The 501 quatrains of Second Best Moments in Chinese History make it seem at first like a repackaged version of Frank Kuppner’s celebrated first collection A Bad Day for the Sung Dynasty (1984) . But it isn’t: ‘Please note that this is a completely different work, although it is formally identical and very similar in its preoccupations.’ Its tone is different - something to do with maturity and cadencing, which make the laughter and heartbreak more intense, more political.