Working around page hangs with blocked content

Hi,

I run a self-hosted WordPress installation and live in China. Some of my posts include flickr content, but the pictures are blocked if you view them from within China, this leads to the page stalling as it tries to load the image. I would like to find a way to avoid this page load stall which doesn’t include moving all my images to another service – I am OK with the pictures not loading as long as the rest of the page loads for viewers in an area which filters content.

I am thinking of something like the php code which checks to see if a plugin function exists before trying to execute it – would something similar be possible while loading content? Can I make any connection to flickr > if YES, then continue to load this image > if NO, skip this part and continue to load the page. I guess this would have to happen at the client end?

Many thanks for any guidance on this one.