My desk is permanently cluttered. As they say, the more powerful you are, the less shit on your desk. And as far as the movies go, that would seem right – powerful hotshots have nothing on their desk at all. Except perhaps a long-legged secretary…

Secretaries aside, and frankly my desk wouldn’t take the exertion, I thought I might try to make myself more powerful by clearing my desk a little. A shelf was needed. Wood, plasterboard? Perspex? All a little tricky.

Glass! And it would look great to boot. Back in England to have a custom piece of glass cut and delivered would have taken at least 5 different people, a delivery company and probably a Health and Safety certified glass carrier person and cost more than my monthly beer bill. In Hangzhou? Pop downstairs to one of those seemingly ubiquitous glass shops.

“I want a piece of glass, 130x30cm and …errr… yay thick”, I say holding up 2 fingers.

“Meiyou wenti”, says the sleepy guy. Tap tap tap on calculator, “That’ll be 35.1RMB, including grinding the edges. Got to be safe these days you know.”

“Go on, 30Y then, it’s a rainy day, cheer me up.”

“33, best price, it’s 10% off”, he shot back.

“It’s not 10% off, but I’ll take it.”

Scratch chink, scratch chink. Angle grinder. Polish.

“There you go, watch out it’s heavy, use this to protect your hands”, he says hold out the old newspaper he used for polishing.

15 mins and 33Y, and I am now a powerful person. Well, a little more powerful.