<p>Dear Mr Natthaporn Sir,</p><p>No one can misunderestimate the tremendous service you have rendered to the nation by exposing the link between the Future Forward Party and the insidious subversive international secret society known as the Illuminati and by petitioning the Constitutional Court to have the party dissolved on these grounds. &nbsp;</p>

<p>The recent unexpected death of former Prime Minister Gen Prem Tinsulanonda &ndash; What?&nbsp; Yes I know he was 98 but I would have put folding money on him reaching his century, wouldn&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; As I was saying, the death of Gen Prem has had us reviewing the 1980s when he presided over a series of fractious coalitions in a system of semi-democracy or semi-dictatorship, take your pick.</p>

<p>Years and years ago, when I was still trying to figure out who really ruled the world (I now know – it’s misogynistic, racist, bigoted braggarts with strange hair and an even stranger attitude to the truth), an unusual thing happened in Thailand.&nbsp;</p> <p>The civilian government of the day suddenly found a sliver of spine and tried to tell the military that their lethal-toys-for-the-feral-boys budget might not be as excessive as they wished.&nbsp; Predictable outrage from personages with starch-pressed uniforms and ditto minds.</p>

<p>I assume we’ve all seen the video clip where Acharanat Ariyaritwikol drags an unresisting Kittisak Singto across Charoen Krung by the lapels, acting purely out of self-defence of course. He then punches him in the face 3 times because he thought he had a gun or a knife (a manoeuvre that is guaranteed to protect the puncher from being shot or knifed by the punchee). &nbsp;And finally he screams at him to kowtow to the broken tail light on his treasured Mini Countryman (which indeed cost a treasure)</p> <p>(And before we go any further, let me note the confusing names in this case.</p>

<p>Perhaps I should take the opportunity of these troubled times to clear my conscience.</p> <p>It was the coronation of the person who has taken over the mantle of the longest-reigning monarch in the world.&nbsp; I was a pre-schooler still trying to figure out how the world worked.</p> <p>One thing that I couldn’t figure out was why, if I wasn’t old enough for real school, I still had to go to Sunday school.&nbsp; Only much later in life did I learn the delights of the Sunday afternoon naps that my father enjoyed while I was sent to The Schoolroom.</p>

<p>Who is doing this to our Dear Leader?&nbsp; General Prayut trots off to the US in search of more ‘oh look I’m in the same room as other world leaders so they must accept me’ photo ops and it is all promptly ruined by another burst of rampant paranoia.</p> <p>He told VOA he ‘met representatives of many countries’ (see, they do talk to him so Thailand is not the international pariah that some critics claim).&nbsp;</p>

<p>The code of omertà (silence) among mafia types is often portrayed as a form of honour among thieves.&nbsp; Something like not snitching on your mates, a lesson you learned in the school playground to show you were brave, principled even, and prepared to stand up to the sadistic bullying of small-minded authoritarians called teachers.&nbsp;</p> <p>But with all due respect to any members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Ndrangheta" title="'Ndrangheta">ʼNdrangheta</a>, Cosa Nostra or Camorra who might be reading this – bollocks.</p>

<p>She is a paragon of a Thai citizen.&nbsp; She fasts after noon every <em>wan phra</em> and she knows the Pali responses in Buddhist ceremonies (but not always what they mean).&nbsp; Even more religiously than her religious observances, she wears yellow and purple on the appropriate occasions.&nbsp;</p>

<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-48521428-4f05-d321-f161-f90c228d8fcf">Pol Sr Sgt Maj Suphan Chamnit may soon be on his way out of the police force and into a jail cell, but his recent exploits have provided some insight into the way Thai society has benefitted from the 12 core values that Prime Minister Gen Prayut has bestowed on the nation.</span></p>

<p>Coast guards have been struggling to take control of an abandoned cargo ship heading for the Thai coast on automatic pilot.&nbsp; The ship is thought to be carrying hundreds, if not thousands, of unregistered human rights violations. &nbsp;International maritime authorities believe that the ship and its desperate cargo have been left to their fate by unscrupulous National Human Rights Commissioners.</p>

<p>The stalled mediation attempt by the National Human Rights Commission is the latest in a series of failures to settle a long-standing dispute between the Supreme Council of Motorcycle Taxis and a group of women who want to offer motorcycle taxi services, with neither side willing to budge from their well-entrenched positions.</p>