I'm going to pretend I am actually in Bangkok as I write this, but the awful truth is I have been meaning to write up my trip to Thailand for a while now. Sorry, I've had lots of stuff on. Turned 40. Had a book out. Hosted MAD Foodcamp Symposium. Rearranged my sock drawer…

Anyhoo, here's the lovely view from my lovely room at the lovely Mandarin Oriental. All lovely. River's a bit brown, though.

Hit the malls to buy some stuff. Bumped into the latest food trend in SE Asia: buttered bread. I am not making this up.

Plain, white, sliced bread, just like your common friends used to eat when you went round their's for tea in 1976, with cheap marg and a limited range of toppings. They can't get enough of it in Thailand, judging by the European butter mountain here.

Wonder how they get that Simpsons yellow colour?

More happily, at a stall just around the corner in what was actually a totally fabulous food court, they were selling one of the great Thai desserts, mango with sticky rice.

When I lived in Bangkok back in the mid-1990s, I could never eat this, it was way too sweet. Today, I adore it: what is happening to my palate? Some kind of sugar-seeking infantilisation. (Explains the milk chocolate urges I've been having of late too, I suspect).

Wow, it's great being here in Thailand. Phew, it's warm. Etc.