With all of this, it’s only natural that friends and family should inquire about the pollution. Is it really all that bad?! To answer this, I took a photo out of my window a few days ago:

The photo is taken mid-morning and is of what I would describe as a ‘two block day’. Quite literally, one can only see two blocks down the street. ‘One block’ days are not uncommon.

I must allow myself one miner digression, however, to highlight the irony in CCTV — a Chinese TV news network — showing people protesting about the reliability of BBC news coverage, whilst CCTV’s own record in such matters is somewhat… interesting:

Now, after much thought (and a regular changing of the mind), I am of the opinion that Beijing should certainly be given the oportunity to host the Olympics and we – in the rest of the World – must embrace China. China should be given every chance possible to continue to prosper [though perhaps it is arrogant to assume we have much choice in the matter now].

However, as part of this, it is time for the establishment to realise that, as China takes an ever increasingly prominent role on the World-stage, even its internal politics will come under greater scrutiny. The traditional solution of smoke-and-mirrors will no longer suffice.

As a side-note, I’m interested to see if my digression gets my website blocked by the Great Firewall or not.

Update: Thanks go to Mike, my self-appointed editor, for his re-wording of paragraph 2.