Doing a 'weng'

Two days of peace talks between the red shirts and the government have changed the eccentric doctor-turned-political-activist into an overnight celebrity, with teenagers now using his name as a slang and an online mockery game invented with his screaming face on it.

"Weng" now means "to confuse," "to bore" or even "to b***s***". If you hear a youngster say "Don't 'weng' me", it means, to put it politely, "stop talking nonsense".

The online game, tweeted and played in a frenzy yesterday, allowed players to poke his cartoon character in the rear and see how far it sent him flying in pain.

Weng was a star negotiator as far as the red-shirt protesters were concerned, but to others he was boring and selective in using democratic principles against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

 During one of his remarkable showdowns with Abhisit, Weng said the red negotiators "didn't come here, just the three of us. We are accompanied by 20 million people".

To which Abhisit replied: "I don't want to talk about numbers over here. But if they are so important, should we carry out a referendum on whether I should dissolve the House?"

Weng didn't answer.