Here's another picture from Beijing. We got to the Forbidden City after it had already closed, so we went to an adjacent park to see if we could climb a hill and see in. We couldn't, but the park was gorgeous.

 

I met Tom today. I was being measured for a new shirt.

It was quite an amazing confluence of incongruities®:

• a blogging Saville Row tailor with 19th-century shears and his Google Calendar up on his laptop sitting atop a pile of cloth;
• two blokes from the North of England meeting for the first time in a fancy hotel suite in San Francisco;
• a bespoke shirt being made just for me, of all people...

Thanks Wendy for a cool birthday present!

Statistics:

• In the United States, since 1980 the share of overall income going to the top 1% has doubled from 8% to 16%
• 22% of Americans believe in evolution; 69% believe in angels; 46% believe they have a personal angel
• 2 people each month jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, making it the most popular place in the world for suicide

I'm thinking Emperor Chongzhen needs a better publicist: