One of my last memories of Burnden Park is of fans looting everything they could lay their hands on to keep as lasting reminders of the old ground. I even remember one guy desperately trying to prise a urinal from the wall in the gents.

Stealing a toilet to keep as a souvenir is certainly not something you would ever consider doing in China; out here it’s usually best to obey three rules when going to see a man about a dog. First, take a deep breath before entering and hold it for as long as possible; second, always remember to bring your own toilet roll and soap because they’re seldom provided; finally, and most importantly, never, ever look down.

This may seem pretty straightforward, not that much more unpleasant than the gents at the Reebok after a Saturday afternoon’s worth of beer and meat pies; but the fact that you need the grace and poise of Jay-Jay Okocha to get your squatting stance right – toilets that you can actually sit on are the height of luxury here – only complicates matters further.

Unfortunately, I had to break the golden rules recently when a friend – clearly squatting with the grace and poise of Tony Kelly rather than Jay-Jay in his pomp – somehow managed to drop her mobile phone into the abyss (the lesson here is that if you must take your mobile into the loo, perhaps a Big Sam-style hands-free kit is the best way to go).

Only after scenes reminiscent of All Creatures Great and Small – with arms covered in protective plastic bags disappearing into holes that they really shouldn’t, while the faces of onlookers grimaced – was the phone eventually fished out.

Of course by then it was well beyond repair, and the only consolation for my ordeal was that the phone wasn’t mine. Since the clocks went back in Britain at the end of October, China is now eight hours ahead, meaning middle-of-the-night text messages from home are my only means of finding out the football scores without the long, arduous wait to look on the internet at work the following morning.

Things were certainly a lot easier on my recent holiday in Japan, where I feasted on football news from English websites, free at last from the Chinese censor's restrictions; or at least I did when I wasn’t busy enjoying the delights of the toilets, where heated seats and a little water spray that took care of the cleaning were among the creature comforts. Now they would be worth keeping as a souvenir.