They are still smiling. Thousands of them, all over Beijing, grinning enthusiastically at every turn. Think I must be a bit tetchy because I found myself snapping at one of the young volunteers who had very politely asked me to open my bag for a security check. Or maybe I snapped because the security check was about 50 yards from my hotel room. I had walked from the digs to the gate to catch the coach that runs between our hotel and the press centre and found myself barking that I had only been to bed so there had been precious little opportunity to prepare a "Free Tibet" poster overnight.

It didn't stop him smiling, though. Nor the delightfully helpful chap back in the accreditation centre. My regular reader will remember the kerfuffle Team Times had getting our accreditation for the Olympics. Well, the good news is that we have our yellow plastic passes (to be worn at all times, or else); the bad news is that they don't work at the electronic gates, which always results in much consternation and head-shaking while the volunteers try to decide whether we are infiltrators or just unfortunate. You are supposed to press the pass onto an electronic pad and when it beeps, you are good to go.

So, I decided to get the pass fixed, which took some explaining to my man, who was so nice that I insisted on calling him Kind Official. He seemed to like that. Anyway, after a ten-minute explanation of the problem, he insisted on walking me out to the security gate, clutching my pass and showing me the way as though I was some hapless dementia victim. He stuck the pass on the electronic control and, lo and behold, it didn't beep. Oh dear. Head-shaking and long conversations between Kind Official and the gatekeeper. Then long conversation with Lady with Clipboard (assume the clipboard means she was important), then a couple more volunteers joined in before Kind Official informed me: "Accreditation unfortunate not work." Er, thank you but I had sort of figured that out on my own.

To cut this rambling short, the pass still doesn't work. I know because after this long palaver at the gate, I thanked Kind Official and turned to go through security. And the same gatekeeper who had been privy to our discussions ushered me to the electronic pad. "BUT IT DOESN'T WORK". God give me strength.

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***

Bumped into Giselle Davies at a drinks party last night. Giselle is the lovely young woman you always see in an Olympic crisis, as she is director of communications for the International Olympics Committee. But I know Giselle from another life when we both worked in Formula One: me as the motor racing correspondent for this esteemed organ and her as the public relations guru for the Jordan team.

I say PR guru but, actually, Giselle would describe the job more as general minder for the garrulous Eddie Jordan, who, you may remember, was one of the more colourful characters in the Formula One paddock before he sold his team to the Russians' Midland Corporation (the team is now Force India). If you could handle Eddie, you could do pretty much any job on Planet Earth, I reckon, and Giselle was one of the few people who could tame the Irishman. She had his complete respect.

No surprise, then, that the delightful Giselle is hugely popular among the Olympic journalists here, although some hacks have no manners. Like the ugly chap who burst between us mid-conversation to poke her in the chest over her sushi and red wine to complain about some complete irrelevance. She dealt with him masterfully, even though he deserved a poke in the mouth.

Particularly as Giselle's mum and dad were there and witnessed the unseemly incident. Giselle's father is, of course, Barry Davies, the BBC's ubiquitous commentator. Barry is, for about two generations of telly-watchers, the voice of the Olympics, both winter and summer; Giselle and I were trying to work out how he knows all that stuff about triple salchows and the finer points of Greek wrestling. Miraculous, if you ask me.

***

By the way, dear reader, a word of advice before you fly off on your summer hols: you cannot cure jetlag with red wine. Just so you know and I am happy to pass on my experience as a guinea pig in this particular experiment. But it was a deeply horrible flight here in economy; if we loaded animals into a Jumbo jet like that, the RSPCA would be straight round with a petition. But we go through the pain barrier for the sake of our art and I hope you appreciate what we are doing for you.

Of course, there was a slight tremor when we discovered we were flying Air China for, let us be honest here, it is not a name among the world's airlines to inspire confidence. So I am grateful, then, to Ashling O'Connor, my fragrant colleague here in Beijing, who discovered this reassuring nugget of information. For it seems that air safety among China's airlines has improved by 800 per cent in the past decade. Apparently, there is only one passenger fatality for every five million carried. And I am not listening to the smartie pants reader who tells me that by the time of my return flight, Air China will have carried 4,999,999 passengers. It's not clever and it's not funny.