One of them must be the meaning of "IRK", the letters that were sprayed on posts and walls at some of the places where the bombs went off.

Two days before police mentioned their curiosity over the letters, iTV attempted to solve the mystery.

It went to a hip-hop boy who explained that it could be the signature of a graffiti group.

Looking up the meaning of IRK is an interesting job.

One dictionary gives three meanings for "irk" - to disturb or irritate especially by repeated acts, to harass especially by quick brief attacks, and to cause annoyance.

Indeed, if the bomber actually sprayed the word on the posts, he/she had very good English, for this word is rarely used and mostly replaced by "annoy".

Furthermore, "irk" has three synonyms - annoy, vex and bother. IRK could have been used because the word has only three characters. But why not "vex"?

Whatever, if this is the signature of the bomber, it's good to know that he/she just meant to annoy us, not to kill. Somehow, this should soothe investors and travellers as well as city dwellers who may think that Bangkok is not a safe place anymore.

What if IRK is an abbreviation? Then, it stands for at least these three things:

l Internationales Rotes Kreuz, or the International Red Cross in German.

l Interswitch Rekeying Key.

l This may shock many who have tried to distance the bomb blasts from violence in the South. The third one stands for "Islamic Religious Knowledge".

Hopefully, it is the signature of a graffiti group, and has nothing to do with the blasts.

achara_d@nationgroup.com