Melissa Lu met Carrie Sanders over braised beef and a bottle of Demant this morning at South China Dim Sum Bar on Long Street, Cape Town. What odds on daughters of lady pharmasists from Gaberones meeting over dim sum the day after Chinese New Year?

The pairing made total sense as Botswana is the world’s largest supplier of diamonds with cattle farming its agricultural strong suit. All we needed was Chief Inspector Kubu from the Gaberones CID and the detective novels of Michael Stanley to stumble through the door to make the Botswana connections completely implausible. Although Kubu is probably slumming it at the J&B Met today as Long Street was as quiet as a politician’s conscience. And besides, it is the year of the horse, not hippopotamus.

We were at South China filming a Chinese New Year insert for CCTV

and spent a pleasant morning pairing prawn har gau, pork char sui bao and mushroom siu mai with the spirits above.

Collison’s white gold should re-branded for the Chinese market – it was the favourite packaging of Melissa and the waitress (above) chose it instantly as her pick of the bottles. All Distell need do is turn the bottle around as the back label looks very Chinese indeed.