I have had this TV for the best part of a year now. I never use it. I don’t have cable or anything, and I use my laptop for watching DVDs or downloads. It’s a JVC, fairly big, and does all the usual TV things. I’ve only ever turned it on twice: Once when the coup happened, and once when it was the World Cup Final. It works and it’s great, but I don’t want it and it’s used primarily for putting things on. If you want it and can come to Victory Monument to pick it up, it’s yours in exchange for either some books or some games for Nintendo DS. If you want the stand you can have that too. I’d accept some anime DVDs as well.

This has come as an absolute shock. I’m not really sure where to begin with it all. Basically I’ve been put into a position whereby I feel I need to defend myself. This saddens me because I should never succumb to the pressure of a reader’s outbursts. I get a lot of e-mails; sometimes they are positive, sometimes negative. I don’t have a problem with this, but last night I received a comment on this blog that really disturbed me.

It began like this:

Dear MC, you wonder in your article how it´s going to feel like when you get back to the “Western” world, and what the opposite sex from back home is like. Let me tell you what´s the basic difference: we (me, I´m also a girl) do not consider ourselves inferior to the male sex.

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Without the media there would be fewer opportunities to bear witness to the depths that human beings can sink to. A movie or a television show is just an idea, and although we can misrecognise the idea as real, it lacks certain elements of relevance. Perhaps this is why the words “Inspired by true events” can somehow make a film more moving. (Although after further investigation, there are countless movies (Wolf Creek, Hostel, Fargo, etc.) that abuse this model.)

One news story this week that has been on my mind is that of Police Lance Corporal Nirut Thammasap who is reported to have severed a girl’s arm in Saraburi on February 25. Suphansa Wichananant alleges that Nirut and his friends (two or three, I’ve read both figures) became miffed at her unwillingness to eat and dink with them. She accuses the men of intimidating and insulting her. When she made off on her motorbike, the men are said to have chased her down and Nirut then cut off her arm with a Sparta. Suphansa crashed her bike and broke her leg in three places.

The policeman responsible had the audacity to claim that her arm had been severed when she crashed in an accident. He says that Suphansa had approached his table and tried to extort the sum of 500,000 baht from him. This is obviously not true. Suphansa is a factory worker (or a karaoke hostess, depending on which story you read), Nirut a policeman. There is no way she could even conceive of such an idea (is there?). Furthermore, the figure of 500,000 is ridiculously high. The nail in the coffin of Nirut’s story is that a doctor has already gone on record stating that Suphansa’s arm was severed by a sharp object. Nirut faces charges of attempted murder and has been suspended from duty.

It’s hard to believe that someone could do something as evil as this, The world is full of atrocities, most much worse than this one, but it is the (alleged) unprovoked nature of the attack that reveals something frightening about humanity. What is perhaps more disturbing is that Suphansa had to travel to 100 kilometers to Bangkok to have her story heard. The police is Saraburi refused to take her story seriously because they said she was in shock. Her arm was cut off above the elbow and they refused to do a damn thing. Would it be wrong to now cut off Nirut's arm as punishment? I'll save for that discussion for another time.

Techno' tags: Bangkok, Thailand news

Of all the faces in Thailand, Mum Jokmok’s must surely be the most brilliant. It’s rare that a face can portray so many different emotions, and rarer still that a face can instill those same feelings in an audience. If there was ever to be done a great study of magnificent faces, one would hope that Mum would be included in the final list. Watch Cherm if you still have any doubts.

Looking for a quiet area in which to read a book, Lumphini Park seemed as good a place as any, but even in such a zone of alienation it was difficult to stay still for more than a few minutes at a time without a sprinkler being turned on, or a man in a boat unleashing havoc with a hosepipe, or a truck driving by and joining in the fun. While a book was eventually finished, there were other achievements in the form of sunburn and minor heatstroke. All this for the sake of achieving peace in Bangkok.

Another fashion week came and went. Attending some catwalk shows last year, the initial feeling of excitement was quickly replaced with boredom. Everything ran late. I put on an interested face, but ultimately was excluded from the inner circle of self-congratulation. And what of the life of the fashion journalist? What a hollow, menial profession that must be, documenting the trends and fads of the elites and passing that knowledge onto the masses. As with all fashion shows in Bangkok, there was a closing party with a free bar. At least the masses could make some contribution.

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They come, they get naked, they run around the dessert for eight days just for the hell of it, and then they burn a 40 foot effigy of a man. No, it’s not a David Lynch movie. And no, they aren’t insane. This is Burning Man, the annual art festival that most people can neither explain what it is nor why they choose to go. It just happens, and everyone goes, and everyone loves it so much that they keep going back. Last year, nearly 40,000 people attended Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. It’s come a long way since 20 people watched Larry Harvey and Jerry James burn a wooden man in 1986 in San Francisco.

The first and second level tickets for this year’s event are already sold out, with only the third and fourth level still available. These tickets will set you back $250 and $280 respectively. Looks pretty expensive, right? So what do you get for your money? Well, there are no scheduled acts or performances; there are no bands and no stages; there are no food and drink stalls; there are no merchandise outlets selling keyrings or programs; and there is no definitive list of events. Oh, did I mention that there is no audience? The entire festival is focused on art, and the general feeling is that art can’t be restrained. As a result, the thrust behind Burning Man is on communal participation. Everyone is involved; everyone is the show.

You pack all the things you’ll need for the duration into the back of a car, and then you drive to the desert and experience this unique occasion. You’ll have to fend for yourself, make your own shelter, feed yourself, and bring enough water to stop you passing out through dehydration (it’s 110 degree in the desert!). Forget getting loaded up on beer and narcotics, the Burning Man festival is a drug itself. Just being there will alter your mind uncontrollably.

There are no guidelines about what you should do at the event, and there are no restrictions about how you should act (within reason). It’s about total freedom (although it is restricted to an area inside a 7-mile long pentagonal fence, as has been imposed by the local authorities). People come together to form a community of art-lovers. There are surprises around every corner. People get dressed up in all manner of inconceivable costumers, they drive cars that look like turtles or dinosaurs, and they speak in languages with familiar words but in a manner that is totally new, completely devoid of all regularity.

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