The First Post of 2006

Happy New Year. It's taken me some time to post in 2006, but I'd like to think I was just trying to bide my time in order to issue a simultaneous ???? or ???? for the Year of the Dog.

Issue 12 of gou-rou.com is up, though it's incomplete, as I still haven't finished my articles for the TV Guide, or "Andy Lau trapped in hideous fatal Groundhog Day scenario".

Work continues at Bilingual Time, where I get to be fantastically self-indulgent when it comes to picking article subjects. But it's OK, because this kind of idiosyncracy (and therefore presenting the readers with stuff they'd otherwise never hear about) it precisely within our remit.

Recently, I have written features on:
- the Hindenburg disaster
- Metallica
- Hunter S. Thompson and gonzo journalism
- Wild West movies
- the Blur vs. Oasis TOTP competition
- the Nazca Lines
- bikers

and so on.

On the other hand, I'm always self-censoring for the news section, especially for Chinese domestic news. Apparently not enough. We got a call back today from the censors over an article about the Chinese agricultural tax repeal, and though they didn't say anything, we're feeling a bit dubious about the piece on Japanese voters wanting their troops pulled out of Iraq.

So, from now on... no Chinese news. At all. The funny thing is, I was taking my China reports from Xinhua, the state news agency, anyway. Still, it makes my job easier and frees up space for some entertainment news, which is always good.