And I promised myself I wouldn’t fly home with a hangover…

There’s been no adverse reaction to the previous night’s scorpion and seahorse supper, so it’s a day spent wandering round the Summer Palace and Lama Temple, before meeting with some fellow travellers for Singapore slings at the Red Moon Bar in Beijing’s Grand Hyatt hotel. After a couple of rounds, we head out to locate some Peking duck, returning to the hotel after gorging ourselves on the succulent, fatty meat. Several glasses of Grand Havana rum later I find myself glassy-eyed and on stage, sharing the mic with a stunning Indonesian cabaret singer, the backing band made up of equally blessed Chinese musicians who look like they’ve walked straight off the set of a Robert Palmer video, wheezing my way through Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ to an audience of expensively attired, stoney-faced Chinese businessmen. I think it’s probably time to leave, so we drink up and stumble into the night to hail cabs.

That’s it. I’m off to the airport. My head hurts.