Update

It's just gone nine o'clock at night in Chang Mai, one of the northern cities in Thailand and I'm just bringing the blog up to date before heading out for a night of Thai boxing (spectating, not competing).

As Shelia has asked what I did on Christmas Day, I thought I'd confirm that I did spend it with the relatives in Brisbane. Not a barbeque, not on the beach, but at the house of my cousin Paul - which was featured in the Superman Returns movie. He was a little unclear about whereabouts in the film it was, but at some stage a house on a TV monitor blows up, and it's his house (or at least a model of his house). So we had cold turkey. cold ham, prawns, salad, etc. Not a roast potato in sight (thankfully).

The picture below of my at a barbeque was actually taken Boxing Day morning, when various people turned up at my Uncle Doug's and had to eat the sausages I heavily burnt. Also I managed to fry egg on the barbeque - easier than it sounds...

So shortly after Christmas I headed for Bangkok, Thailand, which is like a different planet entirely. I was going to say that it was too full and too busy, but then I realised I sounded like one of those people from Newcastle who whinge on that they could never live in London. The traffic is mad and the pollution is awful, but in truth it seems as if the local population take life at their own speed. The only thing I found tiring was to be constantly approached by people trying to hawk taxis, DVDs, massage joints, jewellery, etc - if only saying 'just browsing, thank you' worked here as well as it does in Britain. (Having said that I have bought a Rolex Oyster for 20 quid*). Perhaps the worst thing is that Bangkok is a pretty vivid example of Galbraith's phrase about 'private affluence and public squalour' - when I got the train north it passed through miles of shanty towns made out of corrugated iron. Very sobering.

* NB - possibly not 100% manufacturued by Rolex