Against my better judgment, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This column offers a travel agency-cum-concierge service on the side. For the better part of two years I've been dispensing bespoke shopping guides, airline tips, hotel advisories and country warnings to readers who write me a nice e-mail and give me enough warning.
I've even gone so far as to write up itineraries for parents who want to show their five- and seven-year-olds the best of Tokyo - my tip is to leave them on the top floor of Tokyo Kiddieland and let them work their way down while you spend the rest of the day treating yourself to all kinds of retail delights in Aoyama and Harajuku.
For the moment this all comes free of charge because I actually rather enjoy playing tour guide. While you're unlikely ever to see me marching around holding up an umbrella with a conga line of Osaka grannies in tow or standing atop an open double-decker bus with microphone in hand, I love nothing more than conducting guided tours for friends, family and colleagues in the cities I know best.
I was hoping to show colleagues Neal and Anders the best parts of Toronto when we passed through the city earlier this week but it wasn't quite as I remembered it when I last paid a visit two years ago. Where do I start?
Canada likes to sell itself as being a tolerant, free and open society. Canada also has a habit of mimicking all the less attractive aspects of the United States.
Like the youngster who belches and swears because his older brother makes a habit of it, Canada behaves the same in relation to the US. A perfect example of this is how Canada now ranks up there alongside Russia in making both visitors and residents feel unwelcome on arrival at its ports.
Not long ago you could land in Toronto and get a half smile from an indifferent immigration officer in a blue shirt. On Monday evening I was questioned by what looked like a pork chop squeezed into body-armour and blue latex gloves about the purpose of my visit.
For some reason the Canadian government has decided that the best way to leave a lasting first impression is to make its front-line welcoming committee look like a slightly lumpy brigade of commandos.
Why is it that jackets and ties or blouses and jumpers are perfectly acceptable attire for immigration officers in the UK and many other countries but in my homeland passport stampers are kitted out with enough gear to subdue a small Caribbean nation?
Jumping into an airport limousine for the quick ride downtown, I was happy to see signs that something was finally being done with the city's mismanaged waterfront. Alas, it took less than a kilometre to recognise that pretty much all that was being done was wrong.
Along the lakeshore, condominium complexes of varying height and scale are being erected in classic stack 'em high, sell 'em not-so-cheap fashion and just when I thought a modern residential building couldn't be uglier another monstrosity crept into view.
Toronto has long toiled with what to do with its railway lands to the west of the city's core and has managed to create a catalogue of unsympathetic, unchallenging architecture to punctuate its harbour front. I was hoping that a two-year absence was going to present a few positive surprises that I could point out to my colleagues but instead there were just more horrors of architectural mediocrity.
The city's railway land should be a showcase for inspired, sustainable and human urban planning. Instead it glares at the visitor like the greatest missed opportunity in North America. There was a moment when it looked like the city was going to pull off something truly brilliant but at ground level there's a real sense that the planners are allowing a forest of buildings to go up that have zero intimacy at street level and no aspirations for greatness as they reach skyward.
Toronto has a few moments of architectural brilliance - a nice collection of Mies towers here, a galleria by Calatrava there. If you like the work of Daniel Libeskind then there's an addition being bolted on to the Royal Ontario Museum, but for the most part all innovation is rendered void, if not invisible, by a plague of Identikit condominiums.
For decades Toronto liked the tagline that Peter Ustinov once left pinned to the city: "It's like New York run by the Swiss." Today I'm not sure if that comment is more offensive to residents of Manhattan or Bern.
Failing to find any interesting new architecture to point out to Neal and Anders I was sure that by night there'd at least be some well-financed civic displays of festive, holiday lighting. Even here my tour script was going to be blank.
Along the broad boulevard that forms University Avenue there were some Christmas lights dangling from a few trees but sadly they appeared to have been hurled into place from a fast-moving pick-up truck.
Pulling up to the Four Seasons for my stopover, I was surrounded by yet more hoardings for luxury condos in what was once a fashionable part of town. I walked into my room feeling thoroughly depressed.
When you play tour guide you want to infect your visitors with the same enthusiasm that you have for a city. You want to fill them with excitement and inspire them to explore. Lying on the bed, watching the local news I just felt angry. I perhaps shouldn't have cared so much but I wanted my former hometown to deliver - instead it felt like a place that had taken away nothing from its mistakes.
The last property boom left the skyline littered with eyesores, generated more traffic snarls and arguably made the city a less attractive place. This latest round of development offers little hope of improvement.
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