The air quality readings for Beijing today have veered several times into "Hazardous."

I hesitated before reminding myself what that term means because, well, there's not much I can do about the epic amount of gunk that hangs overhead.

Do we really need to know that the "Particulate Matter" levels are in a bad way?

Is it not enough to see that in the middle of the afternoon here in Beijing the world is cloaked in something between grey and brown?

The view from my office today (above) makes "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" sound like the opening line of an insult.

Nonetheless, my curiosity got the better of me and I looked it up again : "Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected."

I'm not sure that the air feels any worse right now than usual, but I wouldn't bet on anything pegged to:

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see"