BLOGGING WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

THE FIRST OFFICIAL STATEMENT
OF
HOMO LUDENS
Authorised during the month of January 2009

Paddington is in China! With only seven minutes left on the internet meter, that is as far as Paddington's official statement goes at the moment, but I already have much to write about - the pavement desert that is the Olympic Park, the awesome Beijing Urban Planning Exhibition (seriously one of the best museums [musea?] I have ever been to), the greasy plans for Beijing's Central Business District (with home-made photos!), the writings of Confucius, some stuff wot I have learned about Deng and the reform era (doesn't sound promising I know, but it's actually pretty interesting, and explains why China has disobeyed the liberal democratic rule where opening markets = opening political freedoms) etc etc.



THE SECOND OFFICIAL STATEMENT
OF
HOMO LUDENS
Authorised during the month of January 2009

Paddington is engaged! His bearess (General Secretary of the dearly-departed Missing Dust Jacket) made him the luckiest bear in either hemisphere by saying "yes" to his proposal of marriage late last week, and Paddington is consequently cock-a-hoop. To celebrate, I shall be posting lots of photos of us snogging outside Northern Line tube stations in the coming months (our project for the year is to visit each one and plant a smacker on each other's lips). Forgive the strange juxtaposition of Chinese politics and Underground kisses, but my head is a wonderfully strange juxtaposition of a place to be at the moment.