Just arrived from Thailand, my suitcase weighs a ton stuffed as it is with winter clothes. But although it’s totally chilly by comparison with a normal day in Asia, it seems to me it was twice as cold the last time I lived in Aberdeen. Then central heating was something you only saw on the TV or benefited from in schools and corporate headquarters, and I remember the nation was shocked when the price of coal burst through the pound-a-bag barrier! You would wake up in the morning with frost on the inside of your bedroom windows as well as the outside!

And it was often cold enough back then to freeze the balls off the proverbial brass monkey!

With car owners then still relatively few and far between, the most hated word in winter was ’slush’ and the uncoolest form of fashion was wellies. I’d catch a yellow bus into Aberdeen and freeze half to death en route at a time when Jean Imrie was still thought to be funny and Bothy Nichts was still on the telly. Punk rock had come and gone and nobody even knew Tony Blair existed, as Mental Maggie ruled the roost and telephone and electric bills went routinely into three figures.

No surprise then that when in 1983 I got the offer of a job in China exploring for oil offshore with Holder Drilling and BP leading the charge, I grabbed it and left the Frozen North far behind me. It was September 1983. Winter was looming and another Christmas in the pipeyards of Altens held little appeal, so I agreed to forego the prospect of freezing to death in Tullos for the warmer climes of Southern China.

I remember stepping off the ‘plane in China and thinking I had stepped into a boiler house with the doors on the boilers left open by mistake. The heat hits you, blankets you like an invisible duvet, smothering you in hot, humid air, a cloud of high pressure heat that gets right under your clothes and starts the melting process immediately.

And this was late September. Magic!

Actually, my trip abroad was truly a voyage of discovery because I found out where all the Scottish summers had gone. The Asians had nicked them! It’s actually summer every day over there and stuff like snow and frost are alien concepts. I lived in Hong Kong for a while and one winter when a freak drop in temperatures caused a freak frost at the top of the highest mountain, almost the entire population got in their cars to have a look, at 2 in the morning!

It’s little wonder there are so many of them, as they dinnae have to wait for a warm night to get the leg over.

The next morning, and for the next 26 years I woke up every day with the sun shining and with prevailing ambient temperatures associated only with heat waves back in Scotland – and this at 7 in the morning! Very magic.

It was a seductive situation this sun first thing in the morning, and it kept me in Asia for years. But typically, daft Calvanist Scot that I am, I still managed to return home without a suntan,not being a fan of beaches nor lying about idly in the sun.

It’s not warm here in Alba but the warmth of the community and the joy of rediscovering all my old pals and places and wandering through my past in Scotland helps me forget how cold it really is. And it’s not a vicious cold. More like the arm of a friend around you, someone who has just come in from a frosty night. And his or her touch reminds you that central heating really is one of God’s gifts to we once-heathen, once permanently frozen Scots!

I doubt the words ‘chillblains’ or ‘frostbite’ are even to be found in the various Asian lexicons.

Thank goodness!

These days Scotland is a prosperous, middle class, European ‘miracle’ with everyone owning their own houses and cars and getting abroad on holiday at least once a year – unless they are building an extension or moving up the ladder to a bigger place. Or buying a Jag!

But it’s not all good.

There’s a lot of drugs in Scotland and the rest of the UK now, and with this plague comes a rise in crime associated with junkies getting stuck into the vulnerable to steal the wherewithal to score.

More than 4,000 heroin addicts in Aberdeen alone my drug counselling mate Dave tells me. A city of maybe 230,000.

There were about ten known junkies when I left in 1983.

Not even.

Then there is the influx of East Europeans who have arrived to take all the crap jobs and send their dosh home. But many are here simply to take advantage of the generous UK welfare system.

Fine, and frankly, they are everywhere.

Wherever the masses congregate you can see them and hear the heavy Slavic brogues cutting through the Doric chatter. Mostly this new wave of cheap labour is welcome, but disturbingly, my police sergeant friend claims the crime wave in her northerly division is mostly the result of this influx of displaced continentals.

Hardly a surprise really. From unscrupulous communist dictatorships they come, where life was sordid, basic and cheap and where what values there were, were based on who you knew or what you could screw out of an unyielding, often terrifying and always corrupt communist system. Little wonder they come here devoid of scruples and that many are ruthless in their intent often lacking the gentile sensibilities and refined morals of the advanced societies in which they now find themselves.

Some would rather steal or deal drugs than work. The third world mentality they bring means so many want to get rich quickly, not slowly or eventually, if they believe that particular dream at all. They’re not all Polish of course. There are Africans, Russians and Czeks and Romanians here too, but the chances of having an East European lady or gent serving you in Starbucks or MacDonalds, or dealing you bad dope or heroin is exponentially higher than it was even 10 years ago.

It sucks I know. But I am not letting it get to me. I am celebrating the fact that now I am old enough to enjoy the statuesque, grey glory of my home town, built almost entirely from granite, and a monument to an authentically prosperous past and erected by fine and noble stone masons who once worked the cold hard stone into these wonderful terraces, high streets, elegant squares, hospitals, merchants’ homes and entire neighbourhoods, planned and designed by some of the finest architects of their day, though the likes of Charles Rennie Mackintosh apparently studiously ignored the shimmering potential for even greater architectural glory!

Aberdeen the city is truly a sight for sore eyes in this age of glass and metal monstrosities, and while I lived here 30 years or more before so innocently embarking on my 30-year sojourn to the Far East, it is only now I see properly what I left behind.

His friends call him T-Bone and you’d call him Captain America if you new half of what he’s done in his rich and colourful life up until now. He’s a rock poet is what he truly is, and if he could play guitar half as good as he can write, he’d be up there with SRV and Jimi What’s-his-name.  The guys dig him and the girls adore him, ’cause he gives up his Mississipi vibe through his big smile and generous nature. Tells it like it is and don’t take no shit – unless you’re a Thai general or a Californian highway patrol officer – and even if trouble do call, he gets around it, over it, under it and up and away. That’s his style. That’s T-Bone style. He’s leavin’ town but we know he’ll be back – Bangkok is a little part of his life – but a chunk of his heart.

