Issue Date: 
Jul 16 2012 - 11:00pm
Author: 
Page3
Topics: 
city living

For years here at BK we’ve adopted a very special technique for dealing with difficult questions and serious issues. Post-11am (we have some standards), we just reach for the bottle of Black Label in our drawer. Pre-11am, we simply stick our fingers in our ears and rock gently back and forth while singing “la la la” until it all goes away. We admit it’s slightly childish, but that’s never stopped people with much more power than us from adopting a similar approach, as events in recent weeks have shown.Take those judges who, faced with a difficult constitutional dilemma, made the simple decision to make no real decision whatsoever. Sure, they said, we’ll make a decision on whether to amend the constitution, but only once the people have made their decision will we decide on their decision. Besides, nobody really did anything wrong, anyway.Then there was army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha. Showing the balls of steel needed to employ a useless plastic stick to uncover high explosives, he once again stood by the GT200 bomb detector (you know, the one that works by magic). This, despite the news that the manufacturer of an almost identical device was arrested in the UK for selling bomb detectors that really, really don’t detect bombs.Never mind, the military tactic of sticking your head in the ground has a long and noble history; just ask the Cambodian and Thai generals at Preah Vihear. It’s a tradition seemingly passed down in our Thai schools, which are having a bit of rough time of late. Failing schools, fights between teachers and pupils, and some naughty nipple suckling have got everyone up in arms. That’s OK, education officials said, it’s society’s fault for our loose morals and the teachers’ fault for not being good at teaching. No, absolutely nothing to do with us.Now that’s all cleared up, please excuse us; the office accountant has just come over with some questions about our last expense claim… It’s time to bury our heads in an intensive session of Birzzle while listening to Kylie’s new greatest hits collection.