2005-11-17 - 4:11 p.m.

It�s like I was saying to Princess Ul0n Rattan@ of Thailand over dinner last night, I think they�ve overdone the prawns in this Tom Yam soup, love. I don�t think she quite heard, as she was several hundred feet away with her back to the rest of the room (apparently royals do not like to be able to see the common peasantry whilst digesting their food).

I was seated on a prime table just near the spot where the waiting staff went for their fag breaks, and, having heard her speech (she made the schoolboy error of not opening on a gag), was saying something along the lines of what a sour faced old trout she was, when it was pointed out that she lost a son in the tsunami, so rollocking laughter was always unlikely.

Thankfully, my embarrassment was spared as a Thai hotel manager launched into some inappropriate joke involving Paris Hilton, the Bermuda triangle and disappearing seamen, and then started making suggestive shapes his napkin, so in comparison I was very much the urbane raconteur.

There is a lot of protocol involved in dining with royalty. Mostly it involves standing up a lot and not making eye contact. It mostly doesn�t involve asking for another glass of wine during the keynote address, something I will definitely bear in mind next time.

Anyway, she glided in regally (by which I mean 45 minutes late � the poor lamb only has an entourage of 100, though, so getting ready is a real trial), said her piece and glided out again before the bill arrived. By this time I was relaxed enough to make smalltalk with the young Thai girl next to me�I asked her if she worked in the service industry and she told me that she owned three major hotels. Luckily my foot took away the taste of the overdone prawns.

As a sign of respect, our table ordered more bottles of wine and even more reverentially took the party out to a couple of expensive bars in London�s upmarket Mayfair, the one good thing about drinking with captains of industry being that they insist on buying the rounds, just compensation enough for having to sit through their corporate mitherings.

The D0rchester Hotel? It�s alright if you like that kind of thing I suppose. Bit showy for me, mind.