Sunshine on my Shoulder!

You would not believe the weather we're having.  I mean, this is HK and just look!

It was up there all the time, 

hiding behind the smog!

The sky is blue, the air is clean, the sun is sparkling. Everything feels crisp and new and fresh!

However, it won't last for long. Yesterday I went up to The Peak to get photographs of HK for Beccy, who missed out when she was here because of mist. And when I arrived it looked like this:

 And when I left two hours later, it looked like this:

And, yup, I saw the transition with my own eyes.

Look at the left of this photo and then look at the right.  Can you see it?  Totally different air quality. And it's clear what's causing it. It's the smog pumping on down into our fair city from someplace to the left.  And you know what's there on the left?

It's the Pearl River Delta.

I've been saying all along that it's ridiculous for HK to blame the smog on smoking.  It's all those unregulated mega-factories up in Mainland China along the Pearl River that are funneling their filth down to us.

This reminds me of when I was teaching, many years ago, when we had a particularly cravenly, repulsive and slimy principal who was not-so-secretly terrified of The Bad Boys and so got his "I'm tough!" jollies tormenting The Good Kids.  Violent gangs roamed the High School unhindered, pulling knives on teachers and inculcating a culture of fear, but heaven help you if you were a nice kid sitting six feet away from a rubbish bin that didn't have the lid on straight, or a scholarship boy who accidentally brushed against the principal's ficus!

Blaming smokers for causing HK's smog is exactly along those lines, with Legco playing Cravenly, Repulsive and Slimy Principal, Mainland China playing The Bad Boys, and we poor humble little smokers being The Good Kids!

But this is such lovely weather, let's not grumble.  Here's another photo of HK under blue skies to cheer us up: