The heat is on

After weeks of freezing my bits off, the heat has finally been turned on in my Beijing apartment block.
The heat is centrally controlled and we're at the mercy of a bureaucrats whim when it comes to deciding the date for flicking the heat switch.
November 15th was rumoured to be the big day but the radiator's started emitting a gentle warmth this afternoon.
The trouble is that the government like to regulate home heating to save money and, they say, the environment.
This means the 'target' temperature is 16 degrees. Not a very toasty target. Could they not aim for 30 degrees?
That way, even if they fall short by a few degrees we can still enjoy Mediterranean winter in the Chinese capital.
Luckily I've taken the precaution of buying myself some Chinese long johns. It's like a giant baby grow but damn it's cold.
I'm off to slip into the long johns and sit on the radiator while drinking green tea.
Wake me up in spring.

Blogspot vanishes again

Yet again, all blogspot pages are inaccessible from Beijing for no apparent reason. As usual, I can post whatever I want but only those in the free world can read it.
Censorship is, by a country mile, my least favorite thing about living in China.
I'm not sure whether next year's Olympic games will make things better or worse.
During big events, like last month's Communist Party Congress, the censorship is usually cranked up. But when the world's media descends on China's capital next summer, censorship will be a big part of the story if the authorities don't loosen up.
Although the decent people of China may never know it.

...aaaand we're back!

This blog is fast becoming a tracker for the arbitrary web censorship that applies in the PRC.
The latest is that I can now see Blogspot sites again.
As mentioned in previous posts, all Blogger websites had been off limits until the middle of October. There was a brief reprieve and then the blogs vanished again.
Well, now I can post and view the site but there's no way of knowing how long it will last.

Hello YouTube my old friend...

Well, YouTube is now accessible again in Beijing. I've no idea how long it will last but it's good to have an alternative to Chinese state TV.
Alas I still can't view my own blog because the restrictions on Blogspot apparently remain in place.
As usual, there's no announcement or explanation as to why websites are blocked and unblocked. We're all at the mercy of a censor's whim.
But today, the censor doesn't seem like such a bad guy after all.
Now if he could just unblock Blogspot and stop messing with Wikipedia that'd be super.

Poxy proxies

I've been trying to find a way around viewing my own blog from China and keep hearing that I should 'just use a proxy server' to make it look like I'm accessing the net from outside the country.
However, every proxy site I find doesn't seem to work for Blogspot. I even came across an article suggesting Google/Blogspot are in cahoots with the censors and have been blocking attempts to access their sites via proxies.
I'm a bit out of my depth here so all suggestions welcome.

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

What an exciting place China is.
Yesterday I was still celebrating the return of blogspot which had been unblocked by the authorities.
However, today things are returning to normal. I can upload new posts (I think) but I can't read my own blog.
In fact, I can't read any blogspot page at the moment. It might change later in the week but there's absolutely no way to tell!
I spoke to a Chinese student today about YouTube being blocked since last week. They seemed surprised that I was concerned by this. It's all routine to locals.
"Oh it's just because of the Communist Party conference. Don't worry - it'll probably be back to normal soon."
Silly me. Sigh.

Google Video and YouTube suppressed

Looks like Google Video is just as inaccessible as YouTube.
Any attempt to watch videos through Google in China brings up the following message:

"Thanks for your interest in Google Video.
Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country.We hope to make this feature available more widely in the future, and we really appreciate your patience."

So that's Google, YouTube, the BBC and Wikipedia all on the blacklist.
How are we supposed to while away the hours of our working day without such distractions?