Sure, you’ll get by on £85,000 a day – but the family won’t

It seems that Diego Costa, a charismatic and brilliant footballer who scores many goals for Chelsea, has been offered nearly £600,000 a week to sign with a club in China.

This raises an interesting question. How much would I have to be paid to pack a suitcase and start a new life in Beijing? And I think the answer is, ‘There isn’t enough money in the entire world.’

I once saw half a dog in China. From its nose to about three-quarters of the way down its ribcage, it was completely normal, with sticky-up ears and a doggy face, but at some point in its life it had obviously been run over by a steamroller, which meant that its back end, its tail and its hind legs had been converted into what looked like a weird rug.

It was going about its business as though nothing was wrong, scavenging in bins for food and using its front legs to pull its wafer-thin rear end around.

I’m not saying all dogs are like this in China, but the mere fact that this poor creature had had the time to come to terms with its significant disability meant that over a period of several months or even years no one had had the presence of mind to put it out of its misery. They’d seen it, noted it and then moved on.

We are told that China is a technological powerhouse and that it is home to the brainiest and best-funded scientists in the world, but none of them had seen the half-a-dog and thought, ‘Hmmm. Tonight I shall fit its back end with a set of steerable wheels.’

That’s what would have happened in Britain, and we’d have seen the results in a tear-jerking film on Blue Peter.

There are other things in China that are odd. For example, on my most recent trip I ordered sushi and was presented a few minutes later with a fish that was still alive.

It was flapping around on the plate, which would have been fine, except that one whole side of it had been carved into thin slivers that were still attached. The waiter explained that I should simply tear the strips off, one at a time, and eat them.

Well, now, look. I appreciate that sushi should be as fresh as possible, but I feel fairly sure that, if the fish had been killed in the kitchen before it was carved up, my taste buds wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Nothing’s going to decompose noticeably in sixty seconds.

Other things. Well, pop socks are seen as some kind of fashion highlight, the smog is bad, the traffic is worse and the weather is nuts. The first time I went to Beijing it was a hundred degrees – and pouring with rain.

Plus, I wouldn’t be able to go to the cinema because I wouldn’t understand what was going on. And there wouldn’t be enough leg room.

And I wouldn’t be able to tell the time because after two days the second hand would have fallen off my new Rolex, indicating that it wasn’t really a Rolex at all.

Most important of all, though, I’d get home every night and sit in my sumptuously appointed apartment all alone, trying to make my television work and then giving up because it wasn’t really a proper Sony. My bank balance would be swelling at the rate of £85,000 a day, but I’d have no one to spend it on. Because that’s the next thing you have to think about when you are offered a big-money deal to move to the other side of the world: your family.

You’d have work to keep you occupied, and therefore a reason for getting up in the morning. But your wife? Your children? It’s fairly safe to assume that, if they tagged along, they’d be so bored they’d be sniffing glue by week two, just for something to do.

And it’s not just China. It’s everywhere. If you were offered £30 million a year to move to Los Angeles, where the fishes are dead before you eat them and there are patrols to remove halved dogs from your line of sight, you’d be off in a flash. But what would your family do while you were lunching at the Ivy in LA with your new colleagues?

In your mind they’d be invited round for tea and buns by Cameron Diaz and they’d spend all day at the beach, sharing ice creams with George Clooney. But that wouldn’t happen. They’d know no one, they’d have nothing to do and, as a result, they’d all be alcoholics and drug addicts by the middle of March.

There are many places in the world that I truly love. The south of France is right up there. I’m always overcome by a tidal wave of joy when I land at Nice Airport. I think it is completely impossible to be unhappy if you are in St Tropez … unless you actually have to live there.

Because how many games of boules can you play? How many bits of raw cauliflower can you eat at Le Club 55? And how long would it be before you gave up pretending that you weren’t looking at breasts on the beach and just gawped openly like a lunatic?

I’m not a lunatic, so I’m not going to pretend that money is the root of all evil and that you’d be happier with nothing more than an orange and a piece of string.

But we must face facts and accept that, while money enables you to do all sorts of stuff, it is no good on its own; you need something else as well. You need your friends. And the fact is: they’re here.

Unfortunately, from Chelsea Football Club’s point of view, Diego Costa’s friends are not here. They are in Brazil, which is where he was born. So from his point of view London and Beijing are exactly the same. Neither is home. So either will do.

22 January 2017