Gray skies, black humor

Heavy smog is bad for your health, but so far it has been good at stimulating a spontaneous revelry in making and partaking in wisecracks, channeling collective anxiety into temporary optimism.

Someone in Beijing says its smog is so dense he cannot see the Chairman Mao portrait at the Tian'anmen Rostrum. Another counters: "You call that dense? I cannot see the Chairman Mao image on my bank note."

Don't accuse me of believing in conspiracy theories, but I have a hunch that manufacturers of facial masks are behind this.