Thailand’s prime minister pauses briefly and swallows hard as he addresses the question few of his compatriots dare contemplate: life without King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-reigning monarch.

“I am under no illusion — it will be a very difficult time for all of us,” says Abhisit Vejjajiva, who in December patched together a multiparty coalition government and became troubled Thailand’s fifth prime minister in four years.

American-born King Bhumibol, 81, whom many Thais regard as semi-divine, ascended the lotus throne in 1946, when Harry Truman was in the White House and Josef Stalin ruled the former Soviet Union. He has been the lone stabilizing presence in a land that has been rocked by 15 successful or attempted coups d’etat, 16 different constitutions and 27 changes of prime minister during his reign. The stern-faced monarch with few official powers but much influence has at least twice intervened to halt bloodletting.

Thailand’s need for stability has grown more acute with the emergence of a seemingly unbridgeable, color-coded societal chasm between wealthier city dwellers and those that live in the countryside — warring factions that use symbolic hues to literally wear their allegiances on their sleeves.

On one side: the urban elite, based largely in Bangkok, who have adopted the king’s traditional color of yellow. On the other: the majority rural poor, who pledge equal loyalty to the king yet sport red shirts to show their support for billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist prime minister overthrown in a 2006 coup.

Rival Factions

Street demonstrations organized by the rival factions led to the occupation of Bangkok’s two main airports in November and triggered the cancellation of an April meeting of Asian leaders — events that brought unwelcome publicity to the Land of Smiles. A more orderly mass protest was staged on June 27 and others are planned in the coming months.

Amid the chaos, some investors see opportunity in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy behind Indonesia. As of July 7, Thailand’s stock index had surged 30 percent this year compared with a 0.8 decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. During the same period, overseas investors increased their shareholdings by a net $621.4 million after being net sellers of $4.8 billion in stocks last year.

Publicly traded companies in Thailand are trading at just 11 times estimated 2009 earnings, making them the second- cheapest in Asia after Pakistan. They currently offer a dividend yield that averages 4.7 percent compared with 3 percent for U.S. stocks and as little as 1 percent for Chinese equities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That makes Thailand a buy, says Marc Faber, who manages $300 million in Asian shares at Hong Kong-based Marc Faber Ltd.

‘Paid to Wait’

“I can get here relatively recession-resistant businesses that are well run with a dividend yield of 6 percent or 7 percent,” says Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, who has been buying shares in Thai banks and food producers this year. “If you buy good businesses, it would be most unusual if you did not make good money in 5 or 10 years. And with these dividends, in Thailand you are paid to wait.”

Investors with that kind of time horizon may need to consider what will happen when Thailand has a new sovereign. Already, concerns about the king’s advanced age and uncertainty over the succession have begun to blunt confidence that the royal prerogative will remain powerful.

Regional Influence

That could trigger Thailand’s biggest crisis since 1932, when the military and civil servants overthrew the absolute monarchy, says Stephen Vickers, Hong Kong-based chief executive officer of FTI International Risk Ltd., which advises investors in Thailand.

“In Thailand, the king is the God-bolt that holds the rotor blades to the helicopter,” Vickers says. “Investors have lived through many coups and it’s easy to become blase, but when the king passes away, it will be significantly more serious than before.”

A smooth royal succession would be welcomed throughout Southeast Asia, a market of 575 million people. Fertile, tropical Thailand, with a population of 67 million, is the world’s biggest exporter of rubber and rice, two mainstays of the regional economy.

Even with an abundance of natural resources and a business- friendly environment, Thailand hasn’t been immune from the global recession. Unemployment will nearly double this year to 2.5 percent from 1.3 percent in 2008, according to the National Economic and Social Development Board. That jobless rate is still low by international standards. Global unemployment may reach 7.4 percent, according to a May 28 forecast by the Geneva- based International Labor Organization.

Stimulus Effect

Thailand’s economy shrank 7.1 percent in the first quarter — the worst contraction since the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Exports plunged 26.5 percent and industrial production 10 percent in May — the seventh such monthly declines in both categories. In June, Standard & Poor’s said it may lower Thailand’s BBB+ credit rating. In April, Fitch Ratings lowered its rating for Thai foreign-currency debt for the first time in more than a decade, cutting it to BBB, the second-lowest investment grade.

Prime Minister Abhisit on May 29 introduced a stimulus package worth 1.4 trillion baht ($41 billion) to spur growth. If the program works, Thailand’s economy may shrink by only 3.5 percent this year, the Finance Ministry forecasts.

Royal Investor

The king’s influence over the economy is personal. He’s the country’s leading investor. Through the monarchy’s asset manager, the Crown Property Bureau, Bhumibol controls property and shares worth about $33 billion, according to Porphant Ouyyanont, a Thai academic who has studied royal finances.

Bhumibol’s investment arm holds controlling stakes in the country’s No. 2 bank by market value, Siam Commercial Bank Pcl, and the largest publicly traded conglomerate, Siam Cement Pcl, and owns shares in hotel companies. The fate of that business empire — along with who controls it — is also tied to the royal succession because the king appoints the CPB director general.

Under the constitution, the king can also choose his own successor. The government has disclosed that the next monarch will be Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, 57, a career soldier. Unlike his popular unmarried sister Princess Sirindhorn, 54, a one-time candidate for the throne who does charitable work, the twice-divorced crown prince has fought off unwelcome publicity about his personal life.

Nine Kings

Whatever the rules, the 227-year-old Chakri dynasty, which has provided Thailand’s last nine kings, has been the one constant in a land of frequent political chaos. Bhumibol’s great-grandfather Mongkut was immortalized in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. The filmed version of the work, starring Russian-born actor Yul Brynner, isn’t shown in Thailand for being disrespectful of the monarchy.

