As we keep our fingers crossed, and always check the calendar with increasing apprehension, the man we blame for putting us through this unprecedented level of political stress is taking a VIP tour of a big British football club and helping its board decide who should be its new manager.

Things have started to come thick and fast once again and this is probably a good time for another round of frequently asked questions. As always, it's my duty to inform you that my record, while surely better than that of Manchester City this Premiership season, has been as erratic as Liverpool's efficiency in front of the goal:

What will happen on May 30?

Our political desk predicts "selective punishment" in regard to the election fraud case that has put the Thai Rak Thai and Democrat parties on the brink of being dissolved. Judicial and political sources have been talking more and more of a compromise scenario in which only some big fish linked to Thaksin Shinawatra's power core are banned from politics.

From our understanding, it's legally impossible to spare certain party executives from the five-year banishment from politics if their parties are dissolved. Therefore, selective punishment would require the judges to rule that the alleged hiring of small parties to run in the October election last year and counter-charges that those small parties were in fact hired to frame the Thai Rak Thai are individual offences under electoral law.

Another good thing about selective punishment is that the Democrat Party can be spared, thus preventing a legal paradox. There has been intense speculation that Thailand's oldest party would have to go down with Thai Rak Thai just for the sake of pre-empting an uprising by the millions who support the latter. Finding Thai Rak Thai guilty of hiring small parties to contest the election (following big parties' boycott) and finding the Democrats guilty of making the small parties frame Thai Rak Thai would require one heck of a ruling.

And yet selective punishment could also get around this tricky spot and beat the paradox. For example, some Thai Rak Thai executives could be ruled guilty of hiring the small parties whereas certain senior Democrats could be judged to have illegally approached some members of these small parties.

What makes Manchester City's board certain that their business with Thaksin won't end up a dramatic mixture of the Palang Dharma fiasco (he simply ditched the party), the Shin Corp saga (he sold a firm he founded for cash) and the Temasek infamy (the Singaporeans saw a great opportunity, and the rest is history)?

I have talked to some British diplomats and they all said Thaksin can expect no problem from London authorities regarding what could potentially be the largest Thai investment in the UK, and that Manchester City can go ahead with this private business venture at its own risk.

One tiny little problem concerns where the money will come from. Thaksin's wife recently sought the Thai government's permission to move Bt400 million out of Thailand to fund a property purchase in London, which led many of us to believe that the family had no cash stacked anywhere overseas. Moreover, in his last asset declaration report while in office, he mentioned nothing about the likes of money in Swiss banks.

If he attempts to take Bt7 billion out of the country, will the government allow it? If he doesn't need to do that, does it mean he lied in his asset report (again)? My answer is that since he managed to pull off the Bt73 billion tax-free Temasek deal, which was far more complicated, buying a Bt7 billion soccer club will be a stroll in the park.

Manchester City needs an injection of funds, and if they are desperate enough, the club won't mind the heavy political baggage. This could yet be a marriage scripted in heaven, though. Thaksin would raise the club's financial stature tremendously and his so-intricate-we-don't-know-how-it's-done business management style may suit the increasingly murky world of soccer commercialism like a glove. As for the man, he will get the publicity he always wants, and a place to park some of his endangered assets.

Is this a sign that he's giving up on a political return?

To put things in perspective, if he does buy Manchester City, it will be as if you had Bt1.5 million and you to decide to buy a Bt100,000 car.

So, owning a British football team, although it involves a figure that is near the sum he is alleged to have spent on the 2001 election, looks like nothing more than a rich man's hobby right now.

Will the draft constitution pass the referendum?

The answer is heavily linked to what actually happens on May 30. The content of the draft charter, which is only partly controversial, is secondary here, and there have been apparent efforts to mend the questionable clauses. If both the Democrat and Thai Rak Thai parties emerge from May 30 in not so bad shape, it's highly likely that the draft will sail through. Most of all, no matter how bitter and deep the political animosity, everyone is clamouring for an election at the moment.

Tulsathit Taptim