Which bit am I misunderstanding!? I agree with you on practically everything, except your hair-splitting over "crit in comedy" vs. "comedy in crit".

I just don't see the difference between "everything is sophisticated humor" (me) and "sometimes he uses jokes to soften real opinions" (you).

...but only in China.

It's illegal in China to use the "names of historical persons" for any place, product, or service.

So no Zhou Enlai International, Deng Xiaoping Boulevard, and even ordering the "Mao Zedong" at the local barbershop/massage parlour is out.

Given a choice between that and president-named-things, I think I can tolerate the occasional airport named after Ronald Reagan.

After all, airports are places you sleepwalk through, alternating emotionally between slight background annoyance and bewildered anger -- rather like a certain presidency of living memory...

"Storm in a teacup" is now officially obsolete.

The new phrase with the same meaning will be, from now on:

"Gay activism in a MMORPG".

Let's see now, I'm presumably still allowed to write a book without explicitly mentioning gay marriage, but I'm not allowed to make a computer game without including it?

But, then again, this is a fictional world based on Tolkien for Gandalf's sake!

You know, Legolas (male elf) and Gimli (male dwarf) spending a lot of time in each other's company Tolkien!? Not to mention Sam and Frodo!

/me sighs at the irony of mentioning C.S. Lewis and Tolkien "drinking every night together" as evidence of their conservatism

We all accept, intellectually, that ignorance of the law is no excuse, usually right up to when it applies to us, when we suddenly change our tunes to "But I didn't know!"

Here's five things that every traveler should know:

1. It's illegal to travel to most countries without a significant margin on your passport expiration. What if you get hit by a car and can't go home on time?

2. Flight crews can do absolutely nothing about property lost in the airport before you get on. Wait until you get off, and make some calls your damn self.

3. Angrily screaming at police / immigration officials / airline staff is always a bad idea, and will always result in a significant reduction in possible positive outcomes. But this is that same at home, so shouldn't come as a big surprise.

4. Prison is absolutely fucking horrible in every country on earth -- doubly if not triply so in every country besides your own. At least, Mr Kurth, your destination wasn't the "other three" continents. Prison conditions certainly need improvement -- there are groups fighting for this, and maybe you should send them some money if you feel strongly about it.

5. If you have "special seating needs" then either don't fly, or don't fly economy. The price of an economy ticket barely covers the fuel bill for your individual weight -- so it ain't gonna be comfy. On the upside, you do cross half the world, and it usually takes less than a dozen hours.

This letter writer reminds fellow readers that the grammatical term for most announcement-speak is "passive voice".

While it can be said to have some use as a means of sounding firm yet pleasant, corporate overuse has lead service people to believe that passive voice is now how it should be done.

Your are probably pleased to find out that there are some airlines who have policies firmly against it, like Virgin Blue the budget Australian domestic carrier.

They've replaced "Please take care when opening... blah blah blah" with the crisp "When you go to get your stuff at the end of the flight, remember that SHIFT HAPPENS!"

Gets a laugh every time. And better yet, people actually do check.

The Chinese stock market bubble is being driven by retirees.

For the first time, this generation of Chinese retirees actually have some life savings to invest.

Banks won't help them. They return interest rates around 2%.

The government won't help them. They have good social insurance policies _now_ -- my company pays them for all our workers -- but they didn't when this current generation of retirees was working.

And so grandma and grandpa are looking for somewhere to stash their pot of money that is going to return enough to live on until they die in 20 or 30 years time.

And so they are choosing exactly the wrong option --- the overheated Chinese share market.

But because there are 100 million plus of them, all their buy orders, coming in at the rate that Andrew correctly quotes, are seemingly giving them what they want.

God help us all when, say around Feb next year, the "buy" orders stop coming, and every retiree in China has their life savings sitting on top of this bubble.

Feb 2008. You heard it hear first.

"here" first. Grrr!