Some natter about what's the matter

The time may have come, as the Walrus said, to talk of many things, but perhaps not shoes and ships and sealing-wax and whether pigs have wings; and let's not talk about why the sea is boiling hot - climate change, as you no doubt know - nor waste our time on kings.

Instead, since it is getting near that time of year in Beijing when venturing outside without a hat means having the cold hands of winter squeeze the brains from our heads like toothpaste from a tube, let's focus our attention on cabbages for a moment, that way we can wander around the warmer days of summer a while before we get too discombobulated.

Last year, if you were at the Midi Music Festival in Beijing you might have come across some teenagers walking cabbage heads around on leashes as if they were overstuffed poodles dyed green. There was some chatter that this was an outcome of young people's isolation in the metropolis, but it appears to have been part of artist Han Bing's Walking the Cabbage Series.