out explosives and such (even if the dogs haven't in fact been trained how to do this, who's going to know?). As I mentioned the other day, security is mostly about making the public feel safe and the bad guys feel threatened. Dogs are excellent for this.

And the main purpose of these blanket security checks is not to catch the occasional forgetful NRA member who inadvertently left a Colt .45 in his carry-on bag; it's to make bad guys so nervous that they give themselves away.

Are the security checks on the Beijing subway thorough enough to achieve this end? NO WAY.

[And, so far, they're also missing out on one of the most basic precautions that London has wised up to in the last few years: transparent trash bins.]

Let's talk about Security (2)

My musing on the topic of security today is prompted by the fact that I got a bit riled up last week over this post by a fellow Beijing laowai blogger in which he made light of the recent spate of pre-Olympic bar closures, and even suggested that some of these closures might be justified by "security concerns".

The venues to which he referred were those around the Workers' Stadium.

These venues are within the Stadium complex, but have been separated off from the area immediately around the Stadium itself by a high, robust wire fence, a fence which will no doubt be heavily guarded by soldiers, attack dogs, and closed-circuit TV cameras placed around it every few yards. It is therefore impossible to conceive how the continuing operation of these bars, restaurants, and nightclubs would give anyone the opportunity of improper access to the Stadium itself.

The entertainment venues concerned are far enough away from the Stadium that it is impossible to conceive how they might be used as a base for some kind of terrorist attack on the Stadium - unless someone somehow managed to smuggle in a rocket-launcher of some kind (taller residential and office buildings in the vicinity are much more of a risk for that kind of thing). And since access to these venues is restricted, it would be perfectly possible to subject their customers to the very same security checks that the spectators entering the Stadium itself will undergo.

If the authorities' concern was that a bomb attack might be made on one of these businesses..... well, it tends to be rather easier to infiltrate a place to do something naughty like that when it's derelict.

And if, as blogger Boyce suggests, the authorities' concern is simply that they might look bad if some sort of incident should happen in one of these places...... well, why these places in particular? Is it purely because of their proximity to an Olympic venue (not the main Bird's Nest Stadium - this is a much older venue that's only going to be used for some of the football)? If that is the case, where do you draw the line? Wouldn't a bomb or a shooting in a coffee shop 20 yards over the road from the Workers' Stadium be just as bad? Wouldn't a terrorist incident anywhere in the city while the Games are on - whether inside an Olympic venue, next to a venue, or far from any venue - be just as bad?? If this were the rationale, then everything on the main roads along the four sides of the Workers' Stadium complex ought to be closed as well. And everything along the North 4th Ringroad (where most of the main Olympic venues are).

[In fact, it's not even clear whether all of the Workers' Stadium is being closed down. Only the restaurants and nightclubs at the North Gate seem to have been mentioned in the press. What about the discotheques and the bowling alley on the west side, or the Blue Zoo aquarium at the south end? Are they still open? That would make a complete nonsense of the security argument in favour of the closures!]

Luckily, even this government isn't quite daft enough to believe that the way to achieve security against terrorist threats is to close down every possible target. Not quite daft enough. At least, I hope they aren't.

I think The Telegraph's Beijing correspondent, Richard Spencer (a contemporary of mine at Oxford, though I don't think I ever met him back then), hit the nail on the head the other day when he suggested that the crackdown on the nightlife scene was all about 'image' rather than terrorism - and in particular that excessive revelry by laowai (and a certain class of young Beijinger) might prove shocking to Chinese Olympic visitors from the provinces, naive and simple folk experiencing their nation's capital for the first time.

Yep, that's what it's all about, I think. "Legitimate security concerns", my arse!

Let's talk about Security (1)

There are 5 Golden Rules......

1) Nothing is ever 100% secure.

2) Security is 90% PR: it's more about making the public feel safe (and the troublemakers feel threatened) than about the actuality of the situation.

3) The success of a security regime is ultimately judged more on its crisis response (and its subsequent PR handling of events) than on the effectiveness of its precautions.

4) Security is always a trade-off between minimizing risk and minimizing inconvenience.

5) Nothing is ever 100% secure.