The Chakri dynasty has a history of murky successions. The seventh king, Prajadhipok, abdicated in 1935 three years after losing his absolute powers in a coup by military officers and top civil servants. The throne was then passed to a 10-year-old nephew, Ananda — Bhumibol’s older brother — who spent most of his reign at school and university in Switzerland and did not live long enough to have a coronation.

In June 1946, Ananda, then 20, was found dead in bed in the Grand Palace in Bangkok with a bullet in his forehead and a Colt pistol beside his body. Three men convicted of the murder were executed in 1955, although some historians describe the death as an unsolved mystery.

Boston-Born Monarch

Next in line was Bhumibol, who was born in Boston while his father, Prince Mahidol, was studying medicine at Harvard University. Like his brother, Bhumibol was schooled in Switzerland and returned there after his 1950 coronation and didn’t officially resettle in Bangkok until the following year, by which time Thailand hadn’t had a resident monarch for 16 years.

Bhumibol rebuilt the royal family’s reputation by traveling throughout the countryside setting up model farms and irrigation projects. The king’s popularity also gave him the power to halt military strongmen in their tracks. In 1973, he threw open the gates of his home, Chitrlada Palace, to provide an escape route for students protesting the military dictatorship after troops had opened fire on them.

In 1992, Thais watched on live television as a military commander who had seized power in a coup and whose soldiers fired on unarmed middle-class protesters prostrated himself before the monarch alongside a rival former general who had led the street protests. After a royal dressing down, the coup leader relinquished power.

Land of Smiles

Thailand, the only Southeast Asian country not to be colonized by the West, supported the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Bordered by Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia, the Land of Smiles prospered economically even in the face of frequent political upheavals.

Financial incentives for new business along with a cheap and skilled labor force helped Thailand establish itself as a world-class manufacturer of products ranging from cars to disk drives, according to Michael Dunne, Shanghai-based Asia Pacific managing director at J.D. Power & Associates, a marketing information services company. “It’s Japan’s industrial backyard — the place they’re most comfortable,” he says.

In 1978, Thailand’s economic growth topped 10 percent for the first time. From 1987 to 1993, its average expansion of 10.1 percent outpaced even that of China.

Currency Crisis

Just as Thailand was in the vanguard of Asian economic growth, it also led the region off a cliff in the late 1990s. “Thailand had gone deeply into debt, had invested in many projects that were clearly inappropriate and had allowed speculative markets in stocks and property to run riot,” according to a 2007 United Nations Development Program report.

In July 1997, Thailand could no longer keep its currency, the baht, pegged at 25 to the U.S. dollar. Within six months, the baht halved in value and half of the loans held by Thai banks defaulted. Hundreds of companies collapsed.

Within weeks, the currency contagion had spread through most of Asia. “Thailand was at the forefront of the East Asian miracle and was then pivotal in bringing things to an end,” says Uwe von Parpart, Hong Kong-based chief Asian economist at Cantor Fitzgerald Capital Markets Ltd. “It has been at the forefront of the good and the bad.”

Vacation Paradise

Thailand, with its golden temples and ancient history, also ranks high as a tourist attraction. Its diversions, ranging from grand hotels near coral reefs to raunchy pole-dancing bars, attracted 14.6 million visitors and $27.4 billion in revenue last year, according to the government. As street violence blunts Thailand’s reputation as a vacation paradise, visitor arrivals are expected to fall to 10 million people this year.

The country has expanded its manufacturing capacity, as carmakers including Toyota Motor Corp., Isuzu Motors Ltd., Honda Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. produced 1.4 million vehicles valued at $20 billion in Thailand last year and exported vehicles to 130 countries, according to J.D. Power.

Even amid the prosperity, the gap between rich and poor has continued to grow. While many Bangkok-based investors grew prosperous from the boom years, farmers missed out. Average household income in the capital was 35,000 baht a month in 2007, according to the National Statistic Office. In the northeast, monthly household income was the equivalent of about $340 and some 13 percent of the population lives on less than $1.35 a day — the official poverty line.

Color-Coded Conflict

That divide has transformed the country’s political life into a color-coded conflict. The Yellow Shirts are largely based in Bangkok, a city of 9 million people whose streets are jammed with traffic as Mercedes-Benz sedans vie for space alongside emission-spewing tuk-tuk motorized rickshaws and the occasional elephant.

Opposing them are the Red Shirts, largely rural poor hailing from the impoverished northeast. They back Thaksin, 59, a billionaire businessman who was ousted three years ago for what the military claimed was corruption. Red Shirt leaders play down the revolutionary significance of their chosen color, with one advocate, Veera Musikapong, telling reporters it simply looked better against dark skin.

In the past four elections from 2001 to 2007, voters have returned pro-Thaksin governments. On the past three occasions, the elected governments have been removed from office by a combination of street protests, military pressure and censure in the courts.

Rural Relief

In 1998, Thaksin, a former police officer turned telecommunications tycoon, established his own political party, Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais). Three years later, the party swept to power by winning 248 of 500 parliamentary seats.

The first Thaksin government gave microcredit grants to villages to start businesses and introduced a low-cost health care program — crucial support in a country where 1.4 percent of the population are HIV positive, according to 2008 UN estimates. At the same time, he sent police squads after drug traffickers. Some 2,500 people died in the enforcement effort, not all of them involved in drugs, an operation condemned by Amnesty International for its brutality.

In 2005, Thaksin was re-elected with an even bigger parliamentary tally of 377 seats. That same year, Yellow Shirt leader Sondhi Limthongkul, a former Thaksin supporter, began a campaign of street protests against the prime minister, saying that Thaksin used his office to advance his business interests.

