By Harrison George |
<p>‘I call this meeting of the Subcommittee of the National Broadca- …’</p>
<p>‘Just a minute. Subcommittee? I thought you asked all of us here?’</p>
<p>‘As I was saying, the Subcommittee on the Ethics of Receiving Gifts, Favours and Inducements is called to order. And we’re not all here if you’ll notice.’</p>
By Harrison George |
<p> So we’ve all had a smug smirk about the purported link between suppressing sexual urges and playing football advanced by NIETS. NIETS is one of these outfits whose name slowly drifts into absurdity. OK, it is National; but it gives the word Institute something of a bad name; it has clear difficulties understanding what might be Educational; its competence in Testing is a joke; and the Service it provides appears to be counterproductive.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p> The accepted reaction among BBC newsreaders to the Greek sovereign debt crisis seems to be that of exasperated parents faced with a stroppy six-year-old. They are clearly bored to tears with an endlessly repeated tale of austerity measures, riots, stalled negotiations and bail-outs. And back to the top and start again.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p> The scene: an upstairs room in a non-descript house on a side soi in suburban Bangkok. The date: Valentine’s Day 2012. A training session is in process.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>A shadowy figure identified only by the acronym HG has been behind all the political turmoil in Thailand, including unconstitutional statements from the military, dubious court verdicts and anything that Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung might say or do. This was all a plot to create mass insanity in the country so that he could continue writing satirical articles about Thailand.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p> Much has been made of the decision announced by Dr. Somkit Lertpaithoon, Rector of Thammasat University, on his FaceBook page that the Nitirat group was banned from using university premises for their campaign to amend Article 112 of the Criminal Code (the lèse majesté law). As with other contentious decisions in Thai politics the rationale given for the decision is perhaps deliberately opaque.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>(* Juvenal, Satires. ‘But who will guard the guardians themselves?’. Alternative Georgian translation: ‘But what protection will the protection get?’</p>
<p>The government, military and right-wing groups have been taken aback by the generally negative reaction to Article 112 bis, recently enacted by parliament.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>Retired Pol Gen Vasit Dejkunjorn is not your average policeman. Apart from winning literary awards, he is regarded as a leading anomaly in the Thai police – an honest copper.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>It can feel very uncomfortable to stand alone.</p>
<p>That’s why people are so eager to join things – as long as it doesn’t mean actually doing much.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>Thanks to all who had a Google-unassisted go. Some answers were even right.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p> That’s your ignorance that will be on parade unless you can answer a respectable number of the following questions about 2011. But then, if you do know any answers, then you should seriously contemplate a change of lifestyle. Such as getting one.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>This year’s Royal Birthday Speech included another call for unity, echoing previous years’ addresses as well as pronouncements from just about everybody with a claim to some form of national leadership. A call for disunity would hardly be helpful, so this all seems to be perfectly acceptable, if a little anodyne.</p>
<p>Until some of them demonstrate that by unity, they in fact mean uniformity.</p>