Good afternoon,

The police are still going with the suicide rather than murder theory for the decapitated man whose head was found dangling from the bridge the other day. “Though medical evidence shows that it was almost certainly a suicide and not a brutal execution by international gangsters,” according to the Nation, which is returning to its old tricks, by the way. It is a curious phrase to use, implying that if a murder had been committed, then it must have been by foreigners and not Thais. The Bangkok Post has the same details more or less.  

More than 17,000 jobs have been lost in Thailand in February alone (and it has not finished yet), according to the Ministry of Labour. A further 132,000 jobs are expected to be lost before the end of the year from released predictions alone. There will be a multiplier effect too, of course. Once factories close, their suppliers and sub-contractors also come under pressure and demand for goods and services decreases generally. The jobs are currently being lost in factories, owing to reduced orders from overseas. It is the end of the East Asian Economic Model.

Researchers at the King Mongkut Institute of Technology at Thon Buri have spent five years designing and building a robot fish to help explain the question of how fish swim. Thailand is a leader in robotics, which is not very well-known, being second only to Japan in Asia, although it depends on how that is measured, no doubt.

Back tomorrow some time. It is the last exam. And then to fly, no doubt.