Michael Lee Johnson's on foot to freedom: Walking from Beijing to London

Imagine clambering aboard an aeroplane in London bound for Beijing. In just ten-and-a-half hours, your jet-propelled metal cocoon will have carried you more than 5,000 miles en route to the Chinese capital. Now imagine bedding down for the night, awakening bright and early the next morning, lacing up the walking boots and strolling back home to the UK, alone and unaided, through some of the most volatile countries on the planet (Belgium in January; a nasty, nasty business, let me tell you), and minus the crow's advantage of travelling the most direct route. So, add another 4,000 miles onto the 5,000, slow down the average speed from 450 mph to four, and you're looking at a journey that will take three to five years to complete. Yes, the margin for error is as great as a hamster's life, a simile that achieves precisely the opposite effect I intended.

Snow in London: Slightly clichéd photographs

Occasionally, the mercury plummets to such depths that it becomes too cold to snow. Which is, of course, absolutely untrue - the people spouting such myths clearly haven't roamed the snowy wastelands of the Arctic or Antarctic. I digress. It 'felt' a positively polar minus 7 degrees C in London today, and the snow-clogged clouds dutifully deposited their fluffy white contents over the capital's streets as I was plodding around during my lunch hour. So naturally I joined in with everybody else struggling with their camera's exposure and white balance settings to take the following slightly clichéd photographs. Ka-boom: