Thailand's Democratic Red Herring

Everybody loves it. Everybody wants it.

The Greeks thought it up and gave us the etymology. The Europeans adopted and exported it. The Americans fell in love with it and might well drop a bomb on you to bring you it.

Democracy has become the 'holy grail' of modern politics.

Throughout the planet, politicians and political parties vie to be 'more democratic than thou'. Even the occasional dictator or well-meaning totalitarian regime will claim the mantle of democracy: Pol Pot's 'Democratic Kampuchea' being a particularly chilling example.

So it is no surprise that in Thailand's hair-trigger stand-off both groups, though diametrically opposed, are fighting on the side of democracy.

In one corner, sporting royal yellow, is the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). In the other, sporting red (like the bull?), is the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD).

The beauty of democracy, like religion, is all you have to do is believe in it. You can explain it any way you like. Dress it up in the clothes you fancy. Stand it on its head and make it dance a Russian jig. Just say it's 'for the people'. Or at least that's what the politicians hope.

But there will always be those standing on the sidelines watching your political dance, the irksome analysts, who will claim haughtily that it's not orthodox, not democratic, even, horrors, anti-democratic (which is the modern equivalent of political heresy).

The PAD has been a popular target for the democratic doubters.

And there is easy grist for their mills.

The PAD's 'new politics' proposal outlines a system that would see only a minority of representatives (30%) elected directly by a majority of 'the people' while the other 70% would be chosen or 'nominated' by another group of 'people' drawn from an unspecified 'superior grade' of anonymous voters selected, presumably, from the trusted inner circles of power.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people is what your standard democratic government claims to be about. But which group of people are they really talking about? Is it fair to label a movement like the PAD anti-democratic just because they advocate a system where the majority would have the right to choose only a minority of the government's elected representatives?

The answer, of course, is that democracy comes in about as many shades, shapes and forms as the imagination has room for. So, no, the PAD is not strictly anti-democratic. It is, as its leaders claim, simply proposing a different form of democracy which in principle shouldn't make it any less valid in the global democratic beauty pageant - alongside Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea, the UK, the US and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - than any other.

The argument over 'democratic or not democratic' is irrelevant.

In Thailand there is plenty of debate about the relevance of democracy. It's a western idea claim many members (and leaders) of the PAD (who all the while claim to be democratic) and as such is not appropriate for Thailand which needs its own indigenous political model. The suggestion is that Thailand, like some of its Asian neighbours, will concoct its own form of 'Asian' democracy.

Such arguments are also irrelevant; smokescreens designed to leave us wandering down ideological blind alleys.

Theories that pit Western democracy against Asian democracy are the convenient rallying calls of the xenophobes and nationalists. For democracy is so diffuse an idea as to make it adoptable by just about anyone for any political purpose, as history has shown.

In reality (obviously in fact), what the PAD and the UDD, and all the other political players on this planet, are struggling for, most fundamentally, is power and the right to exercise it on behalf of the 'people' they represent - whether the majority or not.

And here's the rub. There is a global consensus, driven powerfully by Western thinking, that the best form of democracy is one where power is exercised not just on behalf of 'the people' (all leaders claim this) but that the majority of people on whose behalf such power is being exercised should be given the right to choose their leaders.

The PADs new politics proposals are unpopular (most notably in Western circles) because they do not respect this convention, arguing instead that the interests of the majority are not best served by allowing the majority, with all its defects of poor education, poor information and susceptibility to corruption, to choose its leaders. China doesn't subscribe to the majority system and wealth is expanding there at breakneck speed (with some notable negative side-effects). Singapore too, where many Western businesses see fit to make their base, is far from the Western democratic ideal.

Perhaps the strongest argument against the proposals of the PAD, however, are not that they are undemocratic but that they do not define how 'new politics' would guarantee that those empowered to choose Thailand's new leaders would in fact be 'good people' or 'khon dee' - thereby preventing a slide toward the 'illiberal democracy' of the Thaksin era.

