The 40-something fans of the people's alliance for democracy show

Many pointed fingers at the People's Alliance for Democracy, the political movement that claimed victory when Noppadon Pattama resigned as foreign minister following the Preah Vihear controversy. To the PAD, Noppadon's resignation showed the government's admittance of guilt - guilt for surrendering sovereignty to Cambodia. And now the PAD feels righteous enough to campaign further for the resignation of the entire Cabinet for endorsing Noppadon's action.

The PAD's campaign has attracted huge public attention. Many who joined the PAD troops in Si Sa Ket were regular viewers of ASTV, the satellite TV channel that has aired the PAD rallies from the start, on a regular basis.

A friend of mine in Udon Thani says her mum is a regular fan of ASTV. Glued constantly to the channel, she decided to close her shop one day and took all her employees to join the PAD rally in the province when one of the leaders planned to land there.

Bangkok also has many fanatical ASTV fans. Many of friends of mine said their parents had turned into a regular audience for the protest show. They tune to the channel from morning till past bedtime (yeah, they fall asleep while the TV is still on).

A friend's aunt, who is retired and spends most of her time at home, is so loyal that she gave away Bt20,000 to the PAD, without even wanting to know how the political movement would distribute the money.

A friend's mum has now cut down on her time outside the house. Raising her grandson at home, she is happy to let him play in front of the TV. And what's on TV? -constant live scenes from the PAD stage where protesters take turns to woo people for their cause and sing patriotic songs.

These stories confirm a report that more than 70 per cent of the crowds at the PAD centre are women over 40.

Surprisingly, not all the people I know who are glued to ASTV said they were PAD supporters. Some just joined the movement because of hatred towards the government. This is confirmed by the historic huge number of people who gathered on the day when Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej planned a crackdown (before he denied the move the next day).

Whatever, it seems ASTV has effectively drawn people away from their soap operas, something that NBT or Thai TV could never do, regardless of the launch of several new programmes.

Yeah, I write this entirely out of concern for the health of those poor soap operas.