In a fit of pro-Council for National Security gush, presumably out of self-preservation, one remarked that he did not believe in any form of corruption. Including his own. Slip of the tongue perhaps? Not really. Just an unduly relaxed attitude to principles, I would have thought.

The fact is, you're not really considered fully conscious unless you're involved in some form of corruption here. Politicians are only democrats when it suits them. "We do what we like. We always have and always will. That's democracy." So it's somehow reassuring to see old Banharn Silapa-archa opening his doors to a rabble of Thai Rak Thai factions. He knows perfectly well what little moral luggage they are carrying, the past they have had and the future they can expect. He even has the political talent to discern good points even in fellows who boast about not having any. The point is, politicians don't switch sides for a policy or a philosophy, even if that side has actually bothered to formulate one. They switch sides for the money.

And, as Harry Truman never said, if you can't stand the heat, you might want to put some ice on that.

***

How distant the recent past seems! Thaksin, like all patriarchs, was convinced of his own good intentions. He made grand gestures, took petty measures and was unpredictable. But I still don't get it. How could someone with such a high calibre of political savvy get caught napping? Was he over-confident, or did he end up governing from within a cocoon of advisers too scared to tell him the truth about the world outside? He also had shedloads of chutzpa. But then the classic definition of chutzpah is the man who murders his parents and then asks the court for clemency since he's an orphan. And what's he doing now? Sipping wine and helping his daughter with her homework? Or living inside a teepee in his own Park Lane living room snarling with impotent fury?

More importantly, has anyone had the temerity to ask: "apart from that Mrs Shinawatra, how did you enjoy the coup?"

***

It should be remembered that a coup d'etat does not need a creed, just an enemy. If the coup was a turning point, like most turning points it had been in the offing for some time. It was almost Buddhist in its delivery. Bloodless, shotless, mindful. And there are some who maintain that the coup was not so much against an elected government as against the total lack of government. A setback? A step back? Who knows? But looking around on the street the morning after, the public appeared unshocked by the event to the point of indifference.

***

For potential prime ministers, a suggestion: instead of haggling with power hungry factions, attending expensive dinners to formulate polices or getting another useless "master's" degree, why not go and do what Gandhi did when he returned from South Africa? After a couple of listless speeches in Congress that hardly even registered, Gandhi admitted that he really didn't have a clue about what made India tick. He knew it was made up of 700,000 villages. So he went and had a look. He toured the entire country (on a third-class rail ticket if memory serves) to get a grip on its soul, its problems, its aspirations. Why don't you do that here? Instead of going to the areas where people tell you what you want to hear, go where they don't. Find out why there's a north-south, rich-poor divide. Be honest. Do you want national reconciliation or not? Or do you just want to get close to the treasury trough? Democracy may be many things, gentlemen, but it is not relaxing. As Prem Tinsulanonda said this week, this country is sacred. You've got a whole year. Why waste it?

***

We were once taught that the Pope's words were infallible. Are we now to be taught his words are inflammable? A cartoon in Private Eye neatly summarised one side of the ongoing Islamic spat with the Vatican.

First Muslim: "The Pope says Islam is a violent religion."

Second Muslim: "Let's kill him then."

Is it perhaps time that all Christians rioted whenever a Muslim cleric insulted their religion? Or is the week too short?

***

Quotables: Suvarnabhumi Airport's Poo Ming ghost.

"It was late at night when I saw him," says Pratheet Wanmuda, a guard. "He had an aura around his head and walked with a stick. I called out to him, but then he was gone. I was so scared that I forgot to ask him for next week's winning lottery numbers."

Overheard: "England without the Royal Family? Never. It would be like Pattaya without the katoeys."

Heard: My German friend and neighbour has been in a good mood lately, very taken with recent events. "The world has turned right upside down," he beamed. "The best golfer in the world is black; the best rapper in the world is white, and now there are several wars going on, and guess what, Germany doesn't want to be in any of them."

***

In Great Britain, Irishmen were once perceived as drunken, plodding, and, frankly, rustic. Not any more. As Ireland has left the United Kingdom in the economic shade the old stereotypes have vanished. And, as the Irish are swapping smoke-free pubs for outdoor cafés and Guinness for latte, the jokes have changed.

An Irish labourer turns up at a building site and asks for work. "Have you done this before?" asks the foreman. "Do you know the difference between a girder and a joist?"

"Ach, sure," says the labourer. "Goethe wrote Faust, Joyce wrote Ulysses."

***

From next year, it's to be £100 (Bt7,000) on-the-spot fines for assaulting a policeman in London in a bid to keep hundreds of thousands of offenders out of court. Wow! That means you can go out and biff 10 coppers for a grand. Bonus time in the City of London will never be the same again.

***

In Alan Bennett's "Untold Stories", he recounts Ariel Crittall's meeting with Hitler. She was pregnant at the time, "So I wasn't feeling very . . . brisk. Hitler said: 'I only have four words in a foreign language, the four words being: 'Vous etes mon prisonnier.'"