I’ve spent some time banging on about China lately, so I think we’ll chuck a left here and head on back to Europe. Campo Imperatora in Italy, to be exact. I’m not sure what compels me to say it but I feel it’s important the world should know that I once stood at the top of the Italian Alps in a bright purple and green striped bib and brace with flared trousers and the crotch up somewhere around my belly button.

The thing with being small when situations arise in which one is forced to wear someone else’s clothes – which crop up surprisingly often in the course of life on the road – is that you always end up in the kids’ gear. Now, I realise this is better than being decked out in nothing but a birthday suit, but it does lead to an infinite number of wedgies.

We were going skiing at Campo Imperatora – or trying to – and found ourselves being kitting out with hire gear at a seemingly abandoned and slightly out-of-the-way shack. My dear friend Kylie, unwisely or otherwise, requested ‘piu economico’ – the cheapest gear. The saleswoman sized me up and declared proudly, ‘Si, perfetto, for you I have just the thing!’

One purple and lime green bib and brace later, I waddled out of the change room to find Kylie buried under a massive hard helmet. It seemed the saleswoman ran two businesses from her shack. Unclear as to whether we’d come for the skiing or the coal mining, she’d decked us out in kits for both. Just to be on the safe side.