Election Boycott

In January 2006, Thaksin’s family sold its controlling stake in publicly listed Shin Corp. to Temasek Holdings Pte., an investment arm of the Singapore government, for the equivalent of $2.15 billion, in a deal structured so that the Shinawatras paid no tax. That arrangement inspired Yellow Shirt demonstrations in Bangkok led by television station owner Sondhi. Thaksin dismissed the protest, saying Sondhi’s real motivation was vengeance for being denied a broadcast license.

Thaksin responded by calling a snap general election, which the three main opposition parties boycotted. After Thaksin’s inevitable victory, the king made his most significant intervention in politics since the 1992 bloodbath. He gave a speech in April 2006 calling the election undemocratic because of the absence of serious opposition. Two weeks later, the courts annulled the election, and Thaksin remained as head of a caretaker administration pending a new poll.

Before voting could take place, the military staged its coup on Sept. 19, 2006, while Thaksin was in New York attending a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

People Power

In December 2007, the military-backed government held new elections, which a pro-Thaksin party named People Power won. In February 2008, Thaksin returned to Thailand. He fled the country six months later to avoid corruption charges, saying he wouldn’t get a fair trial. In October 2008, he was sentenced to two years in jail in absentia for helping his wife buy government land while he was in office.

People Power’s first prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, 74, was removed from power after nine months by the courts for taking money — the equivalent of just $2,345 — to host a television cooking show. The party then chose Thaksin’s brother- in-law Somchai Wongsawat, 61, as prime minister in a parliamentary vote.

In November 2008, rampaging Yellow Shirts, who claimed Thaksin bought the votes of ignorant farmers, invaded and succeeded in shutting down Bangkok’s two main airports, stranding 400,000 travelers for a week and costing the country $8 billion in lost tourism and airline revenues, according to the Bank of Thailand.

Airport Protest

A week later, the courts dissolved the government for alleged vote buying in a suit brought at the recommendation of Thailand’s Election Commission after one of the government’s senior politicians was found guilty of committing election fraud. The airport protest then ended.

In July, charges were filed against leaders of the yellow shirt airport protests, which include breach of aviation law and illegal assembly, Thai newspapers reported. Among those facing charges is Thailand’s foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, who reported to police on July 6 to hear the charges, Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi confirmed to Bloomberg News. Kasit earlier this year told reporters in Bangkok that he had done nothing wrong. The ministry spokesman said Kasit, who addressed the crowds from a stage at the airport during the protests, would keep his ministerial position.

‘Bonsai Democracy’

“Thailand has a bonsai democracy,” says Jaran Ditapichai, a Red Shirt leader. “Whenever it grows up, someone cuts it back.”

In April, the Red Shirts agitated for a new election by gate-crashing a summit meeting of Asian leaders in the Thai coastal resort of Pattaya. The siege forced some of the region’s most powerful figures, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, to flee by helicopter.

Meanwhile, the exiled Thaksin was broadcasting speeches his opponents interpreted as calls for a republic. In messages played at mass rallies, he used the phrase “patiwat prachochoen,” which roughly translates to “people’s coup.” Nevertheless, Thaksin — whose exact whereabouts are often unknown — has been careful to pledge loyalty to the king.

His words resonate among the 80,000 inhabitants of Bangkok’s Klong Toey shantytown, says Prateep Unsongtham Hata, a 5-foot-tall (152-centimeter-tall) activist known throughout Thailand as the “angel of the slums.” Born in Klong Toey, as a teenager she organized slum dwellers to fight the bulldozing of their homes and was a leader of the 1992 pro-democracy protest that was fired on by the army before the king intervened.

‘No Hope’

“In the past, people had no hope,” Prateep, 57, says. “Then, when Thaksin came in, they could see tangible democracy. They could be healthier, have more food and better job opportunities. But now they find democracy has two classes.”

Thailand, which is 95 percent Buddhist, is already beset by another security problem — a secessionist Muslim insurgency in three southern provinces near the Malaysian border that has claimed more than 3,400 lives since 2004. In June, Abhisit said Thailand may allow more local autonomy and consider Shariah law to defuse the insurgency, which has recently targeted teachers, Muslim worshippers and policemen.

By comparison, the toll in the yellow-red confrontation has been small. Last year, at least seven people died and hundreds were injured in street battles, grenade attacks and shootings related to the protests. In April, Yellow Shirt leader Sondhi escaped death when gunmen sprayed his car with more than 50 bullets. Red Shirt leaders claim that at least 10 of their people were killed during protests the same month.

Health Speculation

The king has remained above the political fray in recent years and his nonattendance at several key ceremonies has triggered speculation in the international press about his health. On Dec. 5, Bhumibol failed to deliver his customary birthday address to the nation for the first time. The king, now bent with age, appeared on television in June presiding over a Buddhist ceremony marking the anniversary of his brother’s death and was also seen receiving an award in government pictures dated June 24.

The task of maintaining stability is in the hands of 44- year-old Prime Minister Abhisit, a leader whose resume mirrors that of a U.K. politician. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, to parents who were medical professors, Abhisit attended Eton College, the alma mater of 18 British prime ministers, before earning a degree in politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford.

Rising Star

Returning to Thailand in 1986, he lectured at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy before being elected to Thailand’s parliament in 1992 as a member of the country’s oldest party, the center-right Democrats.

Abhisit joined others in his party pledging to strengthen Thailand’s U.K.-style parliamentary system. In 1997, when the Democrats formed a coalition and introduced a new constitution that gave more powers to the parliament, Abhisit won a cabinet position advising then Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai.

In 2005, four years after the Democrats lost power to Thaksin’s party, Abhisit became opposition leader. His coalition now controls 280 of 480 seats, though the pro-Thaksin opposition, now known as Puea Thai, is the largest single party.

To calm Thai politics, Abhisit has introduced a program for political reconciliation, which includes an election-free period to avoid poll-induced violence, possible amnesty for banned politicians and the promise of new elections after the constitution is changed.

