Fingers will be crossed and breaths held as our Mayor Boris Johnson heads to the Beijing for the Olympic closing ceremony.

In his biggest foreign expedition as leader of London, aids are hoping there will be no embarrassing cultural slips of the tongue, 'picanninies', 'watermelon smiles' or even a Prince Philip style 'slitty eyed' remark on his trip to formally accept the Olympic flag.

Meeting and greeting

Outside of the ceremony on Sunday is a jam packed itinerary of handshaking and pow wows with businessmen and politicians. As the games come to a close the focus will be entirely on 2012 as the Mayor works to sell the city, attract investment and strengthen trade links.

Johnson will be hoping not to run into his predecessor Ken Livingstone who is on a £20,000 Chinese government junket and had a week head start to run Johnson's name into the ground.

During his stay, the Mayor will also host a series of events at London House, the trade centre set up to promote London to international audiences and hold private meetings with the Mayor of Beijing and President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge.

Boris made it pretty clear what his aims are this weekend:

'This trip marks the point when the eyes of the world start turning towards London and I want to ensure that many of those eyes belong to businesses and investors who will see what great potential our capital offers.'