Mr Duan is in a fix. He needs varnish to finish the cabinets he has crafted out of elm and walnut, but supplies are short and prices soaring amid an Olympic security ban on the transport of flammable liquids.

“There are only small amounts of varnish coming into Beijing, so I have to increase my costs and customers are fewer,” the carpenter says.

However, as one of the strictest security operations mounted in China takes hold to make sure that the Olympic Games go without a hitch, Mr Duan is not resentful: “What can I do? That's the way it is.”

It is a sentiment echoed across Beijing as a series of new regulations came formally into force yesterday. The most sweeping rule is the removal of half of the city's 3.3 million cars from the streets on alternate days, depending on whether the licence plate ends in an odd or even number.

Three new underground lines opened at the weekend to meet demand, a month late but still in time for the car ban. An extra 4,000 buses will also go into service for those who have to leave their cars behind as well as visitors making their way to the Olympic venues scattered around the city.

Mobile phone users were sent text messages yesterday urging them to be alert for pickpockets taking advantage of carriages even more crowded than usual. Offices will be required to bring in staggered working hours to ease the pressure on transport.

All construction was ordered to halt as part of the campaign to clear up the capital's dirty air before the Games. More than 150 high-polluting earth and cement works are shut for two months, with five retained for “emergency” purposes. Tianjin, a port city east of Beijing and host to the Olympic football qualifiers, has ordered 40 factories to close. Tangshan, a heavy industrial base northeast of Beijing, will shut nearly 300 factories.

One of the authorities' main fears is of a terrorist attack and security and public order measures have been taken to extremes. Beijing households have received an anti-terrorism manual warning people that if they are captured by terrorists they should remain calm, not fight back, and try to send a text message to the police. The manual describes potential threats such as explosions, shootings, and even chemical and nuclear attacks.

Cafés and restaurants have been ordered to remove outdoor tables from the pavement, live music and dancing are not permitted without a licence and umbrellas have been banned from rooftop venues as unsightly. The city is already a mass of flowers. Reds, yellows and pink blossoms line highways and streets in a riot of colour. Workers were busy yesterday with cranes and scaffolding on Tiananmen Square, transforming the usually bare expanse of paving into a mass of flower arrangements featuring a miniature copy of the iconic Bird's Nest that is the National Stadium.

So determined are officials to impress the expected 450,000 foreign visitors and five million domestic ticket holders that they are trying to enforce a ban on spitting, littering and smoking in public places. Even hairdressers have been told not to hang their towels outside to dry.

Mr Duan may be unable to obtain his varnish. The American author Jen Lin-Liu cannot get hold of her newly published cookery book, Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China. It has been confiscated by customs for fear of trouble.

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