Political Stability

“The question is: Will the government be able to guarantee both the succession and political stability?” Cantor Fitzgerald’s von Parpart says. “That’s going to be a lot easier under circumstances of economic normality rather than economic crisis.”

Stability would also be welcome news for entrepreneurs such as Bill Heinecke, American-born founder of Minor International Pcl, a hotel and restaurant chain that has attracted investment from the king, who, together with the CPB, owns about 4 percent of shares.

The son of a Voice of America correspondent, Heinecke arrived in Bangkok as a teenager in the 1960s. Today his business runs 27 hotels, including Four Seasons and Marriott properties and the luxury Anantara resort chain.

At the height of the airport demonstrations in December, occupancy at the Bangkok Marriott plunged to 20 percent from 80 percent; it bounced back to 65 percent in the first quarter of this year. Minor’s share price, which soared more than 700 percent between 1998 and 2008, has fallen 1 percent this year, trading at 7.8 baht on July 7.

‘Back to Business’

To shore up overseas-investor confidence, Abhisit made a one-day visit to Hong Kong on May 15 and followed that up with visits to Singapore and Beijing in June.

“Thailand continues to get back to business,” he said at a press conference in Hong Kong. Abhisit said the king is still performing his duties. “I can tell you His Majesty is very well aware of all the issues that are pertinent to the current situation.”

In an interview at his Italianate office in Government House in Bangkok five days later, Abhisit discloses that Bhumibol, who has 4 children and 11 surviving grandchildren, has already endorsed his only son as the next king.

“The crown prince is the designated heir,” Abhisit says.

A visit to investor Faber’s home 700 kilometers (435 miles) north of Bangkok highlights both Thailand’s allure and its risks for future investors.

Walled City

Swiss-born Faber first visited Thailand 36 years ago and moved his home there in 2000. Today, he lives in baronial splendor, surrounded by first editions of books such as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, in a teak house on the banks of the Ping River just outside the 1,000-year-old walled city of Chiang Mai.

As night descends on the ancient city’s golden temples, Faber decides it’s time for a beer and leaps astride a blue 1,150-cc Kawasaki motorcycle, arriving a few minutes later outside a neon-lit strip of tiny bars, where friendly girls from the poverty-stricken northeast become friendlier still for the price of an 80 baht “lady’s drink.”

Even at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, the bar girls far outnumber customers at Bar Linda, Faber’s favored watering hole. “A few months ago, this place would have been packed by now,” he says, gesturing down the row of near-empty bars.

Just up the road, a 10-meter-high (33-foot-high) illuminated portrait of the monarch gazes benignly upon the city. “Long Live the King,” the sign proclaims. That’s a sentiment investors, as well as Thais, endorse, even as they also quietly accept that the Land of Smiles will one day shed tears over the end of the Bhumibol era.

While newspapers may be folding, all is not so cut and dried on the Net when it comes to filling the advertising void. Check out what one net guru thinks.

Inside THAI Society

By: BOONRAK BOONYAKETMALA

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva’s critique of the “danger” of mixing fact and opinion together in the form of “news” by the so-called “television news chatterers” is evidently being completely ignored, not only by the numerous practitioners but also by professional associations theoretically enforcing ethical standards upon such people, and the consumers themselves.

Someone’s watching: While we all blindly consume, Uajit Wirotetrairat keeps an eye on the mass media.

Her company, Media Monitor, has produced much research regarding Thai television over these past three years. In the meantime, facts and opinions continue to be gleefully synchronised in a variety of formulas on our television screens day in and day out, as if this was the reality of our age.

What are the central repercussions of such a phenomenon on our television journalism and our social understanding?

Do we have to live with the anarchy imposed upon us by the mushrooming TV news chatterers for the unforeseeable future?

First of all, it should be noted from the outset that our good prime minister did not elaborate on what he refers to as the “danger,” assuming perhaps that it was a self-evident statement. Far from it. Since no relevant authorities, including the many schools of journalism in our “universities”, have voiced any meaningful reaction to the amazingly short-lived controversy, this may imply that very few people actually understand why facts and opinions should be properly separated in TV journalism.

After all, it is fun to mix them. Who would want to hear only the dry facts?

True, an ongoing trend anywhere in the world is for “reportage,” a blend of fact and opinion in journalism, a quiet but steady upsurge explainable by the self-serving expansion of the media, which has practically become the sole authority for our “daily truth”.

The conscious blurring of fact and opinion represents an intentional overtaking of power on the part of the media to define what is true and false, and, therefore, right and wrong. Watching TV reporting is consequently an end in itself, and the reporter now poses as a god who knows everything.

Actually, many TV journalists do not know that much. For example, very few such people have written anything that requires any serious learning. So, what could be the legitimate intellectual basis for their instant “judgement” on the meaning(s) of a particular piece of news, often rooted in a series of complicated social processes? What if their interpretation of the news is shallow, simplistic, misleading, and anti-democratic?

Who could hold them responsible for what they do?

Isn’t the search for meaning a field more properly cut out for the other members of learned society who are more qualified to make deeper judgements about the facts, however seemingly unimportant as they surface in the news?

With self-appointed gods posing as TV anchormen, there is thus no need for news consumers to think for themselves any more, much less to explore the true implications of accepting the opinionated “facts” at their expense. In this way, the future of participatory democracy is thrown into a black hole.

Once the TV news chatterers are allowed to “judge” the meaning of news for the audience, there is little space left for alternative interpretation. Without room for independent thinking on TV, democracy might not work any more.

Worse, once TV news chatterers mix fact with opinion so casually, this seems to eliminate the need for any meaningful opinion forums on TV. Consequently, our TV news industry is monopolised by a few dozen playful reporters posing as celebrities, casually telling you how to think about the news every day.

For this reason, there is little left to be analysed by anyone else.

