I apologise for the uncomfortable imagery, but I want to share something I learned from a cross-Channel adventure last weekend.

And it is this . . . that to fully appreciate the rarified elegance of one of Europe's finest restaurants, you first need to have stared down the ragged tradesman's entrance of a pound-a-pop East End stripper.

Well, When your fourth bottle of Pol Roger Brut 1998 is competing with the eighth bottle of Becks still in your system from the early hours - you can't help but draw comparisons.

And by any token, a 24-hour jolly which takes in both a Shoreditch table-dancing dive and a Michelin two-star restaurant in Brussels is definitely one for the scrapbook. Twenty-four bizarre hours during which every instance of civility and culture had a diametrically opposed snapshot of the gutter.

For example, the £60 starter of Rosette of Lobster and Black Truffles enjoyed by several of my dining companions was a beautifully presented roundel of pure class and had them in raptures. Seeing their bliss, I thought better of pointing out its startling similarity to the £15 Starfish de Shoreditch presented on a greased pole not 10 hours earlier.

Later, having ditched the Saville Row in favour of casual classic Ben Sherman gear (ideal for pulling or fighting - depending which way your nights usually pan out) - it was time to hunt out the rest of the gang somewhere on the Grand Place.

It was not difficult to spot them. You don't find representatives of the cheap end of her Majesty's Press working their way through moules mariniere under a parasol outside a cafe bar. You find them holed up inside on the second floor, flushing down snotty strings of croque monsieur with 12% continental ale and demanding 'who's had my 'kin crisps?!'

After reminding the bewildered barman that if it wasn't for us he'd speaking German, a quick conference decided that having left the pub, we ought to, um, find another pub. Genius. It's "outside the box" thinking like that which won us an Empire!

Between 8pm and sunrise, we did what Brits do best when abroad. Mix beer and spirits into a deadly ferment in already gorged bellies, sing long and loud, and wake up with no recollection of the walk home.

Every time a Eurostar heads north out of Paris, Lille, Brussells you can hear an enormous exhalation as the train pulls away. The groggy, pasty passengers think it's something to do with the hydraulics. It isn't.

It's entire cities breathing huge sighs of relief that we're not staying and are going home. But chin up, mes amis - there's another train just pulling in!

You know that feeling when everything just clicks? Your run-up is smooth, your action precise and the ball fizzes on to the spot every delivery - and every other other over or so your team-mates converge on you with smiling faces to celebrate sending another rabbit back to the hutch? . . . Neither do I.

And after my first outing of 2007 for the Headliners, I'm still waiting.

I have to say I felt confident taking the ball when Dogger asked me to freshen up the attack after the industrious RB, the doughty RN and peckish Beefdom could find no chinks in the West Blatchington armour. Three nets and a high-protein shake or two in pre-season had me in fine fettle.

But after four overs of unadulterated leg-side jank I asked to be withdrawn from the attack having conceded 27 runs from an embarrassing series of double hops. "If you're sure," said Skip - a gesture really, as I could already see Stanley warming up at fine leg.

Of course the real villain was RN. Leaving the pavilion, the West Blatch openers' introduction to the pitch was hearing the mouthy Yorkshireman telling RB: "Don't take too many early wickets, let's make a game of it!"

Donner A, Mackenzie T and Proton K decided they'd make a game of it all right and twatted 145 runs between them!

Brown S tried desperately to return to his beer, skying three huge efforts off successive deliveries to RB on the boundary. The first actually carried for six, the second was dropped but the third was superbly, um, dropped too!

The unlucky bowler was RN. The rest of us offered commiserations and encouraging noises to both men, while we all tried to imagine what RN would look like with Bryant's nadgers threaded on to his necklace.

Then the plucky Stanley had the dangermen despatched with great flighted deliveries tempting the batsmen to waft ineffectually and allow decent fielders in Beef and Panch Jr to catch and stump.

Beef then enjoyed a sensational over, taking three wickets - including a tremendous caught and bowled in which he actually spilled his own blood to secure. Well it looked like blood, but someone later heard the groundsman mutter about the peculiarity of someone leaving a pool of gravy on a length.

Set 198, Liners did not shine. The Don hit 26, Beef knocked a patient 36, Dogger fell to the most plum obvious 'lbw' ever seen in the history of the game and Fitzy's £200 prescription Oakleys meant he had a clear view of the walk back to the pavilion, if not the ball that sent him there.

The highlight was your humble scribe's ferocious 11, reaching 1,000 career - thus ending the longest running saga since The Mousetrap.

I felt sorry for West Blatch's Brown N. Seven wickets for 18 off 10 would normally be an achievement worth celebrating - but it ain't a 1,000 runs matey! It ain't a THOUSAND RUNS!