Vanguard magazine

The Fog had blighted the city for decades.

It filled the streets, invaded shops and houses. It slipped into theatres and halted the plays.

Worst of all, the Fog obliterated the city from the first floor upwards: centuries of beautiful architecture invisible even at the height of Summer.

Many blamed the fog on too many cars, others on industrial pollution or Global Warming and everybody blamed the government for doing nothing about it.

Unable to prevent the Fog, the City Tourism Board tried to accomodate it by hiring student guides to describe the city’s invisible architecture to tourists.

Sadly, most of the students spent so much time in the city’s bars that on some mornings they were in no fit state to describe anything to anybody.

Also, the students knew no more about the city’s architecture than the tourists, so mistakes were frequent.

For example, one August morning, a hungover student named Carl stood before a vaguely visible building (actually the city’s late Renaissance Town hall), his mind blank as to what he was supposed to be describing. He looked from the fog above to his clients - a party of dull farmers - and back again.