So, you're a struggling foreign correspondent desperate to write interesting stories and impress your bosses in London? Do you go to a notorious hotspot of local government violence and corruption and go half-crazy during an altercation with local hooligans? Maybe. Do you write yet another article about prostitution or fake DVDs or the fact that the buildings are, like, really big and shit? You could.

But maybe you'd prefer to go to Shaoshan in Hunan, the birthplace of Mao and source of a multitude of cliches for your readers back home.

The latest sorry hack to visit the city and talk with umpteen cardboard cut-out Maodolaters and the inevitable taxi driver? Why, step forward David Eimer of The Independent. Nowhere else will you get quite so much banality for your buck.