The most deeply held political aspiration of Thais today, I believe, is not the removal of the majority vote in favour of an enlightened ruling minority but a removal of the endemic corruption that has afflicted Thai politics for decades.

It is ultimately more important, therefore, that Thailand establish mechanisms for producing good leaders (khon dee) and a framework for effectively policing corruption, rather than arguing over which interest group (the PAD or the UDD) should have the right to exercise power on whose behalf.

For as we all know power has a tendency to corrupt.

Divided Nation

Harmony is a word one uses easily to describe Thailand. Social cohesion and lack of conflict are among the most striking characteristics of the 'mysterious' kingdom. This is why the passion and anger of recent months has been so surprising, adding another layer of paradox to the puzzle of Thailand.

Just yesterday, while working on a story with Seth Mydans of the International Herald Tribune, we witnessed how the easy smiles and soft tones we are so accustomed to can evaporate when talk turns to politics.

Seeking access to a television so we could watch a government announcement, I asked a by-stander on the pavement opposite Lumpini Park if they could help. This being Thailand we were immediately ushered into somebody's home and proffered drinks and comfortable chairs. Nothing amiss - the generous and warm Thailand all tourists love.

Seth, seeing an opportunity for some comment and noting the exclamations from our hosts as they watched the political news on TV, ventured a few questions. A PAD rally had just passed in front of their house: "so what do you think of the PAD then," he asked our hosts. "I want to kill them," came the instantaneous reply. "They are sowing hatred and think they can do whatever they want," continued the 40-something woman wearing a tight leopard skin top. "I want to kill them all," she repeated. Within minutes, the tranquil Thai household had erupted into passionate argument. "Why are you saying such things in my house," responded one of the men. "Because it's the truth," responded the woman, who refused to give us her name saying they would come and kill her if she did.

When we finally took our apologetic leave, the peace of the household had been shattered and the woman who had spoken so forcefully was on the verge of tears.

In an international context such a scene might not seem so extraordinary. It would be commonplace in Italy or France, where passion oils the wheels of daily communication.
In Thailand, however, such expressions of passion are uncommon. A voice raised in anger is rare and usually cause for serious concern as it can be the preliminary to a violent outburst of cathartic rage.

The point here is that the current political deadlock in Thailand is unleashing passions that I have never seen (in the past 17 years). It is unveiling divisions that I have never heard so intensely expressed. Two years after Thaksin was ousted by the military, Thailand is riven as never before and passions are rising like an angry volcano before an eruption.

In this land of the Buddhist middle path, where compromise normally rules, few now seem ready to take the step backwards from their demands that is a pre-requisite for negotiation.
The Land of Smiles is locked in an alarming logic of conflict which can perhaps only be broken, if temporarily, by royal intervention.

The Disparate Threads of the PAD

In many ways it's hard to like the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Its leaders spew vitriolic nationalist and often xenophobic rhetoric. Its followers wear uniform-like outfits that echo European fascism and the Village Scout movement involved in the brutal repression of student demonstrations at Thamassat University in 1976. Its defenders are armed thugs ready to club any and all opposition into bloody submission.

Viewed from the outside, as a monolith, the PAD looks like a frightening fusion of the kinds of bitterness and passions that inevitably lead to violence. After all, as PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul has often declared, this is their 'final war'.

Yet the PAD is no monolith. It is a motley alliance of very unlikely bed fellows: Sondhi Limthongkul, the media tycooon with a grudge against Thaksin, Somsak Kosaisuk the state enterprise union leader, Chamlong Srimuang, the former Bangkok mayor, politician and activist who styles himself as a kind of latter-day Thai Ghandi. Left wing Peua Chiwit (For Life) rock stars, respected academics, police and military generals, students...all have climbed onto the PAD stage at Government House and raged against the government, often using violent and abusive language of the kind rarely heard here.

What holds them together? Why is that Thai friends I would normally portray as being on the left of the political spectrum, are fervent supporters of a movement that would more easily be defined, at least in traditional Western terms, as being on the far right?

