Very true , I'm from London and when I used to work away we would often make jokes about the carrot crunchers in the sticks.

The reds did do a bit of damage in the city centre though !!

A humorous side note to this for me was during the redshirt protests . My wife's family hailing from the NE are all staunch reds and my SIL was a big organiser of people for demos etc ( she got sent to Cambodia to meet Thaksin ) . We had arranged to meet another SIL by Queen Sirikit Park on Viphivadi Rangsit Road as she was taking our kids for the day . The trucks would all have met up in Pathum Thani previously as this was a good place to get together and so the would be coming into BKK on Viphivadi .

I didn't know what to expect really when we met up but I didn't expect a massive convoy of pickups with flags etc coming my way . Got a lot of strange looks when they all pulled over at the side of the road to speak to the whitey and take his kids !!

Lot of stereotypes about people in Thailand.

Isaan : stupid
BKK : clever and cheating
South : Black heart
North : not as stupid as Isaan but still slow !

you just lost a lot of friends in my 'village' and amongst the many thousands of Thais I have had dealings with over the years .

known a few women who got married to Thai men and it didn't work out for any of them . Three main reasons ; 1 he didn't like a girl who drank smoke ect
2 she didn't like his Thai man habits
3 she wasn't prepared to do all of the stuff
that Thai women do like cooking cleaning
ect.

Can you elaborate on point 2 ?

Yeah, I saw that on the news. Last time I was there (about a year ago) I had the impression that all this stuff had quietened down but not gone away.

I suspect that the succession will kick it all off again.

Visiting hookers all the time.

I'll let other people come up with their own suggestions , sure we all have our ideas about Thai man habits .

Think it depends what is happening with the government at the time . Love or hate him Thaksin was a democratically elected PM ( twice with an overall majority , 1st time ever in Thai politics ) and the main beef of the reds was that he was kicked out in the coup . Now that his sister is in charge ( also democratically elected ) I can't see major problems ahead unless they tried to change the constitutional make-up of the country at that time ( succession ) , which with the other half alive ( presumably ) probably wouldn't happen .

Have to see what happens , Thailand watching !! never boring .

OMG. Starting with the issue of sin-sot, why end up with Thai males' habits and bloody Thai politics?

Threads go off topic after a while. It tends to happen. Such is life.

Yeah, I've always sympathized with the reds because of this. The coup was bang out of order imo.

There's more to it than that unfortunatly. Thaksin was elected twice, but then he called an illegal election (which was boycotted) - illegal because he did not give enough time as per the law for the other candidates to run a campaign. He then illegally stayed on as caretaker PM without calling a legitimate election - he also had rearranged the old guard to put his family and friends at the top (like promoting his low ranking brother in law to the head of the army!) in both military and civil service. The writing was on the wall at this point - the military have always been powerful here and they do not take kindly to these tactics. It had all the hall marks of a democratic dictatorship. Officially really he was not ousted at all, as when he left Thailand, he wasn't really the PM anyway. He was then banned from politics (by judges from his own party one might add) for 5 years and his party disbanded (TRT) - he was found guilty (his wife also) and sentenced and did a runner before sentancing and before other charges came to court - so if the courts had had the ability to impeach him and prosecute him in office (which would have been a bad idea when he was here) he would have been kicked out anyway and probably gone to gaol to.

The coup was military - and they handed over the reigns as they said they would do. There were several goverments before the democrats, which was as legal as the British coalition is, an amalgam of parties because not enough votes for any one. The Dems got in simply because earlier TRT aligned parties, some big ones, swapped sides (bit like Churchil walking across the floor in the Commons).

The Reds were not throwing out the coup makers - this is a myth that is continually put forward here - it is very wrong. They forced the collapse of a legitimate party with guns, bombs, vandalism and riots - they choked the political process with constant deflections and propaganda - we hear lots about the 30 baht medical Thaksin put in (whereby any Thai can get medical help for 30 baht - which was not subsidised properly and caused many rural clinics and hospitals to collapse) - but little is even known about the fact that the Dems brought in a properly funded free medical for the poor (which was quickly and quietly abandoned when Yingluck got in in favour of worthless popuar policies - like tablet PC's, rice price fix, first time new car buyer aid, minimum wage!). They were offered a fair election (early election) by the Dem PM (Abhisit) within the time frame they originally asked - and then were turned down flat - the government bent to their demands and yet they stayed camped out and building fired baracades of lorry tyres. There is absolutley nothing the Reds should be proud of in my opinion - and they are set to destroy the country economically now they are in charge.

They are up to their old tricks again - in fact further this time - we have schools being set up across the North East and other poor districts called Red Schools - these teach the kids the politics of the Reds in all that they do - brain washing (tell me how this is different from Communist schools of the same ilk - or even Islamic fundamentalist schools).

As to succession - the Governemnt can not change it in any way - only the King can do that. They have no remit for it and it would take a revolution to change that fact (besides the King has last Veto - he could simply stamp "Vetoed" on any such legislation). Succession will fall to the crown prince. There is still very, very strong feeling for the monarchy here (there is also very active Les Majeste laws) - no politicl party would outwardly suggest touching the monarchy in any way - it would be political (at least) suicide. It is a mute point here - no one wants to talk about it - and doing so will attract ire.

And the constitution here is rewritten all the time.

It's simplistic, but the "red" side kept winning all the elections and the "yellow" side kept using the courts to get them overturned until eventually Abhisit got elected. I'm not condoning it, but it's no wonder the reds reacted the way the did given how iffy and trumped up some of that was.

Also, the strong feeling isn't for the monarchy per se, it's mainly for the king who has very carefully (some would say cynically) cultivated his image over the years. There's going to be a power struggle when he dies; I'd say living in Thailand for the few weeks after is a risky proposition. Maybe nothing will happen, maybe there will be lots of violence like in 92.