Meticulous research, thorough planning and goal orientated resources.That's what's behind a complicated 2 month, 5 island trip of this nature, none of your Thomas Cook bucket and spade nonsense.That's what I'm fond of drumming into Brian as he sits dis-interestedly trying to summon up the Tottenham results on a patchy internet connection.You may imagine that our time here is spent wafting between islands, wriggling our toes in the sand with nothing more onerous to bother us than whether to swim in the pool or in the sea, but alas that is not the case.Oh you poor deluded souls.

I'm woken up at 6 a.m. by the sound of a cockerel crowing somewhere quite near our bedroom window.We are in the middle of Bangkok.Who on earth has decided that the one thing that they need in the middle of one of the most densely populated and deeply polluted cities in the world that the one thing they can't live without is a cockerel?And why?

Before we set off for deserted tropical islands we need to stock up on dvd's to keep us entertained for the next few weeks, luckily they can be found here for not much more than a pound, oh, and the patience of Job.First we had to spend an hour or two flicking through books of dvd covers to make our selection, which we then ordered and paid for, only to be told to come back in half an hour, which is how long presumably it takes for the 'boy' to amble off to the dvd manufacturing factory/sweatshop down some alley somewhere, stopping only for an urgent fag and a chat with a couple of his mates.Then Mr Beeg or his more technically minded henchmen/bloke with a p.c. run off copies of whatever has been ordered.In the meantime we wander to another stall and start the process all over again, finding yet more gems that we fancy watching and so repeat the process.After all we've got half an hour to kill.

By the time we've moved along a row of these stalls, around a few corners and up a couple of escalators mesmerised by their dvd covers and bright colours we've ordered a couple of dozen films, the titles of which, to be honest, we would have trouble remembering more than 3 of by this time.Still, it's time to go back and pick up the first lot of films (which btw are never ready when they say they are going to be, there's always 'another 10 minutes', 'just 5 more minutes sir' to contend with), but of course first we have to remember where we bought them from.I'm always convinced that Brian will remember, but apparently he is thinking along similar lines, so we have to retrace our steps and, by a process of elimination we eventually end up at the stall we started from.Now we only have to remember where we bought the other ones and it's job done!

The other evening we stopped off on the way home from dinner, as we frequently do, to enjoy a nice, relaxing massage.Can't say I'm a big fan of thai massage generally -it's not very gentle, more an exercise in them digging their bony little fingers into my taut muscles until they submit, which they never do - not really a pleasant experience.Particularly when the masseuse then leaps up on the bed and starts walking up and down my calves as casually as if road-testing a new pair of shoes; normally to an accompaniment of giggles, which usefully serves to drown out any squeals of protest.Brian was unusually quiet on the walk home and so it was only after we returned to our hotel room that I discovered that his masseuse had attempted to make his massage a little more 'relaxing' than he was expecting.It was only his successful attempt at conjuring up his dream Spurs side winning the FA cup league final that, in the time honoured fashion of News of the World journalists throughout the ages, enabled him to make his excuses and leave in a dignified fashion.

And so it is time to cast aside the rigours of all that shopping, haggling and unwelcome propositioning and head to Phuket, where we've never been before, so it's all new, all to be discovered and hopefully, we really will only have to make those pool v. sea decisions and our only dilemma will be whether to have freshly squeezed orange juice or a banana smoothie with our breakfast.Oh if only life were so simple.First we have to get to the airport in order to catch our 2 p.m. flight and once our taxi is booked we're practically on our way, what could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps I spoke too soon, because it was only when we were on our way to the airport that I looked again at our tickets and realised that the flight actually arrived in Phuket at 2 p.m. and left Bangkok at 12.45, which was, ahem, in about 20 minutes time.There was no way we were going to make it so we had to continue on not knowing whether or not we were actually going to get to Phuket that night or whether we would be camping down in the airport eking out a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps.

Luckily getting another flight didn't prove too difficult, although we had to hand over the equivalent of several Mars bars and jumbo packs of Pringles.Sigh.That's the entertainment budget out of the window for the next few weeks; thank goodness we bought those dvd's.We also had to fly from the other airport which involved encountering another Bangkok phenomena - the taxi driver with the dodgy meter, who tried to charge us 1,913 baht (yeah, those odd numbers make it seem so much more realistic don't they?).Fortunately we had some idea what the fare should be and he agreed to settle on the far more reasonable 400 baht we offered him without resource to the tourist police, to whom I'm sure he is already a familiar face.