Friday morning 11am in Beijing, the sky is gray, the World Trade Center Tower 3 is nowhere to be seen. On my balcony it’s sticky, over 30C. But little or no dust. Unlucky Beijing really, pollution levels (API) have been going up and were yesterday around 100. We all hope there will be some rain in the afternoon to cool down the city, wash away the fog.
Yesterday I went to the opening of the Holland Heineken House, a very select crowd so it was not packed and it was great to have a tour of the facilities before they become off limits for people like me. They did a great job really. Hein Verbruggen was there, well hidden from the public. I did not feel I should talk with him as he would probably tell me (again) the air was fine in Beijing. As for the BOIC, nothing much from that corner. Never mind the Belgian team and all those people flocking around. They only contacted in the past to get something solved and then disappeared. Well, to their credit they just offered us tickets for some of the Games and I will be one of the lucky ones. Sunday evening I will join the Aussies. Sunday lunch I will join the French community with all the big shots in town from French countries. I guess Belgium will not be there.
I also had my first ride on Metro Line 10. Great, very modern and pleasant.
In the evening I watched Shanghai TV, a more than 2 hour program on the history of the Olympics, as seen by China. I was the only foreigner interviewed… The producer promised the DVD, hopefully I’ll get it. This follows the 15 min. footage about me last Monday on CCTV2 (will be shown again on Sunday, on CCTV4). Included me running on the treadmill in California Fitness and the usual interviews. They also called me a “party animal”. How they have this impression I don’t know. Maybe because I went to Tango, Suzie Wong, 1949 1/5, China Doll, The Den(mark) and others recently? Well, looks like the nightlife here is still going strong, at least in some discos and bars. Clubbing goes on. No panic.
Today will be a long day (and night). I will join the crew of RTBF (Belgian French TV) as from 4pm till 1am, we will be in two locations next to the Bird’s Nest and Watercube, in TV studios. Life interviews are planned (for the news over there in Belgium) and I should be on air except I fall asleep, I get drunk (unlikely), I did not get a drink to wake up (likely), we are stopped by the dozens of security screenings, or any other Act of God.
So, I might not see much of the Opening Ceremony except the fireworks. As I saw most of it already anyway, no big worry. Anyway it will be shown over and over again.
Wish Beijing luck, as well as all of us here. Sorry for not posting some of the nice pics I have… too busy… Later…

We have been assisting the emergency medical center “120” with tips, screening call center candidates etc.
Now Valerie (and also Sun) is on standby whenever foreigners call and the 120 people are “lost in translation”, during the two weeks of the Olympics.
Over the weekend we got the first calls… Always a challenge with the different “English” and some Spanish speakers (Valerie speaks Spanish too, as well as English, French and Chinese).
A couple of days ago I had to make a test call to 120 to play a sick foreigner. I found inspiration in Don Corleone, the mafia guy speaking with a deep voice. Well, I had COPD and an attack of asthma you see. They handled it quite well and we made some suggestions for improvement.
Hopefully none of you will have to call us!

I would say, unlucky Beijing and very unlucky all of us.
During the Olympics, no pollution – guaranteed. But despite the tremendous efforts and restrictions, Beijing has been plagued by lack of wind, sultry weather, bad visibility. And higher than expected API.
I have now on record all data from 21 May 2008 till 2 August. You can’t find that back by the way. Anybody interested, let me know. I would like to put some figures on my blog but I always run out of time.
Some conclusions:
– dust really has drastically been reduced as I can see on my balcony; no need to measure, just wipe the dust from the inox rails; they never have been so clean.
– I thought the official API were unreliable but I think they are closer to reality than expected; the point is they don’t give the API of some critical locations such as Qianmen (disappeared from all listings – was the worst location) nor the Olympic Green (there is an hidden advanced meteorology station in the Park, never mentioned – I have pics of it).
– the API supplied as usual actually only refers to PM10; in a distant past you could read daily figures on SO2 and NO2 but they all disappeared, probably because they are too bad; with the new additional data for the Olympics one immediately sees the API is only the PM10; SO2 and NO2 are listed again; other dangerous pollutants are not listed, such as ozone and many others
– in the same way China Daily stopped publishing national API because it was too horrible anyway
– for the poor of us, it only proves once and for all the battle against pollution is hopeless; just think – if with all the efforts it is hard to go below API 100, how bad it must be under “normal” conditions.
As I said already – living in Beijing is hazardous to your health. Only moron foreigners or dinosaur bureaucrats deny it.

See also a chart and a cartoon from the South China Morning Post. Of course some of the IOC officials belong to the “All is well” category.

We all know about the often unpleasant security checks wherever you go. Beijing looks like a giant airport terminal with scanners and security people all over – discos, metro stations, exhibitions, anywhere. Some people are really fed up. On the other hand, as long as the checks are done in a polite way, we should not complain too much.
Extremist are the worst of the worst and for me they can be gassed or shot. They kill innocent people in the name of their stupid causes. Remember Bali discos? At least I feel safe – once inside – in a Beijing disco. Or do you say “never mind” if some of those monsters blows up everybody in China Doll where so many infidels are engaged in very infidel behavior? Or blow up the subway like in London?
Think yourself.
Open your bags, cooperate and dance the night away.

Readers might notice my silence on this topic despite being sometimes called “Mr. Olympics”. Well, I just hope it will all be over ASAP and this without too many sad incidents.
I have serious Olympic fatigue. Media have been interviewing me several times per week, with some unexpected reactions:
– I saw you one CNN!
– I’ve never been interviewed on CNN!
– Well, it was you and you said….. but why do you hide your name and call yourself Gustavo?
Well, after some other reactions seems Channel4 (UK) misspelled my name, showed the interview in the UK and then passed it on to CNN. Channel4 did apologize for the hiccup.
But Beijing is becoming a sterilized city. Many foreigners had to leave or did not get a visa. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were forced to leave the city. Hotels and restaurants as well as tourist agencies are far from happy.
Business is stopped for many as getting a business visa is officially nearly impossible (Shanghai explained while Beijing as usual continues its empty propaganda blabla).
No more tickets, so I’ll watch it on TV. Not that I’ll miss much with the chaos you can expect to go to the venue and then return home.
I did go to the rehearsal of the Opening ceremony (as one of the very very few foreigners). Can’t tell you more about except I was rather disappointed. And came home soaking wet from the downpour and the lack of transportation. And tired of the poor signage and chaos. That was with 50,000 people. Wait for the 100,000!.
Hopefully they’ll do better on 8/8/8 and I suggest you stay home and watch on TV. Except you are a VVIP.
But I will go to the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics – I want to support those as they receive too little attention.
Beijing is not completely dead. Nightlife is sanitized but some discos are still fully packed and I dragged some 20 people to a Brazilian Luxury Carnaval in KlubbRouge, all thanks to Leo Anjos (see his pics!). Other full spots are Suzie Wong and China Doll (3.3).

We will have to wait till the Halloween Party is over to find back good old perverted Maggie’s with the old PSB guys back in business. Yes I know, we are bad boys.