(Partly a response to Annie R, Paul in the Village, etc, who asked for specifically Thailand-related stuff a few days ago.)

Well, we're now in our new abode, and thank you for all the nice messages sympathising with the ordeal of The Move. It's a stressful, soul-destroying experience, but you can always learn a few things. In this case: a) the best soundtrack to a move is mid-'70s funk (especially Kool & the Gang and Rick James), played on a rackety old gehtto-blaster; and b) my brother-in-law, who used to occupy the spare room at our old place, appears to be an avid collector of surreally erotic Italian graphic novels.

Chez nous is now a little further out of the centre of BKK, in a self-contained residential development. It's a peaceful place, with an air of gated community about it. There are private security guards, and apparently we will be issued with flags that must be flown on national holidays. Everyone smiles. There's a running track, a little playground, and even a stretch of gravel for boules. Taxis don't tend to venture in, so there's a fleet of bicycle rickshaws that can ferry you to the main road.

It's a bit like living in The Village. But in a nice way.

I'm moving house at the weekend, so please excuse any inactivity in the next few days. To keep you amused in the meantime, my deconstructing-The-Da-Vinci-Code blog The Chasms of the Earth makes a fleeting return.

Wild link: did you know that Dan Brown (who 'wrote' TDVC) went to the same school as Win Butler off of the Arcade Fire? I've only just found the time to listen to their lauded-to-high-heaven new album (Neon Bible) and I must say, for all the tortured baroque-rock posturings, it really does sound like mid-80's Bruce Springsteen, doesn't it? Except for track 10, which is The Go! Team moonlighting as a Prefab Sprout cover band. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but at the same time doesn't quite make for the quasi-religious experience that some critics have identified.

Not to worry, I got a free badge with my copy.