I suppose number 2 is the most controversial (but it's not intended to devalue the importance of the other 10%, the more concrete security measures). I'd suggest number 4 is the most important. Number 3 is the one that I really worry about here in Beijing.

This week's bon mot

"The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves."

Diane Ackerman

"Out of my league...."

Robert Graves has often been the choice for one of my 'Poetry Sundays', but I can't believe I haven't got around to posting this one before. My 'theme song', as you might say.

Love Without Hope

Love without hope, as when the young birdcatcher
Swept off his tall hat to the squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head as she rode by.


Robert Graves (1895-1985)

I HATE Gmail!!!

I have this morning been working through a shortlist of applicants for those teaching jobs in Nanjing I advertised on here a couple of weeks ago.

When Gmail first started up, I created several accounts for myself, but I've never really used any of them. I was just keeping them in reserve in case my preferred accounts (I have multiple personalities!) on Yahoo started getting spammed to death - or getting seriously blocked by the Chinese censors.

However, since I have now had to put an e-mail address out there on the Web (well, not in plain view, but, you know, still soliciting), I thought I'd use one of the previously pristine Gmail ones.

It has just taken me 3 hours to send 10 e-mails. 10 fairly brief e-mails. Most of them to the same recipient.

The compose screen does not work in real time!! It often 'freezes' for 20 or 30 seconds at a time, sometimes indeed for a full minute or two, before displaying the text you've typed in. You are constantly typing blind. Luckily I am a good touch-typist, and don't make many mistakes even when denied the familiar reassurance of immediate feedback. Nevertheless, this is utterly, utterly infuriating, and mind-buggeringly slow.

We get a similar problem here on Blogger occasionally with the over-zealous 'Autosave' cutting in every 20 seconds and - if you're working on a long post, or one with a lot of links and pictures - shutting you down for further input for a good long time. I think it's a similar problem on Gmail - but 10 times worse.

Is anybody else suffering with this??

I suspect that the Kafka Boys may have a hand in this as well. I've heard in the past that Gmail is often unworkably slow in China because intensive filtering of the Google search sites somehow spills over into snail-like connection speeds for the e-mail service as well.

I think I'm going to have to change my contact e-mail address on the teaching websites I've been advertising on......

Something else 'they' can try to ban me for

I posted this over on The Barstool yesterday, but I thought it was important enough to be worth repeating over here. I think the Daily Llama would approve.

My buddy (and, currently, only regular commenter), The British Cowboy, initially missed the joke, bless him.

My favourite music bar, 2 Kolegas, has started stocking 'Tibet' beer.

An exciting novelty. Alas, I have to report that it is not a particularly nice drink. The label describes it as a 'Green Barley Beer' - to my mind, 'green' is not a colour that should ever be used in connection with a beer (I don't even like it as a colour for beer bottles; brown or black - or even blue - is much better). As my friend Ben observed, the flavour is uncomfortably suggestive of lu cha (highly sweetened green tea, a favourite cold soft drink out here). Perhaps that perception was misleadingly implanted in our minds by that dratted word 'green' on the label. Or perhaps it just really does taste...... er, not quite as a beer should.

But, you know, anything makes a pleasant change from bloody Tsingtao. And I rather like the idea of buying a few cases of this stuff for my next party - and just giving it away. I think that will make a very enticing slogan for the flyer, don't you?

I think you know what I'm saying........

This week's haiku

Time dawdles, taunting
The teeming brain, troubled heart:
Insomniac nights.

I've suffered this three times in less than a fortnight now. Not good.

Perhaps it's POS - Pre-Olympic Stress?

That girl is really starting to annoy me....

The publishing company girl, that is. The one who gave me the bizarre editing job last weekend of checking over tens of thousands of computer-generated sentences.

To recap......

First, she made me waste a whole day waiting in vain for a courier to deliver the manuscript as promised. Then she became completely uncontactable for a week or so following.

Then she got in touch again, and told me the project was still on after all. She made me wait in a whole day for the manuscript delivery again - but at least this time the courier did eventually come.

The manuscript was nearly twice as long as she'd told me it was going to be when we agreed the fee. I tried to contact her over the weekend to discuss this, but she was yet again ignoring her cellphone calls and text messages.

