After the Wendy Deng affair I decide against claiming I’m related to Rupert Murdoch and go with saying I’m the son of Kerry Packer. Mrs Wu smiles politely but I doubt she has any idea who James Packer is and I don’t get much more than a cursory glance up and down.

I’m taking a walk in Shanghai’s People’s Park just past noon on a Saturday and have stumbled into one of the world’s oddest markets – it’s called the marriage market or “blind date corner” and already a gaggle of pensioners has gathered near the main entrance of the park, each sitting behind an umbrella with a card pasted on it listing details about their son or daughter in the hopes of making a marriage match.

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