Today was a public holiday for the King's birthday.
At school we were all given postcards to post to wish him many happy returns.
Despite assurances that he speaks English because he was born in the US, I opted not to send mine... if I had his ph. no. I'd send him an SMS but since I don't know him well enough to have his no. I think he probably wouldn't miss the postcard...
Anyway I knew he had been ill, but it sounds very serious, which makes the protests seem so much more logical. The king's son is terribly unpopular and is seen as someone whose lifestyle and associations don't give him the moral authority to be king in a country where semi-divine is not too far from how the king is perceived. There is a sense among some Thai people, though not talked about much, that Thailand is likely to move towards being a republic after the death of the king.
I don't think I a being a paranoid or cynical conspiracy theorist but.... The people jockying for power now are presumably looking into the future at the potential for a Thai republic. I haven't read that anywhere, and it would probably be illegal to say so in the Thai media.
Time will tell I guess.
At any rate I have caught up on some of my marking and am toying with the idea of going to Ayutthaya tomorrow.
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