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!