Without serious opinion forums on TV involving the best minds among us – such as the public intellectuals, top university researchers, independent thinkers, local philosophers and other worthwhile voices – audiences are unfortunately deprived of any opportunity to learn from the truly learned.

Consequently, our TV is dominated by the mediocre, average views heard over and over again, without any potential to ignite new thinking and approach to public issues and policies.

That television is predestined, under capitalism, for the unthinking masses is probably too true for television’s own good. If the TV industry does not believe in the ability of its audience to think, it does not have to think itself.

This statement, scary as it is, may actually account for much of the monolithic, predictable views we hear on TV every day, not to mention the tired programme formats forced upon us by the industry’s producers whose origins trace back to only a few dominant groups, with a very small space left for the new, emerging production forces, whose creativity might be just what the industry needs to revitalise itself.

Note that our TV industry is crippled in its potential to contribute new ideas to resolve any major problems that have arisen in our society.

The noticeably few opinion forums that are in existence are operated by those who are seemingly unaware of the scope and implications of the issues under discussion.

The guests who are invited to speak on such programmes are arguably too few, thoughtlessly selected, and sometimes intellectually unqualified to say anything on the topic in question.

Historically, serious opinion forums are few and short-lived on our free TV. For this reason, TV has failed miserably to contribute meaningfully to the search for solutions for the most pressing questions of our time.

For instance, there has never been a fruitful discussion of the problematic lese majestic laws, which could be quite instructive about some of the root conflicts in our society. With the discussion on political reform, when and if they are discussed on TV, the views presented are limited in terms of sources and vision.

Naturally, many key issues facing our society are never meaningfully discussed on TV. For example, the dire need for quality political leadership in our society is never treated on television. What kind of dynamics do we have to put in place so that good and effective political leaders can naturally emerge on the scene?

Without the right mould for breeding political leaders, Thailand’s chance in the constantly changing global system is near zero. As a matter of fact, one very powerful way of explaining our current crisis is precisely the absence of an effective system from which charismatic leaders can surface continuously.

There are, of course, many other issues on the wish-list that we would hope to learn from television. The declining quality of our university system, not to mention the rapid irrelevance of such an education, has not been sufficiently examined on TV. The steady deterioration in the competitiveness of our export-oriented industries is also another topic which requires serious attention from TV for obvious reasons.

The sad neglect of our agricultural sector and its consequences on our economy and politics, is also in need of explanation.

Likewise, the bottomless decay of cultural values, demonstrated in the widespread premature, promiscuous sex, violence, and irrational consumerism among our youth, is another subject that demands a full understanding through television.

Given their relevance, if and when such sample issues are adequately discussed on TV by those in the know, the educational value and policy implications of such programmes will be immense.

Needless to say, the reporting on TV is more destructive than we may have been led to think. Prime Minister Abhisit might agree that with a more disciplined TV news industry, wherein facts and opinions are properly separated, more valuable news-oriented programming possibilities will emerge.

Without TV news presenters playing god, the audience will have to think for themselves about the meaning of the news.

Ultimately, such a process is conducive to the development of a democratic citizenship. Under such circumstances, top-class opinion programmes that are truly educational could mushroom on TV.

The fresh competitiveness in such programmes would one day lead to genuine quality a’ la the BBC’s Hard Talk, paving the way for those who are really in the know to make their debut on TV – a phenomenon that would be welcomed by all.

(c) Dr Boonrak Boonyaketmala. Dr Boonrak is Associate Professor at Thammasat University and author of many books on media, culture and society.

Email: responses1234@yahoo.com

It’s really a little bit pathetic how Bob Lefsetz keeps writing about music and the music industry in his own time as if it were his own time. Bob and the gang were ‘current’ for about five years 25 years ago. I mean how dated did Buddy Holly become almost immediately when Led Zeppelin II came out? The DJs then were scrambling to sound informed and ‘with it’ when that bomb dropped. But they were very ‘without it’ and rock went on to cut the music business a new asshole at every level. And yeah the guys playing catch up did good, but then the Business pissed on them again with the Punk bomb, then the Grunge bomb and Garage and Emo and next please!

Yet today, the A&R and marketing dudes who ruled the roost for two or three years tops back when, think they still have a handle on the business today and are spinning on their Gucci toes trying to work out where the business is first of all, and where it’s going.

Ask Trent – it’s his five minutes RIGHT NOW so he might just know something. Ask anyone who was born after the MP3 was introduced. Ask anyone who has a game machine and wi-fi. Music is as important to them as soccer was to U.S. audiences 20 years ago – not important at all!

Music is a distraction that is today considered a cool feature on games and for doing homework to in your ears.  Do you think that watching ‘pop stars’, hip hop fakes and rap disasters flaunt their cash and diamonds and cribs hasn’t turned off the kids with more than half a brain who think the music business and what it produces is a crock of shit not worthy of their time or effort or creativity. Yeah they think old rock is cool – but they don’t want to buy it. They just want it for free on their games. Kids love to rebel. Love music that is ‘subversive’. Love to rock and burnish the latest cool ‘anti’ attitude. Too much hip hop and rap has sent them to the screens and they have to unlearn the habit before it’s too late.

By Brandon Keim

Paying attention isn’t a simple act of self-discipline, it’s a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and these says Maggie Jackson, are in danger of dying. In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, Jackson explores the effects of “our high-speed, overloaded, split-focus and even cybercentric society” on attention. It’s not a pretty picture: a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets is part of an institutionalized culture of interruption, and makes it hard to concentrate and think creatively.

Of course, every modern age is troubled by its new technologies.

“The telegraph might have done just as much to the psyche [of] Victorians as the Blackberry does to us,” said Jackson. “But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that nothing has changed. The question is, how do we confront our own challenges?”

Wired.com talked to Jackson about attention and its loss.

Wired.com: Is there an actual scientific basis of attention?

