What a marvellous opening ceremony for the Beijing Games. Enjoy it? You couldn't let me know what it was like, could you? Unfortunately, it seems I flew halfway around the world and then missed it somehow. It's a long story but bear with me on this one.

You see, we had a cunning plan. With tickets restricted to the Olympic Stadium, four of us - Owen Slot, Rick Broadbent, Ron Lewis and I - decided to take up an invite to a party from the nice people at Budweiser. We could watch the ceremony on big screens in a heaving and enthusiastic crowd with a glass in hand and pleasant food. At least, that was the plan. Little did we know that the Beijing authorities were so worked up about the prospect of disruption that they shut down just about every road within miles. All the official buses were stopped and the only taxi rank had a crowd as big as the one inside the stadium.

When we finally got a taxi, the poor cabbie had no idea how to get us back to our media village hotel, which can't be a mile away from the main press centre as the crow flies. We weaved a circuitous route in a huge circle that took more than an hour and, by the time we reached our digs, fireworks were already exploding on the top of the stadium.

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It is easy to become a bit blase about a big sporting set piece like the Olympics. After all, we have huge sporting occasions on our doorstep every day of the week. But this really is the biggest thing to happen to China in recent history. You can have no idea how much the Olympics has swept through this society and it was a genuine pleasure to watch crowds out on the streets, gazing upwards as fireworks exploded in the black sky to the accompaniment of the soundtrack of cheering inside the stadium.

Hundreds of locals, who must have been mystified these past seven years at what all the fuss was about, were finally starting to understand the immensity of the moment. They clapped and took pictures of each other against the backdrop of the night sky, even though they could only see the top of the "Bird's Nest" stadium and had no idea what was going on inside.

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We were going to miss the whole thing, too, unless we got a wiggle on. We negotiated the barriers and security checks, managed a quick shower and then dashed out to find another taxi. Even at 9pm, the heat and humidity were choking and the four taxi drivers we found smoking on the street were obviously suffering a little heat-induced ennui. They displayed no interest in the idea of taking us into town to our appointment at Club Bud. We showed them the invitation, which we cleverly had translated before we set out, but they shrugged and claimed to have idea where it was. Only when a local copper took an interest did they suddenly burst with enthusiasm and off we went.

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But they were telling the truth: they really did no have idea where Club Bud was, and neither did we. After an eternity of wandering the streets, it took a hurried phone call from the back seat to our Budweiser man in the USA to ascertain that Club Bud was actually the somewhat less teasingly-named Agricultural Exhibition Centre.

Eventually, we spotted laser lights and piled out of the cab, looked up and discovered we had arrived at ..... er, Club Heineken. No matter, said the man on the door, come in and enjoy yourselves. Minutes later, and by now gasping for a drink, we were at the bar, only to be turned out by an officious waitress because we didn't have the correct wristbands. Next door, there was a bar, heaving with orange-shirted Dutch people having a right old knees-up. Broadbent bravely headed through the crush to order four beers, only to discover we should have bought some sort of credit card on our way in. So three hours after we first left base at the media centre, no drink, no food and no opening ceremony.

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