I’m just back from 10 days in Jakarta accompanied by chafe, sore lungs and the usual bout of affection for Australia. The Big Durian is certainly no hardship assignment – who can argue with a country where fried food is a breakfast staple? – but its competition is Australia, a “lifestyle superpower”, as the BBC’s Nick Bryant told us in 2013.

We didn’t believe him, of course, but the numbers and my survey (of one) support the idea we have it pretty good. This is not a misty-eyed realisation from someone who missed almond milk piccolos for a few days, but an opinion I have been fomenting since returning to live in Sydney from China 18 months ago.