Thaksin and a tale of two cities
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
You've probably heard that three senior members of the National Legislative Assembly - Speaker Meechai Ruchuphan, Wissanu Kreangam and Bowornsak Uwanno - have dismissed mutterings that their Songkran skeddadle to France had something to do with politics. And they certainly didn't go there to see European gadabout Thaksin Shinawatra, they say, although Bowornsak admitted that he did exchange pleasantries with Thaksin's brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat during a chance meeting at a Paris theatre. The mutterers remain unconvinced, Paris being one of the well-trodden outposts of the Thaksin Trail, but Soopsip can assure readers that the former premier was in London at the time with his two daughters. Our spy spotted him at the Landmark Hotel, which is well on the other side of the English Channel from France. Sceptics will nevertheless point out that there are fast jets, speedy helicopters and fairly swift ferries running between the two countries all the time. Politics is, after all, a game of advancing and retreating assumptions, battles lost and won on speculation, with victory always waiting for the ever-elusive truth. It was all just a bad dream
Bowornsak evoked the mystical to try and convince reporters that meeting Thaksin on the sly was something that would never even have occurred to him. "I don't even dare dream about him!" he said. "So you can just forget about it if you believe I'd consider meeting him." Well, actually, now that he thought about it, there was one occasion when Bowornsak dreamed about Thaksin, but it frightened the nightlights out of him. "I'm still haunted by that dream, so please put a stop to these rumours that I actually met him in the flesh!" The reporters must have been so taken aback by this "defence" from the subconscious that they neglected to ask what was so scary about the dream. How bad could it have been, though? Now, seeing the real Thaksin back in Thailand - that would be scary! What's the opposite of a scoop?
You work hard all month to get the next issue of your magazine out and it looks like a winner: It's got a terrific six-page spread on one of the most talked-about romances of the decade. Unfortunately for the Thai edition Hello! magazine, the hot romance of the April 12 issue was the one between Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton, which came to a jolting end just two days later. There was, of course, nothing the mag could do other than console itself that readers had some substantial background on what had certainly seemed like an altar-bound affair. The lengthy feature might yet come in handy in helping sort out the details that continue to emerge about the reasons for the split. Something about Kate's mum using the word "toilet" instead of the more cutely acceptable "loo" or the stoically trusty "lavatory", wasn't it? Also consoling, sort of, is the bittersweet fact that there will be many, many follow-up stories to fill the pages for the rest of the year.
Enjoy more Soopsip on the Net. Visit NationMulitmedia.com/weblog and search for Soopsip, where you'll find a steady diet of political and celebrity gossip.
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