Imagethief's unquenchable thirst for knowledge leads him to consume* information from many sources** every day. As a result of this, Imagethief is often able to discern the connections between seemingly unrelated events and stories long before your average person, which is to say someone with a life or girlfriend. I use this godlike power to make sweeping prognostications about future events. These are rarely correct, but what the hell. The probably thought Nostradamus was a kook in his day, but the guy's a brand juggernaut today.

With that in mind (or "in consciousness", as I prefer to say in these enlightened times), Imagethief notes several seemly unrelated items today which lead to one, inescapable conclusion.

First, Asiamedia carries stories from the Straits Times and the South China Morning Post discussing the fall in advertising revenues at China's newspapers, due to growing competition both in traditional media and from the Internet and, interestingly, plummeting advertising from the property industry.

Second, the intrepid crew over at Danwei note an interesting trick that reader-hungry Chinese newspapers are using to draw attention to themselves on China's crowded newsstands. They are using racy inside sections to mask staid front pages and unattractive publication names inherited from stodgier times.

Third, Danwei also notes a survey of young people in Beijing and Shanghai that shows that, despite recent attempts to bolster the morality of that noted cesspool, the Internet, unmarried Chinese youth are screwing like, well, like horny young people anywhere else on the planet.

Fourth, and last, the BBC reports (proxy link) on China's increasing demand for larger bra-sizes which is of course being driven by increasing breast size thanks to improvements in nutrition and (implausibly, it seems to me) athletics.

Inescapable conclusion: Page three girls in all Chinese newspapers, any second now. You read it here first. Unless, of course, I turn out to be wrong, in which case you read it somewhere else.

*Imagethief understands that in the Web 2.0 era, information is "consumed", much like potato chips, and not "read", "watched" or "absorbed" as it was in the stone age, when I was in school. It sounds filthy to me, but if that's what the sex-hungry kids are saying...

**Of course, many of these sources are dubious, so if my prognostications turn out wrong, it's their fault.