I am constitutionally incapable of going into a supermarket and buying JUST ONE THING.

That is never going to happen.

Raised in part by my Depression-era grandparents, I have picked up all their hoarding tendencies and therefore approach stocking the kitchen cupboard like I'm kitting out a bomb shelter to see us through the coming nuclear winter.

Worst of all are two-for-the-price of one offers, or 'it's only on special this week!' signs. I remain utterly unaffected by sales hype about clothes, make-up and accessories, but show me a great deal on toilet paper, and I'm right there.

It's a sickness.

Me in a supermarket in Asia with strange lollies in the aisles is therefore disastrous.

It's raining this afternoon in Singapore, and we are inside, lying in the centre of our bed with the haul strewn about us. There's green-tea & mint chewing gum, there are Cola-flavoured 'Stripes' (a thick, unctuous taffy that tastes only vaguely of coke), there are strange Indonesian throat pastilles that come in an adorable tin. On the more 'traditional' front, we have Golden Apple and Haw Chewable Candies, and the tiny little Chinese Sweet and Sour Preserved Plums that I love so much.

If you don't like them, then the preserved plums are pure EVIL. They are dark and shrivelled and quite hard to the bite. They have an incredibly potent taste which is dominated by sugar, salt, acid and liquorice flavours - eating one is a little like having a firework go off inside your head. But in a good way.

Weird lollies are too, too fun.