Good evening,

The Abhisit regime has, true to form, decided to resort to scab labour in order to break the strike by members of the union of the State Railways of Thailand (SRT). The strike was called because of the state of maintenance of the locomotives, which drivers consider to be unsafe (and also, I suspect, because the SRT routinely blames derailments and other problems on driver error) – so, enlisting retired and student drivers to drive the trains instead does not inspire a huge amount of confidence. 

The final report by British Ambassador to Thailand between 1965-7 Sir Anthony Rumbold was recently unearthed, to some embarrassment, since it contained sections such as this: "They have no literature, no painting and only a very odd kind of music; their sculpture, ceramics and dancing are borrowed from others, and their architecture is monotonous and interior decoration hideous … Nobody can deny that gambling and golf are the chief pleasures of the rich, and that licentiousness is the main pleasure of them all.” The current Ambassador, Quinton Quayle, has now issued a rather more diplomatic, not to say emollient, description of the Land of Smiles.

One of the more illuminating stories of the last few days has been the saga of the saluting Hitler – to promote the Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks at Pattaya, posters and street signs portraying the notorious mass murderer have been put up about the place. This has, not surprisingly, given rise to numerous complaints, notably from the German and Israeli Ambassadors, although also from many other people. Now the owners have had to cover everything up and act in an apologetic fashion (although the publicity has no doubt been priceless). What were they thinking? Well, there is the issue that history (whether Thai history or the history of any other part of the world) is not generally taught very rigorously here; there are also issues of taste or the lack of it and what seems to be a genuine cultural difference.

My article Poetry of Shakespeare: Venus and Adonis has been published at Bookstove.

Back tomorrow.

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