The morning of 20 gintonics

By 1 pm on the first day of San Sebastian Gastronomika, one of the most enthusiastically attended of all the world's growing number of gastronomic conferences, I had smelt, studied and tasted more gin and tonics than I have drunk in the last 17 years.

I can say this with impunity as the arithmetic is simple. I enjoy one gin and tonic a year and by the end of this particular morning I had pronounced on 18, in differing glasses, of different colours and mixed with very differing fruits and spices. And that was before we sat down at 4.30...