TheEye is delighted to report that the GOT is almost where he needs to be with his own blog. Where he happily isn’t though is the snappily titled Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou, southern China.

It’s become rather a hotspot for local suicide attempts (luckily the GOT decided that his blog issues merely required a few grumpy emails and enough red wine to have probably felled Oliver Reed in his prime).

The thing is that of the 12 people who have perched on the edge since April, none has actually jumped. TheEye hasn’t ever been the sort to want to end it but has lost three very close friends who had covered up signs of depression very cleverly from their nearest and dearest – and has been told by some that it’s the most cowardly thing you can do and by others that it’s the bravest decision you ever make. TheEye has pondered long and hard about A S-B, P G and W C and still doesn’t know which version to believe. Anyway, morbid thoughts aside this is actually more light hearted than you’d imagine as a post.

Chen Fuchao was non-jumper 13. He was doing what they all do…snarl up the traffic for hours as the police close the bridge and try to talk him into not doing it. And to be fair since April 1st they were 12 for 12 up and looking to keep their 100% hit rate (so to speak). Anyway, a 66-year old retired soldier called Lai Jiansheng got fed up with the five hour roadblock so offered to try to talk the man down. Basically Chen owed 2 million yuan ($293,000 / £184,000) and after the police rejected Lai’s offer of helping with negotiations Lai just got bored, barged past the officers and pushed him off.

He did however apparently smile at Lai and shake his hand first before giving him a robust shove although he might just have been extracting the ….

Pictures in the China Daily show him saluting to the crowd after Chen fell on to a partially filled emergency air cushion. “I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish” the newspaper quotes Lai as saying.

“Their action violates a lot of public interests. They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities’ attention to their appeals.”

Basically you can guess how the story ends. Chen ended up on the taxpayers’ teat in a hospital with a painful elbow and Lai gets carted off by the local police to doubtless “fall down” a set of stairs and end up in the neighbouring hospital bed with two painful elbows and an unexplainable collection of bruises.

Morals of this story: always listen to the traffic reports on your local radio and don’t try to do the world a massive favour.