Plog

9.21am: I can't call the muck outside my window smog or fog or even pollution any more. No one really knows what it is. It could be smog, it could be fog, it could be intensely high levels of pollution (no...!), it could be smoke, haze, soot, cloud, steam, vapour, sand, grit, brume, murk, mist or fumes. It could even be pea soup, depending on your country of origin.

So - mysterious creature - I shall call thee Plog.

Whatever it is, it is a living, breathing animal that sucks the breath out of our lungs, leaving them pained and strained for oxygen. It's not pleasant. It creases our skin. It leaves sooty marks on the sweet, plump and spongey walls of our bronchial sacs - that is, unless they are already coated heavily with the stodgy mucus our bodies inevitably ooze in valiant battle against these elements.

So, today I share with you the view from my window. And then the view from my same window on the third of November.

Please be advised that the third of November was a unique day in the life of the Air in Beijing. U-N-I-Q-U-E being the word that is classified as: -adjective, limited in occurrence to a given class, situation or area: "...a rare genre of weather unique to Beijing..."

Above pictures represent before and after shots, with the before shot being the inevitable winner by default. And anyone who tells you otherwise is living inside a sunshiney lollipop vortex of an alternative Beijing where pixies flit from Birds Nest to Cube, holding the chubby hands of the Beijing Friendlies.

Cough! hack! meek smile... gasp.