Olympic Blues....and Browns

After a surprising spring that saw a glorious run of blue sky days, no major sand storms and in general a lifting of the pall of coalsmoke haze that bedeviled us in the winter, Beijing has reverted to form. As you can see from the Bureaucam shot above, the city is back to a sullen brown fugue state that turns eerie and somewhat apocalyptic in the evenings when the haze is shot through with the orange glow of the setting sun. It hasn't escaped anyone that there's barely a year to go before you-know-what. Walking around the city hacking and spluttering along with everyone else, the air rasping like sandpaper at the back of my throat, I wonder, as ever, what will happen if this muck descends on the city next August.