Then she sent a courier to pick up the manuscript on Monday morning without having arranged this with me first. I was trying to have a lie-in, because I'd suffered an episode of insomnia the night before. Having an unannounced stranger arrive at your door is always rather anxiety-making in China. Having the goon lean on your doorbell without getting an answer for half an hour is really, really annoying. I came close to committing homicide, but chose instead to cower under the sheets ignoring him.

I then contacted the girl by text message to make an alternate arrangement to have the manuscript (the half that I'd finished; the amount that I'd been asked to do and had agreed a fee for) collected from the recording studio where I was working that afternoon. Again, the courier didn't come in the 3 hours I was there, and the girl was again uncontactable, ignoring my queries as to whether she had been able to arrange the pick-up as suggested or not. I left the pages with the studio staff, and I gather from them that it was eventually collected. The annoying girl, however, has still not contacted me to confirm this.

So, I am awaiting news on whether they are happy with the work I've done on the first half of the script. I am awaiting news on whether they want me to proceed with the second half of the script. I am awaiting news on whether they are willing to offer me a slightly improved fee for the whole job. I am awaiting news on whether they intend to pay me anything for the work I have already done.

The girl has now contacted me on at least 3, possibly 4 different mobile phone numbers (possibly 5, if the person who called 20 times on Monday morning was her rather than the courier). And a landline number. She has never answered any of these numbers when I have tried to call her. She has not responded to any text messages I've sent her in 4 days.

I am now in a HUGE bloody fume about it.

I don't have an e-mail address for her, and know her only by an English name - so, there is every likelihood that I am going to get scammed.

However, I am reasonably confident that I know which publishing house she works for, and I am thinking of going around there tomorrow morning and screaming at people until somebody brings me the bitch's head on a platter.

Update: I didn't go and scream at people this morning, because I am a nice person, really.

And also because I get quite a lot of work out of other people at this publishing house, both editing and recording, so I don't want to burn down the bridge.

And also because I had another bout of insomnia last night, and wasn't in a fit state to do anything this morning.

As it happened, she finally got in touch. Well, I think it was her. She didn't identify herself, and was sending me a text message from yet another phone number I didn't recognise. She promised she would contact me "later" today. It's now pretty darned late, and I haven't heard a peep. I've sent a couple of reminders, asking if she is indeed who I think she is. No response.

God help this girl if I ever actually meet her. I've given up on the money now. I just want to let her know what I think of her.

Today's studio humdinger

A boy college student and a girl college student (as it so often is in these dialogues I have to record - ah, it keeps me feeling young!) were discussing their reading habits.

The boy revealed that he particularly liked historical novels, and mentioned two titles that he had read recently.

The girl responded: "You really are enveloped in the fictions."

For some reason, the remark reminded me of my experiences at Xinhua News!

It also occurred to me that this phrase might be somewhat apposite for our own dear Moonrat - who, in addition to launching her new online 'book club', is currently keeping The BookBook going singlehandedly. Of course, she is quite often 'enveloped' in the non-fictions, too.

A question of taste

Yesterday in the studio.....

It's a better than average set of scripts we're recording this week. There are a lot of the tired old 'favourites', but a lot of newer stuff too; and much of it looks as if it is taken from authentic English sources - transcribed from radio programmes or lifted from newspapers.

Thus, I fear that the disturbing story of the young man who got his face eaten by his dog was probably true. (It was said that he had fallen asleep on his sofa, and that the dog - worried that he wouldn't wake up, or agitated at not having been fed on time - started biting him.) The account of the injuries was distressingly graphic, and really not at all in keeping with a textbook aimed at high school kids.

But what was even worse was the glib and jokey way the story was being discussed (it had been transposed into a dialogue between a boy and girl college student). It ended with the line: "I suppose he's looking forward to Halloween. Everyone will be wearing a mask then."

We were reading this on auto-pilot, without paying too much attention at first, but disgust and dismay started to overcome us by the mid-point, and when we reached this appalling finale, DD's and my jaws were on the table. We boggled at each other for a moment in disbelief, and then started haranguing the publishing company staff present at the session.

