Dentistry de luxe

In my view, going to the dentist can never be a pleasure. I was brought up in Scotland and my first experience was with the school dentist, who operated from a portacabin in the playground, never used numbing injections, and seemed to have trained at the Marquis de Sade school of dentistry. The place we go to in Singapore could not be further from a portacabin; it is located in the penthouse suite of one of Singapore's most prestigious office buildings/shopping malls - Ngee Ann City - in the heart of the main shopping area.

When you walk into the reception area, you'd think you were in a swanky boutique hotel in the West End: reproduction Wassily chairs, gleaming granite reception desks and a huge roof terrace. There is a refreshments room off reception, with cream leather sofas and a bean to cup coffee machine that delivers free espresso while you browse through a huge selection of fancy (new, and clean, not 18 months old, dog-eared and with half the pages missing) magazines, art books and travel guides.

There is another big difference between Singaporean tooth doctors and the UK variety: there are no dental hygienists here, so the dentists do it themselves (if they charge dentist's hourly rates, I guess it explains the cream leather sofas).

So there you have it, another deep insight into the Asian economy. My next post will feature Lola, so if you are already a member of her fan club, keep reading.....