Sunny side down as summer serves up nights of lost sleep

I'm a big fan of classical music in general but I've increasingly been finding that I have little appetite for J.S. Bach's baroque masterpiece Wachet Auf these days.

While BWV140, Sleepers Awake, is truly a work of genius, I find have no need for Bach's gently rousing morning call - simply because I've already been up for hours. And if what my colleagues tell me is true, I don't think I'm alone in my insomnia this summer.

With dawn kicking in before 5 am, it takes just a matter of minutes for the sun to break over the lofty concrete skyline of central Beijing and flood into my east-facing bedroom.