While Manchester City may have had their best season for some time, a solitary flag and power-hungry former prime minister could be about to spoil the party.

Firstly, the flag. Someone took a Thai flag with them to Manchester and hung it up at the City of Manchester Stadium. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but the flag bore the name of Thaksin Shinawatra, Man City’s crazed owner, who is also the former prime minister of Thailand.

What could have been brushed off as a minor incident has been propelled into the limelight and extorted into a full-blown national crisis. Thai authorities apparently have “an idea” whom the flag belonged to, said Prime Minister’s Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair.

An “ill-intentioned people” group of people have set out to ruin the country by hanging a flag bearing Thaksin’s name. Right.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said, “It is inappropriate. It must not happen again.”

Under Article 53 of the 1979 Flag Act, affixing pictures, letters, numbers or other symbols upon the national flag is against the law with a maximum penalty of a year in jail and/or a 2,000 baht fine.

In Thailand, sure, that holds some weight, but in Manchester?

Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama somehow drew the conclusion that the flag was the work of football fans. At a football match? Surely not!

According to The Nation, Manchester City has apparently posted warnings on the club website urging people not to take Thai flags bearing Thaksin’s names to matches. I could find reference to no such warnings on the Man City website. I also couldn’t find anything on the Thai-language version of the website. (Bangkok Post)

I pose this question to Man City bloggers and fans: how do you feel about being told what to do? Man City fans have, allegedly, been warned about this flag incident. Will you respect those warnings or do you think the Thai government has turned a harmless situation into a farce?

I suspect, heaven forbid, that at future Man City games, there may be numerous flags bearing Thaksin’s names. Theoretically, of course, this would protest not only the Thai government’s overbearing response to the incident, but also, Thaksin’s ham-fisted attempt at dealing with club affairs.

Man City did well this season, finishing in the top half of the table. They started strong and only faltered in the second half of the season. However, Thaksin’s meddling ways have cast a shadow over any good that may have been done. His decision to sack Sven at the end of the season won’t be reversed, despite protests from all corners.

Now, Thaksin faces a mutiny as his team’s top stars have rightly decided that they will follow Sven out of Manchester. The friction stems from Thaksin deciding to take transfers out of Sven’s hands, despite a pre-season promise that all transfers would be Sven’s call. (The Sun)

Thaksin now wants to bring in Jose Mourinho to replace Sven.

The players, the fans, the club’s management are all behind Sven; Thaksin is the one with the problem. to further confuse the issue, Thakin’s son has been quoted as saying that Sven will lead Man City on their tour of Asia this summer, which includes a stop-off at Koh Samui.

As I said, it would be a real shame to see any more flags at Man City games this season.

This is based on a very sketchy translation of tomorrow’s edition of Bangkok’s Daily News newspaper. On April 26, suspected insurgents in Yala shot dead a 22-year-old informant and nailed his body to the middle of the road.

The informant, who had been shot in the back of the neck with a 9mm pistol, was dragged to the middle of the road by insurgents who forced six-inch nails through his arms, legs and head to pin him to the ground in the shape of a cross.

This is the front page story. The prominent phrase in the headline is “Dtok-dta-bpoo!” which translates, I think, as “knock nails”.

Obviously I’m not suggesting that the fact his body was in the shape of a cross is significant or symbolic, but this story caught my attention because of the brutality of the incident.

NOTE: Should work fine in all browsers. Tested in FF, IE6 and 7, Safari and Opera.

OK, I’m going to let you in on the project I’ve been working on for the past couple of week’s It’s a list of the top 100 Thailand blogs. I spent a long time compiling this list, searching for active Thailand blogs. Most of the blogs are in English, although a couple are French.

The metric that the list is based on uses a combination of Page Rank, Technorati rank and user votes. The better a blog’s ranks, the higher on the list that blog will appear. However, the user-ranking system plays a central part in determining where a blog ranks. You can vote for each blog, on a scale of one to five.

I’d like for this list to become the definitive resource for finding Thailand blogs. Other lists I found have links to dead blogs or just dead links. My list will be moderated and updated on a regular basis.

At the moment, there are 100 blogs in the list, but the list can actually support an unlimited number of blogs. If your blog ,or a blog you know of, is not listed, simply add your URL. New blogs will be added once a week.

To everyone on the list, who should have received a ping from this post, it would be really cool if you could link back to the top 100. The link is: http://whatismatt.com/top100/

What I’d also like if for people to blog about the list. Ask your readers to vote for your blog, link to the list in your sidebar, tell people about it in comments, whatever. The more traffic the list has, the more traffic the blogs will receive and the more beneficial the whole thing will be to everybody.

This is actually the second version of the top 100. The first version I made looked horrible and wasn’t even in my Wordpress template. I think it looks pretty decent now.

Updates to come in the future include:

• Incorporating Alexa rank into the metric (I need to upgrade my hosting to do this).
• An active widget that bloggers can take and display their position in the top 100 (I need help with the coding for this).

So, tell me what you think, tell me what you’d like improved. Contact me if you have any queries or refer to the top 100 FAQ. Add your URL if your blog is not listed.

Forgive me if I don’t post much over the next couple of days. I’m exhausted after updating my theme and working on the top 100 Thailand blogs.