Part of the answer, I believe, lies in their profound disappointment with Thaksin and, by extension, the political system as a whole. For many, Thaksin was given a mandate to usher in an era of reform. 'Kit Mai Thai Mai" (New Thinking and New Ways of Doing Things) was his slogan and many Thais believed it.

When Thaksin proved to be as corrupt, if not more so, than the 'dinosaur' politicians he had supposedly replaced, his erstwhile supporters felt betrayed and angry. The PAD, led most publicly by a man (Sondhi Limthongkul) whose hatred of Thaksin was well known, provided an immediate and obvious forum for the expression of these frustrations. Thais of all political persuasions could agree easily on one thing: Thaksin had let them down and somehow they needed to find a way of reducing corruption among the ruling class.

Thus the PAD gained its initial momentum by tapping into a vein of sentiment that is almost universal among Thais: politicians are corrupt, the police is corrupt, the country needs change.
But like a ball of string rolling forwards, gathering different coloured threads as it goes, the PAD has moved a very long way from its initial objective of removing Thaksin from power and picked up a number of different coloured political 'threads' along the way.

It has moved from being an apparent spontaneous political expression of frustration to a movement that looks more and more as though it is being orchestrated by powerful, yet invisible, forces who wish to facilitate wide sweeping political change. One woman told me the other day, the frustration audible in her voice, that "the PAD are untouchable. They can do whatever they want." And indeed, since their seizure and continued occupation of Government House, the PAD has appeared to be all but immune to the law.

Many PAD supporters remain with the movement out of a sense of loyalty and a feeling of belonging. The paraphernalia associated with the PAD, such as the hand clappers, the yellow scarves and bandanas, are enablers of this sense of belonging. They re-inforce the collective identity.

Many of these 'legacy' PAD supporters are not concerned with the details of the political agenda being proposed by the movement's leaders. Fundamentally, they are motivated by a desire to bring change to Thailand's political system and by a deep seated frustration at the dislocation between the nation's ostensibly modern economy and its politicians who are often caricatures of 'Third World' corruption. Many are Sino-Thai Bangkokians from the ranks of the middle class and, interestingly, many (sometimes it looks like a majority) are women. When the PAD leaders characterise the police or other figures of authority as 'animals' the crowd roar with what, to me, looks like a cathartic laughter as if such words were the expression of their own anger at the establishment.

There is another thread of PAD supporters who, in a society where conformity and respect for authority are the norm, position themselves as 'activists'. This thread is composed of those who are always going to be in opposition to established power. These are the Peua Chiwit singers, the unionists and the students who are intuitively comfortable rallying around an opposition battle cry. Strangely, this activist group overlooks the fact that the PAD's leadership is proposing a system, dubbed 'New Politics', that would see the traditional establishment reinforced through a democratic process whereby only 30% of the government would be directly elected and the remaining 70% would be appointed representatives from various sectors of society.

Indeed, it is one of the strangest paradoxes of the PAD movement that for all its anti-establishment, 'Che Guevara' type, bravado it actually seems to be proposing a reinforcement of the traditional establishment. I say this partly because I have not yet heard measures proposed by the PAD aimed at fighting corruption. Rather the PAD appears to be focused on changing the electoral system which would usher in a new set of leaders without proposing concrete steps to tackle the deeply engrained relationship between political power and corruption - whoever's hand the power may be in.

In a country where corruption has become the norm among politicians, the PAD has attracted a multi-faceted support base in Bangkok and other urban centers simply by being an advocate of change - without looking too closely to see if such change would actually be for the better.

For those in the countryside, where support for the PAD is almost non-existent, the perspective is entirely different. Rural voters are also aware that the political class is corrupt. More pragmatic than the city folk, however, the rural constituency often seems to characterise such corruption as 'normal'; behaviour that they have come to expect of the Phu Yai (Big People) in power.

With corruption being a given what remains are the results. What did Thaksin do for me? asks the rural voter. Though in reality Thaksin did little to change the lives of Thailand's rural majority, he did make a lot of promises to them and formulated policies aimed at improving their lives as virtually no politician before him had ever done.

