An Afternoon With Roger

Beijing

Last night was the mid-Autumn festival. A tenuous one I know, much like the mid-Autumn sales they used to have at MFI. Everyone's supposed to gather round eating special 'moon cakes' and looking at the full moon. The thick smog means you can't really see the moon at the best of times and yesterday was no exception, but the cakes were ok as long as you avoided ones with egg in the middle.

Made my first trip to Tiananmen Square today. It is enormous, although the pollution makes it difficult to see one end from the other so that may be a slight optical illusion. No sign of any demonstrators being crushed by tanks, or of any tanks at all really. Chairman Mao's huge memorial hall dominates one part of the square. It's much bigger than Lenin's although his body is naturally much smaller. His face has a very suspicious luminous green glow that seems to come from within his brain. Presumably that's what too many moon cakes does to you.

Checked out the Forbidden City this afternoon and I was delighted to discover the voice on the audio tour guide is none other than Roger Moore. The pictures of him around the ticket office seem to date from the 1970s and his voice over sometimes slips into full on James Bond mode. He can't resist a 007-style smirk when he's talking about the harem the various emperors used, and how one died after apparently "over indulging" in one of the 27 beds. The palace itself is certainly grand with all its buildings but it's not absolutely stunning, no matter how much Roger tries to convince you otherwise.