Good afternoon,

Another victory for the pro-democracy movement, which is recovering its strength with a rally in Bangkok this weekend (somewhere between 20-30,000 braved the rain and the military) and another crushing victory for Puea Thai in a by-election, this time in Sri Saket (other spellings are possible). As the Election Commission seems to be set on banning dozens more MPs for owning shares they were not supposed to own, there may be a waxing of momentum for Democracy over the second half of the year – on the other hand, this will probably make a general election less likely as coalition parties realise that they would lose their seats with fresh voting.

A third person has died from H1N1 in the Kingdom and the total number of infections has now risen to 1,289 (all but a dozen or so have already been cured). The government has denied covering up and censoring information about then umber of infections and deaths.

Southern villagers are to contest the extraordinary legal decision to exonerate all military personnel for responsibility for the Tak Bai massacre. A teaching assistant has been shot dead in the South, presumably by one of the insurgents as the murder follows one of their standard methods.

Finished the Khon Kaen gig – not bad, I think. However, have now had to come quickly to Singapore where her indoors has been having a medical procedure (they wouldn’t even let me in the hospital), as the saying has it. I’ll be going back tomorrow evening and then back here midnight on Friday. The following week has public holidays on Monday and Tuesday but I’ll be conferencing from Tuesday to Thursday. So, not a lot of time ever to do any real work.

Back tomorrow at some stage.

Have we even put in a Eto’s. Pato and Tevez? No ambition, Sir John, no ambition.

Death of Michal Jackson in Thailand: the police believe it was suicide and he was alone at the time of his death; Khunying Porntip says it was the police and absolutely not the army at all; the Nation and the Manager and the Foreign Secretary have openly named a former prime minister as a murderer.