Maggie Jackson: In the last 30 or 40 years, scientists have made inroads into understanding its underlying mechanisms and physiology. Attention is now considered an organ system. It has its own circuitry in the brain, and there are specialized networks carrying out its different forms. Each is very specific and can be traced through neuroimaging and even some genetic research.

The first type of attention is orientation — the flashlight of your mind. It involves the parietal lobe, a brain area related to sensory processing, which works with brain sections related to frontal eye fields. This is what develops in an infants’ brain, allowing them to focus on something new in their environment.

The second type of attention spans the spectrum of response states, from sleepiness to complete alertness.

The third type is executive attention: planning, judgment, resolving conflicting information. The heart of this is the anterior cingulate — an ancient, tiny part of the brain that is now at the heart of our higher-order skills. It’s executive attention that lets us move us beyond our impulsive selves, to plan for the future and understand abstraction.

We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it’s easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.

Wired.com: What does it mean to be distracted?

Jackson: Literally, it means to be pulled away to something secondary. There’s also an a interesting, archaic definition that fell out of favor in the 18th century: being pulled to pieces, being scattered. I think that’s a lovely term. Our society right now is filled with lovely distractions — we have so much portable escapism and mediated fantasy — but that’s just one issue. The other is interruption — multitasking, the fragmentation of thought and time. We’re living in highly interrupted ways. Studies show that information workers now switch tasks an average of every three minutes throughout the day. Of course that’s what we have to do to live in this complicated world.

Wired.com: How do these interruptions affect us?

Jackson: This degree of interruption is correlated with stress and frustration and lowered creativity. That makes sense. When you’re scattered and diffuse, you’re less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it’s hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking. These are the problems of attention in our new world. Gadgets and technologies give us extraordinary opportunities, the potential to connect and to learn. At the same time, we’ve created a culture, and are making choices, that undermine our powers of attention.

Wired.com: Has a direct link been measured between interruptions and neurophysiology?

Jackson: Interruptions are correlated with stress, and a cascade of stress hormones accompany that state of being. Stress, frustration and lowered creativity are pretty toxic. And there are studies showing how the environment shapes brain development in kids. But I can’t say if attention fragmentation really rewires our brains. When you sit at a desk for six hours multitasking like a maniac, are you actually snipping out parts of your attention networks? That’s difficult to say right now.

Wired.com: Is establishing that link the next scientific step?

Jackson: It’s one avenue for future research. Right now, the field of attention science is now more concerned with attention development in children. The networks develop at different paces. Orientation is in place by kindergarten. The executive network is in place by age 8, but it develops until the mid-20s. Understanding the sweet spots for helping kids develop attention is where the science is at.

Wired.com: So adults are out of luck?

Jackson: We do know that people can be trained to improve attention networks, though we’re not sure how long-lasting the gains are. There are exercises and computer games that boost short-term memory. The only sort training going on now in the office world is meditation-based, and that’s being used more for stress rather than to boost attention, although it does do that. In terms of mainstream research, there’s nothing I’m aware of that’s being done to help the average adult, though there’s tremendous interest in what’s possible. But there are ways to cut back on the multitasking and interruptions, shaping your own environment and work style so that you better use your attentional networks. If you have a difficult problem or a conundrum to solve, you need to think about where you work best.

Right now, people hope they’ll be able to think or create or problem-solve in the midst of a noisy, cluttered environment. Quiet is a starting point. The other important thing is to discuss interruption as an environmental question and collective social issue. In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn’t have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we’re doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.

Wired.com: The subtitle of your book predicts a “coming dark age.” Do you really believe this?

Jackson: Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we’ll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.

Recite this latest ‘poem’ of mine in your thickest Glasgow accent…

Tongs Ya Bass

by Alex Pithie 

I wis walkin up the high street

Gan hame fae the broo

Fin I saw a little Chinkie

Wi’ a yin yang tattoo

I crossed o’er the pavement

Blocking his way

He says ye better watch yer step

I’m wi’ the 14K

Oh says I

So yer a bit of a lad?

Worse than that he says

Am a fuckin’ triad

A triad says I

Should ye no hiv three heeds?

He says watch yer muth pal

Or you’ll end up deed

Heavy duty says I

Listen tae you

Ye get a whole lot of balls

Fae yer yin yang tattoo

It’s bonny an’ that

They’ve did a good job

Bit the yin and the yang

Hiv fucked up yer gob

Ye might think yer hard

I think that yer wrong

And I should know

Am a Glesga Tong

 So just where is Khao San Road, an alleged hippy haven of cheap rooms, traders of dreams, night- and daymarkets and wall-to-wall marijuana?

by ALEX PITHIE

 first came to Bangkok 25 years ago and they told me then that ‘it’s a must-see’. It was…kinda. Heaving I guessed with visa fugitives, pimps, hustlers, on-the-run scam artists, losers, dope peddlers, Congolese drug mules, randy college kids finding themselves with or without a condom, off-duty cops, on-duty cops, Euro trash playing pool, thieves marking time, misplaced soccer dickheads saving up for more lager, and tanned Jews forcing prices down and the goyem out.

So just where is Khao San Road, an alleged hippy haven of cheap rooms, traders of dreams, night- and daymarkets and wall-to-wall marijuana?

Straight off, pretty it is not. And neither is it obvious, tucked discreetly away like the girly bars of Sukhumvit and Silom, hidden well out of site behind the otherwise stately detail of the very main street.

 It’s in a part of this great city where the idea of greatness dominates and where the magnificent throughfare Rajdamnoen Avenue is home to the excesses of  royalty and mild-tempered religion alike. Here temples and palaces have absorbed as much as money as might have built the poor of Thailand a thousand universities and with enough left over to put the first Thai on the moon – clutching his master’s degree of course. The saving grace of the architectural excess of days gone by is of course that today they look quaint, exotic and awe-inspiring enough to pull in the snapping tourists with lots of cash and cameras, equipped with an appetite for the mythical, mystical memories of Old Siam’s past.  