Pings:

• Bangkok Metblogs
• Bangkok Angel
• Living in Bangkok
• Bangkok Mom
• Bangkok Parlour
• Bangkok Pundit
• Bisean
• 4am Expat
• Bitslice Ciphers Blog
• A Day in the Life of a Half-breed
• Blog de Beton
• Falang, My Friend, Very Good
• Brit in Bangkok
• Only in Thailand
• Memories, Dreams and Reflections
• David in Siam
• Dave in Bangkok
• Swingin Da Moodz
• Doodees Thailand
• Dorseyland
• FACT
• Farang Pai Nai
• Forest Wisdom
• Gnarly Kitty
• Thai Life and Travel
• Isaan Life
• Isaan Style
• Jamies Phuket
• Law and Life in Bangkok
• Lost in Translation, Life in Bangkok
• Jotazine
• Jotman
• Bangkok Klong of Conscriousness
• Bangkok Expat Mama
• Magnoys Samsara
• Mojo Spills
• Mon Bangkok
• Newley Purnell
• Oakmonster
• Paradise Regained
• Kinda Daily Penninguin
• Thailand Blog
• Philip Golingai
• Phuket Weather
• Pondering
• Real Life Thailand
• HaPPi Like a HiPPo
• Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon
• Tea Stains
• Heathers Thairy
• My Life as a … ?
• Thai Country Life
• Thailand Facts
• Thailand Jumped the Shark
• Thailand Land of Smiles
• Thai Pulse
• Like the Path of Swans in the Sky
• Life and Times in Ubon Ratchathani
• My Thai Village Life
• Wat Thai Temple
• Bangkok Dazed
• The Lost Boy
• 2Bangkok
• The Bangkok Bugle
• Bangkok Diaries
• Bangkok Events
• Bangkok Jungle
• A Northwest Guy in Central Thailand
• Earthoria
• English Girl in Isaan
• Our Thai-Farang Relationship
• Joys Thai Food
• Matthew Hunt
• Maxasia
• My Thailand Diary
• This is Thailand
• The Nations State
• Person Thailand
• The Third Sex
• Richard Barrow
• Sajal Kayan
• Serrated Edges
• Stories from Stuart G Towns
• Village Life in Southern Thailand
• Stories from Thailand
• Tatt2Dude
• Teacher in Thailand
• Thailand Blogs
• Thai Festival Blogs
• Thai Girl
• Thailand Golf Blog
• Thailand Musings
• Thailand Video Blogs
• Thai Peeps
• Thai Photo Blogs
• Thai Prison Life
• Thaiskale
• Life Wonders
• Thaizer
• My Blog by Bangkok Chris

Have you ever been in the cinema when the Thai national anthem plays and you’ve seen someone not stand up? I have, a couple of times — and it was Thai people, not foreigners. I’ve also seen people not stop in the street or at the BTS station when the anthem has played.

There are some things that we’re not supposed to talk about, but notthenation.com did a good job of satirizing the whole situation.

Thailand’s lese majeste laws are strict and carry sentences of up to 15 years’ imprisonment. However, in the past six months, I’ve seen increasing talk on the Internet, as well as stories in the news, that are putting these laws under the spotlight.

The case of rights activist Chotisak Onsoong is interesting because, one again, media outlets around the world have picked up on the story.

Chotisak is alleged to have refused to stand for the national anthem while at a cinema in September last year.

You’ll recall the case of Swiss national Oliver Jufer, who in March last year was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for defacing an image of HMtK. After intense global media pressure, Oliver was given a royal pardon.

Chotisak is actively challenging Thailand’s lese majeste laws, whereas Oliver was just being a drunken fool. What makes this case unique is that Chotisak doesn’t have a political agenda. Charges of lese majeste are dished out by politicians attempting to damage the reputations of other politics. This case is really a challenge to the whole regime.

It could be the first of many such cases.

I in no way condone the actions of Chotisak Onsoong and I recommend everyone in Thailand stands for the national anthem.

I’ve been writing about immigrant workers a lot recently. It’s not that I feel some sort of satisfaction by criticizing the police or the government, but I think it’s important to highlight the hypocrisy of the government’s recent attempts to curb the flow of illegal Burmese laborer entering Thailand.

The 54 Burmese migrants who died in a sealed container were on their way to Phuket. I was reading some quotes at work from Phuket Governor Niran Kalayanamit. These words didn’t come from some sort of rights activist, but the governor himself.

He said, in no uncertain terms, that in Phuket, there are about 32,000 legal migrant workers, who have come from neighbouring, mostly from Burma. On top of that, there are at least 30,000 illegal migrant workers. He added that in Phuket, there could be up to 100,000 migrants workers, legal and illegal, from neighbouring countries, mostly from Burma.

Let’s digest that for a minute. Phuket’s official population is only about 300,000. The unregistered population is also estimated at about 300,000, so I’m thinking that the governor’s estimate is too low.

Furthermore, a number of business in Thailand recently complained to the Minister of Labour that Thailand doesn’t have enough foreign workers. While many Thais do not want Burmese working in Thailand, the Burmese are here and they are doing the work that the Thais refuse to – and large business entities want to increase the workforce.

The Burmese workforce is the backbone of property development in Phuket and in many of Thailand’s provinces. Businesses rely on the workforce for cheap labour, those involved in smuggling and trafficking people into Thailand rely on there being a work force to exploit, the police rely on the workforce for payoffs and higher-up officials rely on the workforce as their meal ticket.