I almost wish I meant this title unambiguously, so I could feel as single-mindedly gung-ho about Malaysia as David Lavoie, the expat Canadian author of an article in the July 29 edition of the New Sunday Times entitled 'How do I love thee, Malaysia? A lot!'.

As redolent of rose-coloured Ray-Bans as I found this piece in places, I found myself in pretty much total agreement with it, at least as far as it went.

I shared pretty well every one of Lavoie's reasons for his love-affair with this country, and mentally added two extra motivations of my own for being positively mad about this place and its people - my Ipoh-born wife and KL-born daughter.