Via Shanghaiist (though, they really should change their name to Chinaist), comes an indication that the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing has entered the global, or at least American, public consciousness. The Shanghai site report that a model of the big pants - minus the burnt boot that currently sits forlornly by the impressive structure - appeared on a recent episode of The Simpsons. You can watch the full episode on Youku.

If you watch the video below you’ll see a veteran presenter of CCTV 1’s flagship 7pm news broadcast involuntarily letting out a small burp while reading the news on Monday evening. The rapid spread of the trivial footage across the web is testament to both the eagle-eyes of the media-watching public and also their new found ability to shine a light on embarassing mistakes by uploading clips to various video sharing sites. Zhang Hongmin's burp is the latest in a long line of gaffes from CCTV presenters and below we’ve gathered together clips and images of some recent on-air bloopers that have led many to bemoan the decline in standards over at CCTV.

Want to see how your Chinese measures up to that of other foreigners learning the language? You might want to catch an episode of Haier's Foreign Students in China Chinese Competition which is being screened all week from 10-11pm on CCTV 4. The show concludes with a grand final this Friday evening. We read about the contest over at Truth from Facts, where you can also find more details about the show and a translation of one Chinese blogger's reaction to hearing laowai mangling his mother tongue.

We failed to get two of them into last week's issue of 7 Days, but there are three great events taking place this evening and a thin thread connects all three of them.

At 5pm, New York artist Patty Chang will give a talk over at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in 798. Chang, a 2008 finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize, was also recently featured in the MOMA New Directors series for her work Flotsam Jetsam. According to the Ullen's website, the artist will

give an overview of her work but will primarily introduce A Chinoiserie out of the Old West, the project she is currently working on here in China. Based on a 1928 text written by Walter Benjamin about the Asian American film starlet Anna May Wong, this work will take the form of several short film pieces that deal with representation, translation, mistranslation, and crossed meanings. Chang is in Beijing to film the first segment, which will be shown in late July at the Arrow Factory, Beijing.

There are lots of basketball fans in China – it's been estimated that there are as many NBA fans here as there are in the US and that viewing figures for each NBA game are somewhere around the 100 million mark. So it hasn't gone unnoticed that live broadcasts of the Playoffs – the climax of the NBA season – have stopped being aired on free-to-air television stations in China. To add insult to injury, fans haven't been given a valid reason as to why the games are no longer being broadcast. Instead they have to make do with questionable excuses. "These games are not in accordance with the atmosphere of the nation after the devastation of the earthquake. They are too entertaining," Jiang Heping, director of CCTV sports, told Reuters.

So what can sports fans watch during these sad times? Well, for one, a repeat of the NBA game they would have otherwise watched live the previous day – repeats of the games it seems are far more acceptable. Meanwhile, the French Tennis Open, the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA) league games and the 2008 International Table Tennis Professional Tournament are all considered so un-entertaining that they can still be broadcast live. Not to mention that Chinese viewers have simply replaced their TV screens for computer monitors and continue to watch live feeds of the games via major web portals such as Sina and Sohu.