It seems we have in fact managed to persuade them to pull this episode from the books/tapes. A small but worthwhile victory.

But you have to wonder, How the hell did something like this make its way into a script in the first place? Who writes this stuff? Have they really got no sense of decency at all?

Are we feeling "Olympic" enough yet??

Less than three weeks to go now before the Olympics, and the craziness of the preparations ramps up each day.

Since the middle of last week, we've had dozens of police and militiamen milling about on the sidewalks of just about every major street in the northern half of the city. Does this enhance a visitor's sense of safety? NO. It just gives the (most unfortunate, highly misleading) impression that China is a police state.

Over the weekend, all the bars and restaurants around the Workers' Stadium were closed down - for the next two months. Three of the city's most popular live music venues - 13 Club, D-22, and The Stone Boat Bar - have been closed down since earlier this month (at least for music performances; failure to hold a type of permit that nobody previously knew existed was cited as the convenient excuse), and the other music bars are keeping their heads down and desperately hoping nobody 'notices' them. Another victim, reported by bar reviewer Beijing Boyce a few days ago, is Propaganda, a disco that's hugely popular with the foreign student set in Wudaokou (apparently they've decided to close down of their own volition, figuring that this would be an ideal time to get in a month or two of renovation work - yeah, right).

Most of the city's street food sellers seem to have been banished as well. I was hoping to grab a quick bite at lunchtime on Liudaokou (where I do most of my recording work); the little street is usually buzzing with activity, offering dozens of filling 'fast food' options for just a few kuai. Not today. It was deserted. Very sad. (And it's not as if any Olympic visitors are going to go anywhere near this place: it's not close to any of the venues, it's not on the way to anywhere; it's a shabby, inconspicuous, pothole-infested lane. But at least it had character; until the authorities decided that this was 'unharmonious'.)

The grass is green, the flowers are blooming, and even the weather has finally started to turn sunny again. Ah yes, and all the beggars and street hawkers have disappeared.

Oh my gosh, yes, Beijing is READY.

Well, I don't think the Olympic subway line is operating yet, but........

The Rise of the Machines

That editing job that looked as though it had vanished into the ether unexpectedly came back last week.

I was so annoyed that the silly girl at the publishing house had failed to courier it over to me on the day she'd said (OK, it was such a wretched day outside that I probably would have stayed in all day anyway, but..... it's the principle of the thing, damn it!) and had then become unconctactable for a week or more, that I very nearly told her where to shove it. But I need the money.

I didn't get a chance to look at it until the weekend. When I did so, I soon became even more annoyed (if such a thing were possible), because - a) it's not a textbook, as I had been told; and b) it's nearly twice as long as I had been told. Time to start complaining, and renegotiating the fee, I think.

On the plus side, it's actually a pretty easy job, since it's not a conventional edit at all: I don't have to re-write anything, just highlight (and occasionally, when I'm feeling generous, explain) all the mistakes.

On the minus side, it is mind-buggeringly tedious. It is about 200,000 words of computer-generated text - the same sentence patterns being repeated dozens of times with the same standard sequences of variations. Most of them are correct; most of the ones that are wrong, are egregiously so and leap off the page; it's only very occasionally that more detailed grammatical knowledge - or subjective aesthetic judgement - is called into play from me. Actually, the hardest part of it is staying alert to places where occasionally they've sneakily changed two things in a sentence type at the same time. And trying to maintain your will to live when they introduce a completely new sentence pattern every once in a while and, for just a few moments, you have to start paying full attention again. Once I got into the swing of it, I found I could scan 2 or 3 pages of this crap each minute - so I'm earning money at quite a tidy hourly rate. But there's still way too much of it for me to accept the whole job at the original fee.

The really spooky thing about this is that all of the sentences are about writing. In fact, most of them seem to be assessments of (or very vague comments or suggestions on) author submissions. ("Some minor problems in this piece are related to your punctuation. Please go over it again.")

Ye gods! This is nothing less than the automation of the publishing industry! Sinister. Very, very sinister.

I haven't got to the rejection slips yet - but I just know I'm going to run into a whole raft of them round about page 550.......

The weekly bon mot

"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions."

