Welcome to 2016. It's 2559 in Thailand so a relatively short 8 hour flight takes me some 500 years into the future! I look forward to that phenomenon on my next trip there, probably with Ann. She tells me that Bangkok now has a sky-train and a subway, but this doesn't surprise me given the advantages that half a millennium may engender. The wonder is that I didn't see any evidence of this when I last went there in 1997, which was, after all, 2450 by my reckoning. Too many old temples and Thai beer playing tricks with my over-active mind, I suppose!

Back in Australia, we are waist-deep in the so-called silly-season, when the nation slumbers, political leaders are often holidaying and nothing much happens. Well, there are bushfires and floods of course and, because people are more often at the beach, we have sightings of sharks and sadly, drownings. Generally speaking though, stuff seems to happen elsewhere, the torpor of the season laying thickly on the antipodean mind.

Out on the Great Western Highway, all manner of holiday craft ply their way on once-a-year journeys to camping grounds and holiday spots, the speed boat and caravan justifying their usual space-taking role at home with this burst of usefulness. Since my divorce my usual Christmas camping trip has been on hold and while Ann is working her impossibly long hours, this is likely to remain so.

I need to find a better way of occupying myself this year. I am happiest when I am gainfully employed and being useful.