Plan A had all the hallmarks of brilliance. Rather than jump on the cardboard boxes, I had decided that a far better option would be to drive over them. The one flaw in this scheme was the refusal of the boxes to be crushed beneath the wheels and after several attempts in which the car merely pushed the boxes from one side of the underground carpark to the other, I was forced to revert to the more traditional Plan B.

The manager of the apartment block into which I was moving had been quite specific on the subject of empty boxes. "Make sure you flatten them out before putting them in the bin," he had warned.

"Absolutely," I said, forgetting how cardboard boxes can be stubbornly resistant to any attempts to do this. Victory was achieved only when I remembered that among my possessions was a small axe. This turned the tide and, while I attracted some disturbed looks from my new neighbours as I flayed into the boxes with the axe, the cardboard eventually was flattened.

It's been a while since I lived in an apartment and I had forgotten the anonymity that comes with this style of habitation, people emerging into corridors and disappearing into doorways, the guiding principle being never to look your neighbours in the eye.

Perhaps my performance with the axe has put them on edge. "He's got an axe. Make sure you deadlock the doors and for God's sake don't say hello," they whisper as they scurry past my door.

At the end of week one, it is the curry which has me baffled. There's nothing wrong with a good curry and on the first night I spent in my new address, the exotic aromas floating around the hallway outside my door set my digestive juices flowing all the way up to the local Indian takeaway.

Not that I am reliant on others to prepare my meals for I have half a dozen recipe books sitting on top of the refrigerator, the contents of which are sufficient to sustain me for the next five years.

I haven't actually opened any of these yet but occasionally I take one down, look at the glossy photographs and make another toasted ham sandwich. I have, however, turned all the gas jets on and off several times which is a start, albeit a modest one.

The curry, however, lingers. It was there on day two and day three and is still there. At first I thought a band of itinerants had moved into the stairwell and were preparing their simple meals over an open fire. Not so, so I have taken to roaming the corridors at night and sniffing doors.

I think I have located the curry culprit but cannot find anything in the body corporate regulations which prohibits the cooking of curry seven days a week. I am presently studying my curry cookbook and plan to launch a counter attack next week. Let the battle of the curry fumes begin.

The refrigerator is slowly filling and at the moment boasts an extremely large bottle of tomato sauce, two apples, five dried figs bought in a moment of Mediterranean madness, a pudding, a jar of gherkins, a carton of milk, a dozen stubbies and a bottle of chardonnay. This was correct at the time of writing and may have changed significantly since then.

I have a new phone number which I can't remember but which cost $59 to obtain. The Telstra technician arrived, plugged a phone into the socket, dialled a number, said "She's right" and handed me the bill. The entire exercise took one minute. I just can't begin to tell you how overjoyed I am to have been able to make my humble contribution to the $7 million salary Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski will receive this year.

I've received my first junk mail, a missive addressed to The Pizza Lover. I was tempted to dial the number and tell whoever answered that while the previous resident may have been a Pizza Lover, the new incumbent is a registered Pizza Hater who regards all pizzas as a blot on the culinary landscape.

If, as is likely, I am unable to unravel the serpentine tangle of cords hanging from the TV-VCR-DVD, I can always walk to the Royal Exchange Hotel at Toowong for entertainment, a place in which in my youth I spent many wonderfully unproductive, indolent and totally wasteful hours. The more things...and all that.

As a result of this relocation, I have also joined the morning vehicular throng along Coronation Drive, sitting in traffic while lulled by the sparkle of sunlight on the river on my right and bemused by the empty T3 lane on my left.

If there is any point in having a transit lane which no one uses, then it eludes me and I am seriously considering investing in two life-size inflatable dolls - suitably clothed, of course - and placing them in my car in order to qualify for T3 lane usage.