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

A new 'game' for everyone

Earlier this week I started a new thread on my Barstool Blues blog, inviting readers to share with me their favourite misheard song lyrics.

I know, such things are easily overlooked amid the morass of other stuff I've posted, so I thought I would highlight it again.

My friend The British Cowboy refers me to a website called KissThisGuy, which specialises in recording amusingly misheard lyrics. So..... you can go there to find some inspiration, if you like; but really, I'd far rather you shared your own experiences with me.

However, I thought this might help to get your ideas kick-started - a brilliant analysis of the lyrics to Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" (thanks to my blog-buddy 'Tolstoy' for finding this gem!), created by Annie Varner.

Annie (I think I'm in love!) has another similarly wonderful video here - a song apparently called "Silver and Cold" (should that be "Silver and Gold"??) by a band called AFI. This one includes such delights as "O my pitiful wombat" (presumably for "O my beautiful woman"), and "I'll beg her for Guinness" (I was, of course, reminded at once of my bar buddy, The Bookseller).

Enjoy.

Don't feel you have to top this. But do please share your own favourite Misheard Lyrics with me here.

What the Chinese complain about

I couldn't resist this - a marvellous graphic analysing what Chinese bloggers talk about. (I'm a little slow to pick up on this [via the regularly fascinating Imagethief]: it was on the Wall Street Journal's China blog last month.)

We self-centred and somewhat paranoid laowai are apt to suppose that Chinese bloggers spend 90% of their time bitching about us; but, hey, what do you know, they actually spend most of their time bitching about their own government!

I was - briefly - quite encouraged by this. But then I pondered the figures a little more closely. In a country where the government is as fucked up as this, having 25% of blog opinion devoted to criticism of it really isn't that much. Notice also that most of this criticism is only "implicit"; and just about none of it is directed at the leadership.

Still, it's nice to know that they're really not just having a go at us foreigners the whole time. As I observed in one of my weekly bon mots some time ago: "We'd be a lot less worried what other people think about us if we realised how seldom they did."

All the 1's

Why??

Why not?! Does there always have to be a reason?

Well, OK, this image of the lunar surface is filed as Frame 1111 in the Lunar Orbiter Photo Gallery of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (a division of the Universities Space Research Association).

And this is Post No. 1,111 on Froogville.

So, perhaps there is always a reason........

What will they think of next?

Yes, those endlessly inventive Japanese have now come up with square watermelons. Saves space in the fridge, don't you know? This is not a hoax.

I picked this up from the Wicked Thoughts blog back in April (go search the archives; unfortunately it doesn't seem to have links to individual posts) - another favourite time-waster, of late. Indeed, I suppose I should make it a 'Website of the Month' recommendation; but be warned: it is very profuse, and very addictive.

The weekly haiku

White haze and drizzle,
No reason to go outside:
Prisoner of the rain.

Yep, yet another dose of shitty weather in Beijing. Even more dispiriting after being treated to the almost forgotten delight of a few sunny days this week.

Today's great 'Chinglish' mispronunciation moment

During a role-play exercise on B2B complaining over the telephone.....

"I do not like this shit you have sent me. Nobody will wear this shit."

I correct: "These shirts. These shirts."

Teachers wanted for Nanjing, China

Some Chinese business contacts of mine recently asked if I could help them find some teachers for a new school down in Nanjing.

It's a tough task - almost, I fear, hopeless.

A majority of the English teachers already working in China have been forced to leave over the summer by the introduction of paranoid new visa restrictions for the Olympics. Those that are still here are mostly tied into the jobs that helped them get their visas.

And recruitment from overseas? Well, that's going to be tough to arrange over the next month as well - but we're going to do our best.

Job details below. If any of you out there reading this happen to be ESOL teachers (or know people that are), please drop me a line.

4 or 5 English teachers are needed for a well-established school in Nanjing. They will be teaching on a new undergraduate foundation program to be established this year by a well-regarded college from the east coast of Canada. A TEFL/TESOL qualification is required, and some previous teaching experience is preferred. Any suitably qualified native English speakers will be considered, although North Americans are likely to be given preference. This sort of position might be especially attractive to recent graduates of an 'Oriental Studies' discipline who wish to get 1 or 2 years' experience of living in China and improve their Mandarin skills.

