Not that Miss World was expecting anything of an escort just old enough to be her father. I was warned she would be chaperoned, fiercely, and under rules forbidding drink, would not become a mid-evening piece of ''software'' in my arms.

She would not be allowed to bet either, even though I was taking her to Happy Valley races into the box of steward Alan Li Fook-sum, whose distinguished society guests would doubtless flock round her and flick me aside to the relative familiarity of the bar.

We were to meet in the lobby lounge bar of The Ritz-Carlton where she had arrived off a Moscow flight. The general manager, Eric Waldeburger, went behind the bar and mixed me one of his staggering martinis. It was meant to calm me and indeed the little wheel of the mind was still slowly turning round although the hamster had quite disappeared.

Miss World appeared from the lift. It could not have been anyone else. One hundred and eighty five centimetres with a hairdo adding another 71/2 is a jaw-dropping sight in a woman. She must be an incitement to riot among scaffolders. She had a lovely, calm, open expression and walked with a feline swing, just in case an M. C. in a red bow tie might suddenly call out her number. The dress was a tight, lanky number in a leopard skin colouring. It may not have been politically correct but it was cornea cracking.

I knew my Russian protocol. I knew what to do now. Had done ever since Eric's martini. I took her outstretched hand. ''Good evening, Julia Alexandrovna,'' I declared. The ''Alexandrovna'' came out like a verbal road accident. I bent to kiss her hand and a dizziness came over me. I stayed down there, too long, to recover my balance. Her English chaperone, clearly a prop forward in a women's police rugby team, took a firm step forward but I was up in time as the cameras flashed.

You should know that going out with Miss World is about as private as Michael Palin's world trips. First of all there is a camera and up to half a dozen people behind it. We left the hotel with four people in the stretch limo and the photographer followed on his motor bike. The chaperone sat like a tank trap between my date and me, and my PR minders sat in the front to see I behaved as well.

Sadly, mild disaster had already struck. Julia had got off the plane with jet lag and a head cold. Having probably learned early what people, including ''dates'', will stand from global ambassadresses, she had announced she could stay only one hour. It rather reminded me of the suddenly shortened length of dates with April Fogg when my right hand made a rabbit run for he suspenders.

Just 10 minutes with Julia would have been worth it to see the reaction of the milling punters at the entrance to the racecourse. They actually looked up from the racing pages and stared. For that crowd to take note of anything on less than four legs told me I was in the presence of an international celebrity.

If I had taken April Fogg into Mr Li's box, she would have rewarded me with a more tolerant view of my attempts to ''score''. Hospitality was unstinting. Courtesy to a lad and his lass not normally associated with racing society abounded. Julia was not mobbed. Indeed, many of the guests were French and seemed politely puzzled by the concept of ''Miss World'', possibly because Miss France has not won since the Fourth Republic. But let not traditional Anglo-Gallic rancour intrude on a Russian girl's evening.

Julia sat with great grace - and almost sidesaddle on a high chair on the terrace. Her interests are lawn tennis and painting, so the sight of the Happy Valley track lit up like a fairground, catching the evening drizzle falling in perfect formation, wasnew to her and clearly engaging. I caught her profile once in a quiet delight at the scene.

Ralph Peter Jentes, general manager of the Grand Hyatt and of the opinion that most Russians are comfortable in German, spoke to Julia in it with great charm and she replied with ease even though she is studying English and French at university, whence she will return when her ''reign'' ends in November at the next contest at Sun City, Bophuthatswana.

I wondered to her if the Romanovs would ever be restored and she seemed as fogged as April would have been about that one, but the subject closest to her heart that evening was Mother Russia and we talked mostly of that in our short time together.

We wagered a little on the first two races or, to be frank, somebody else did for her because she couldn't and, as a date, I am a cheapskate. Then it was time for her to go back to the hotel and I went with her - didn't I? Well, not exactly. The chances of a 42-year-old hack getting a goodnight kiss from an 18-year-old temporary megastar in the Ritz-Carlton's lobby with WPC Prop Forward standing by seemed remote.

On the other hand the hospitable Mr Li had laid a place for dinner with my name on it and a chauvinist without a cold has got to eat. Anyway it would not have done for me to have got as attached to Julia as I once did to April. I only had to share April with the park keepers, not the world.