After my fill of soup, I wandered further north on Thanon Samsen until one of the towering supports for the new Bangkok superbridge, Saphan Phra Ram VIII, loomed into view above the shops and the grubby residential blocks.

I don’t recall it being there on my last visit (and it’s not the kind of thing you’d forget in a hurry), but I do remember watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel about its build. Although I’ve long since forgotten the facts and figures (now filed under ‘U’ for ‘unnecessary information’, alongside how to knot a necktie and how to mow a lawn) I do remember one thing quite vividly: The man at the helm. An industrious European contractor in an even busier Hawaiian shirt. I’m not joking, you could almost hear this thing.

I remember Hawaiian shirt guy being under a constant barrage of sh*t from his superiors - albeit not for his dress sense, as one might think, but instead for a string of delays during the construction phase. You had to give this chap credit though, he stuck to his guns every time the clipboard brigade showed up and urged him to cut corners in an effort to meet their stringent deadlines. Well, they implied it but didn’t specifically say it in front of the camera, if you know what I mean.

But here’s the thing: Hawaii 5-0 preferred to finish a job a little later than scheduled if it meant having fewer construction workers sliced into pieces by rogue suspension cables.  In contrast, his bosses appeared keener to finish the bridge on time and sweep up the arms and legs later. Thankfully, Magnum P.I. generally got his own way and, time after time, averted sure-fire disaster and the inevitable human jigsaw puzzle 200 ft below the new bridge.

Mind you, at one point I was convinced that even Magnum was going to have to kow-tow or get fired (either way, it was destined to go pear shaped) but that just didn’t happen. Here was a man with sound principles. To cut corners or walk off site would have been to risk injury or death to his team members, and to do that would have been to commit both a moral and actual crime. And that, it seemed, just wasn’t the way he rolled. The only crime he was prepared to commit was an unforgiveable one against fashion.

But in the interests of better TV - and as long as no one lost any body parts as a result - the Shadenfreuder in me was  almost willing the Big Kahuna to walk, if just to see the evil pen pushing baddies (or possibly decent guys simply portrayed as evil pen pushing baddies by the documentary team) get their comeuppance.  Ooh, I do love a good drama.

“HA!” I’d holler at the baddies on the box.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO MAGNUM! EH?” I’d rant, with index finger jabbing the air for extra punctuation.

But alas, not this time. It all went like clockwork (apart from a few limb saving delays, that is.)

“Still, there may be a bit of Ski Jumping on the other channel” I’d grumble.

“That’s always good for crashes…”