2004-07-01 - 11:02 a.m.

In about three minutes, I'm off to Thailand for a slap-up footle around. God, will it never end? Damn this dirty war.

I'm going on the inaugural flight of a new airline, which is something I have never done before. It would be quite the cheap thrillette if it didn't conjur up images of quite literally Titanic proportions. Maiden trips are always being scuppered by ice bergs, high-flying geese in the turbines and that sort of thing.

So just in case I go down in a flaming, passenger-scuttling collision with a huge airbound frozen death mountain or a renegade waterfowl lodges itself somewhere mechanical, I wanted to say have a nice Thursday.

More from Bangkok, once I've swum to safety, landed on a remote desert island, learned the ways of the natives, been rescued by a nature documentary team, reintroduced to polite society and forgotten my feral ways, etc.

Or at the weekend. Whatever.