And so you're back....from outer space....

Or in fact, Beijing, capital of PRC, venue for next week's Communist Party meeting and, lest anyone forget, the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Due to China's (mis)understanding about freedom of speech it was impossible to get onto a blogsite last week. Or the BBC news pages. But the Guardian site was OK so at least some unfiltered news got through the doubleplusgood nonsense peddled by their vetted media sources.

As an aside, my friends in Beijing tell me they just assume that they are watched, listened to and followed. Makes life easier, and at least then they don't get surprised when they find out it's happening.

It's no secret that the Chinese are immensly proud of hosting the Olympics, and are going all out to use them to show case China and its many economic and social achieivemetnts. An aspect of this that I find intriguing is that they are proud to show the world how calculating and planful their preparations are.

As an example, I was browsing yesterday's China Daily (makes the South China Morning Post and Straits Times look unbelievably racy). Inside was a huge glossy pull out about preparations for the games, including a two page spread on how women who wanted to be hostesses in the games are preparing for this honour. I imagine here they're talking about the chicks who hand out bouquets and carry cushions with medals on them, not the squads of, er, other hostesses who will no doubt be cashing in on the games too.

Preparation for being a hostess includes "smiling practice" to achieve the state mandated perfect smile that displays eight teeth. Eight because it's lucky?? possibly..... should you want to try this for yourself, then grip a chop stick between your gnashers (for up to 2 hours at a time) as this will train up the right muscle groups.

You might not want to try this on your commute into work.