A good friend of mine pointed out that a post I put up the day I got back from Italy and that remarked on a soaring fistfight that broke out near my apartment has disappeared. I didn't even realize it. Lest anyone feel that this was a craven act of self-censorship or a craven act of imposed censorship, don't worry about it. As near as I can reconstruct I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to purge one of the half-written, unpublished posts that litter my blog. (Oh, the things you never see. Even I have some inhibitions.)

At least I didn't delete some prized analytical post. I've been very sloppy about backing up my posts for the past year.

As long as I am in a griping mood, what has happened to the rents in this town? (By which I mean Beijing, where I am these few days.) Upon learning I was moving from Shanghai back to Beijing I upped my old rental budget by a generous fifty percent, and dreamed of spectacular luxury in which I would be installing myself.

Wrong.

I come back to find that plus 50% puts me about where I was when I moved out earlier this year. Having scanned the real estate adds a few weeks ago, and observed that prices seemed about status quo, this came as a huge surprise to me.

Which surprise, upon slight reflection, evaporated. September and October will mark the emergence of one year leases that will extend through the Olympics, so a monster price hike is, I suppose, not all that surprising. But it is damn annoying, as I grumpily massage down my expectations. In Shanghai I have 173 square meters and a view for a price that in Beijing now gets you a broom closet lined with arsenic.

Imagethief, previously a stout supporter of holding the Olympics in Beijing, is now beginning to rethink his position.