To find Khao San you switch right off the main drag – temple town – and within a few yards you are already wised up to the fact that someone somewhere is doing a very good job of putting this cheap ass, 27 ^th wonder of the world on the map.

Two kosher restaurants within a city block!

Enter and relax and watch from your roadside beer bar. At any time of day – but best near evening in the narrow, crowded pedestrian street – it is game on!

A Romanian train driver, grinning his way in to the hearts of the accommodating Thais, trips over a massive blue-rinsed midwest matron trawling hard for any prostitute to scowl at and disapprove of while very white, sockless Soviet pimps on vacation ask for directions from already-confused, pot-smoking Arab dockers busy ogling sexy Jewish chicks here on R&R from National Service on the Gaza Strip. A gaggle of unshaved smelly Iranian postmen hunt for obliging cheap thrills and in the process grill a posse of Irish fiddlers and their Thai chicks out looking for short gigs and long, free beers. Fat New York tax accountants with bad shorts and stroke-ready sweat-wet heads blow their fees on ubiquitous carved Red Indian icons and “genuine”Burmese rubies, then queue in the heat for Limp Bizkit look-a-like tattoos on their flaccid white biceps. Pouting Greek dudes escaping the beach get their sun-bleached hair pleated and beaded like Swedish girl scouts, both grinning in the mirror when not scoping out the chicks queuing to lay their asses when the brading is done. A pair of retired Texan coke dealers get to know the ladyboy hookers, all muscles and cheap perfume and ready to take it in any orifice anywhere in town for ‘a mere 1000 dollars’, bringing a smile to the Dallas blow monkeys’ faces and giving the giddy transvestites accidental hard-ons, turned on as they are by the appeal of crazy sex-starved rednecks and the smell of warm greenbacks.

Don’t ask me how many money-changers there are here or where to score the best Ganja or who does the best Thai food or why there are more Rolls Royces in this street than on any other in this a city of 15 million punters, or where the best live music is or which is the best place to send e-mail or to ‘phone home or to get laid or get a fake I.D. or get your hair braided or buy the best gems or silk gear or silver jewellery or thongs or the coolest T-shirts…

That would really take away the fun of this very fun street which quietly connects in a gentle but safe labyrinthine way to other cool alleys and smaller streets, where there is even more to see and touch and eat and feel and smell and enjoy.

It’s bit busier during Songklan or Thai New Year and that’s definitely worth missing, believe me!

The decline of newspaper popularity has been attributed to the rise of the internet and the proliferation of web-based content. With an extremely low barrier of entry and variable cost, the web allows anyone with a computer to become an independent publisher: As a result, the amount and variety of content online far exceeds print publications in most fields.

So how can newspapers survive and do well as a business in the future?

Perhaps by cutting back and going more niche to provide content that features deeper analysis and investigative reporting. In an article entitled ‘The Elite Newspaper of the Future’, Philip Meyer suggests that the money and audience comes from specialized, not general media.

This particular quote explains in greater detail:

I still believe that a newspaper’s most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.

By news, I don’t mean stenographic coverage of public meetings, channeling press releases or listing unanalyzed collections of facts. The old hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer sufficient. Now that information is so plentiful, we don’t need new information so much as help in processing what’s already available.

Just as the development of modern agriculture led to a demand for varieties of processed food, the information age has created a demand for processed information. We need someone to put it into context, give it theoretical framing and suggest ways to act on it.

Scaling back on the all-you-can-eat content buffet in favor of more exclusive material does not just appeal to a hardcore audience. People get their information from one another, not just through the direct consumption of media. Catering to the leadership audience, the well-educated news junkies and opinion leaders, will help spread your content in the long run.

Will this topical specialization make newspapers profitable? Maybe. If newspapers can’t compete with blogs and online news sites in terms of speed and variety, perhaps they can trump them in terms of depth or trust. After all, feature-length content with solid, investigative reporting is not something you’ll often find on most blogs or personal sites on the web.

Daily newspapers will always be around, although they will be read less as more people come to have persistent access to the internet. A newspaper gives you the opinion of the journalist, but a blog throws in the comments of other readers. The web also gives you instant social interactivity, which is appealing for people who want to connect over what they’ve read.

To be able to share an opinion on what you’ve just read is enormously satisfying. Good content can be one-way but I think its increasingly important to socialize information and make it a facilitator for communal interaction. Print publications of the future would do well to consider developing some form of an online component to complement their offline product.

On the other hand, the problem of information overload is very real. Just think about it. More and more online/print publications are created everyday: to track and read many of them is very time consuming. People will be forced to pick and choose what to read. Some blogs will get dropped from a feed reader, others will remain. It’s easy to predict who survives.

Blogs that just repeat information already published elsewhere are providing value that can be substituted. To put it another way, these sites are completely dispensable. They lose out when a choice has to be made due to time/attention scarcity. These sites are usually the ones that just regurgitate content released on mainstream media or other larger blogs. Their identity is virtually unrecognizable. A great logo and design won’t save them.

Sites that serve as a comprehensive and reliable filter of information on a topic will be read, but they’ll always have to compete with other fast-paced news publishers. To aggregate information is incredibly easy. To process, analyze and situate it within a big picture context while offering an intriguing/unique perspective is considerably more difficult.

Those who can do so will be trusted: they are a valuable knowledge asset for any reader.

Detailed, unique content immediately stands out on its own, even without extensive marketing efforts. People don’t just want to be informed, they want to better grasp a topic in all its nuances. The joy of consumption lies not only in the skimming of a news story but the processing of new perspectives to enrich a personal worldview or professional need.

Publications that provide such content will always have an audience. In the end, it’s just a natural consequence that results from the consumer’s problem of information overload.

To receive updates on new articles, subscribe to Dosh Dosh today.