Four weeks off alcohol and the finishing line is in sight. Naturally, my resolve has wavered at times: the vintage Rothschild claret presented at a private dinner in honour of Chinese vice-premier Wang Qishan was especially tempting. But overall my self-imposed exercise in abstemiousness has proved tolerable. No mean feat for an Englishman who graduated almost exactly 30 years ago from the school of hard-drinking journalists in Scotland.
There is, as ever, a story behind the story. Every January and September my wife and I spend a month off the hard stuff. It’s a mental as well as a physical discipline. This time round, the added incentive to stay dry is a long-planned weekend of hard-core cycling with friends in the hills of Mallorca, where the daily rides range from 90km to 120km, a little longer than the run from London to Brighton.
Most of my companions in Mallorca are young muscle men in Lycra who think nothing of flying downhill at 70kph. Being a competitive type, I have undertaken a rigorous fitness regime to prepare for the trip. Two days on a racing bike at high altitude in Aspen, Colorado, where I happened to be speaking at a conference. Twenty-five circuits of Dulwich Park, dodging pushchairs and uppity dogs. Push-ups, sit-ups and 4km bursts on the running machine: not much has been left to chance.