Chengdu has dozens of new millionaires, Asia’s biggest building, and fancy new hotels. But for tourists like me, pandas are its top     1    (attract).

So it was a great honour to be invited backstage at the not-for-profit Panda Base, where ticket money helps pay for research. I     2    (allow) to get up close to these cute animals at the 600-acre centre. From tomorrow, I will be their UK ambassador. The title will be     3    (official) given to me at a ceremony in London. But my connection with pandas goes back     4     my days on a TV show in the mid-1980s,     5     I was the first Western TV reporter     6    (permit) to film a special unit caring for pandas rescued from starvation in the wild. My ambassadorial duties will include     7    (introduce) British visitors to the 120-plus pandas at Chengdu and others at a research centre in the misty mountains of Bifengxia.

On my recent visit, I held a lively three-month-old twin that had been rejected by     8    (it) mother. The nursery team switches him every few     9    (day) with his sister so that while one is being bottle-fed,     10     other is with mum—she never suspects.