Nanjing is a medium-sized city (for China! Around 6 million.) on the Yangtze River, near the east coast. A former capital, it is an attractive and prosperous city, with many sites of historical interest. It still has a relatively small foreign population, compared to Beijing or (nearby) Shanghai.

The school has a well-equipped campus in the heart of downtown. It is one of the best-run ventures of this kind I have seen in China (I visited twice last year, when I was working for a British education company that had a partnership with it). There is an experienced foreign teacher running the academic side of things (almost unheard of in China!). Moreover, the Canadian college will provide an experienced teacher of its own to act as the Director of Studies overseeing this program.

The students will be young Chinese - teens or early-20s - looking to study overseas in Canada. Their initial English level is likely to be low intermediate (or pre-intermediate); but it is hoped they will be able to make rapid progress in an English immersion environment. Class size should be 15-20. No more than 20 contact hours per week.

The basic salary will be 8,000 RMB per month (c. USD 1,200, GBP 600: rather better than average for this kind of position; and the cost of living in Nanjing is lower than in Beijing or Shanghai). Free accommodation and other standard benefits will also be provided.

The initial contract duration will be 11.5 months, to run from mid-August this year to the end of July 2009. This period will include around 2 months of fully-paid holiday.

Please note that these positions need to be filled immediately: teaching will probably start early in September, but the Canadian partner college would like to provide orientation and induction training for teachers in the second half of August.

Wishful thinking

A little earlier this evening I saw a bi-lingual sticker across the rear windscreen of a car (one of the scary black Audis favoured by the cadres and their affluent business associates).

In English it said: "Considerate driving creates a good city image."

Ah yes, more Olympic propaganda!

This, I fear, is very much too little, too late. I haven't seen any other efforts at driver education here. And, as I have often remarked before (just try searching for "Beijing+drivers" on here.... and maybe "homicidal"), Beijing has the worst drivers in China, probably in the world: no road sense, no car control, no awareness of what's going on around them, no regard for the traffic rules. It's every man for himself.

Other foreigners complain most of the undisciplined filtering right (and left) at major intersections, which often jams up the traffic flow in all four directions. My No 1 bugbear is the vice - which shows no sign of diminishing - of failing to slow down for (or, more often, actually accelerating aggressively towards) pedestrians attempting to cross the road.

How many visitors to Beijing next month will be killed on the roads? I'm afraid there will inevitably be some; possibly quite a lot.

Take care: it's a jungle out there.

Pre-Olympic progress in the fight against Chinglish

China has at last discovered the word 'proctology'! Perhaps we can now begin to hope that 'gynaecology' will soon be adopted into regular use too.

At least, in this area they have been talking about 'anus disease' for some years now; though I imagine, back in the 80s or early 90s, it would have been 'Butt Dept.' or 'Arse Ward'.

For some years now, we've been kept entertained in Beijing's public toilets by the colourful advertisements for the Dongda Anus and Intestine Diseases Hospital over on Dongdaqiao Lu. Many of us are still haunted by the image of a balding, middle-aged white guy grinning demonically out at you from the one of the early posters - and giving a huge thumbs up. Was he a patient celebrating an 'all clear', or a doctor demonstrating his examination technique? We hardly liked to speculate.

He was eventually replaced by a rather cute girl in a nurse's uniform. Well, cute - but for the fact that she was raising her right index finger dramatically skywards, and...... well, it was a small and not terribly well reproduced photo, but the tip of the finger did seem to be, er, oddly discoloured. Not nice.

The latest campaign (oh, how I wish now that I had taken pictures of the earlier ones to preserve them for posterity; but taking pictures in loos is such a dicey business....) has gone back to simply showing a picture of the hospital building. But NOW it's called the Dongda Proctology and Intestine Hospital.

Progress indeed.

It shouldn't happen to a Daily Llama....

It's shocking the indignity we humans inflict upon these noble creatures! I urge you all to send strongly-worded letters of outrage to your elected representatives.

Bon mot for the week

"Wit is educated insolence."

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)