More thrills and spills about the New Seven Wonders
It is interesting to see that a country other than Egypt is less than impressed with the Competition. This time the subject is the Great Wall of China.

China's Great Wall may not be named one of the "new" Seven Wonders of the World because few Chinese are willing to cast a vote for it, the Great Wall administrators have said.

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The Great Wall so far has fewer than 150,000 votes, and will probably drop out of the "new" Seven Wonders list, administrators of the Great Wall said. "The Great Wall has received fewer votes even than some TV shows," said Xie Jiuzhong, a spokesman of the Great Wall management, earlier this week, adding that most of the votes for the Great Wall had come from foreigners. "China's Great Wall missed an opportunity 2,000 years ago when the Greeks named the Seven Wonders of the World," said Xie." It would be extremely regrettable if it failed to enter the "new" Seven Wonders this time," he said.

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The contest has caused a lot of controversy in China, however. Many doubt the authority of the foundation and suspect that the event is commercial. Although the online voting is free, it charges one yuan for each SMS vote.

Voting closes on the 6th July, with the results announced on the 7th. I can't wait for the 6th July, and I've gone way beyond the stage of caring what happens on the 7th. I am officially and completly New-7-Wondered-Out. I found to my complete horror, the other day, that there's a New 7 Wonders theme tune. There's something desperately surrealistic about that. I actually thought that it was quite a good idea for raising awareness about heritage when it first began. It just goes to show how naive one woman can be.