Colour Coded Politics

In Thailand, yellow is OK. It is the colour most associated with the country's much loved King. To wear yellow is to express one's allegiance and love of the monarchy. In this Buddhist Kingdom yellow is about as safe as you can get.

Or at least it used to be.

Nowadays wearing yellow also means you might be a supporter of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the anti-government movement that has occupied Government House and is baying for the 'head' of its third Prime Minister; Somchai Wongsawat (brother in law of deposed former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra). This means that if you were to meet somebody wearing red, the color of the pro-government (pro-Thaksin) United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), you could be considered an enemy and vice versa.

And when I say 'enemy', I choose the word carefully. To the 'yellows' of the PAD, the 'reds' of the UDD are not just 'the opposition'; another political group exercising their democratic right to a difference of opinion. No. The UDD, the reds, are the enemy. They are enemies of the monarchy. And to make their point perfectly clear, the 'yellows' beat a 'red' to death in a street battle in central Bangkok on the 2nd of September.

In the politically polarised Thailand of today it has become a case of politics by colors and woe betide you if, by inadvertance, you should don the wrong color in the morning. "Put me on a pick-up and drive me down to Bangkok right now and I'll kill all those PAD people," exclaimed, casually, a farmer in a village close to Khon Kaen earlier this week. He was a 'red'.

It used to be that Thais would watch the soap opera of local politics from the sidelines; chuckling at the sometimes absurd antics of their corrupt political elite, occasionally groaning in dispair as they watched another opportunity fall prey to the greed of their voracious 'dinosaur' politicians. Like in most countries, politics between elections was largely a spectator sport.

Not any more.

Like the dye from cheap cloth that stains the rest of your wardrobe in the wash, the new colour codes of Thai politics have begun to seep into everyday life. The presence of Queen Sirikit at the funeral of the PAD riot victim Angkana Radappanyawoot recently introduced light blue, the Queen's official colour, into the gamut of colours sported by the PAD. And this alongside the black shirts already being worn by PAD members to commemorate the violence of October 7th, now known as Black October.

This leaves a section of the population, those that would rather not choose sides, wondering what to wear in the morning. White and gray are probably the safest bets, although pink (also a royal colour), green and dark blue should be just fine too. Meanwhile those supporters of the PAD who are Chinese in origin must now foreswear red, a colour the Chinese traditionally associate with prosperity and happiness.

Apart from limiting one's choice of shirts in the morning, colour coded politics has a decidedly sinister aspect. The reduction of the opposition to a simple colour conveniently obscures the nuances of political hue and tone that each of the movements actually harbour. Seeing your opponent as 'red' or 'yellow' is dehumanising. It is much easier to fight a 'red' or a 'yellow' than a fellow Thai.

Political Landscapes Change...

Khun Prasart Pangsopa (depicted above) fits the role model. He is a quiet man with an easy, friendly smile. His skin is tanned a leathery brown from endless days under a tropical sun. He wears a colourful Isan-style krama scarf wrapped around his waist. Khun Prasart looks like the archetypal Northeastern Thai farmer whose life and center of interest is far removed from the drama of Thai politics.

He is, to many here, the 'silent farmer' whose vote is purchased and whose education barely goes beyond reading and writing. He is a political pawn to be purchased and manipulated in Thailand's democratic game.

There are many millions more like Prasart. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Thailand's population are rural folk just like him, the kind we like to buy postcards of; living in wooden houses amidst lush green paddy fields and chewing on sticky rice.

The idyll of Thailand's passive rural folk is easy to believe. These are the villagers who sell their votes and rally behind the most generous local patron.

Thailand's political landscape has been dominated by two key features: the capital Bangkok, where an educated elite sets the country's course, and the countryside where farmers, like Khun Prasart, trade their votes for a few baht and hand victory to the politicians with the deepest pockets and the most extensive patronage network.

But political landscapes change. The most significant event to have changed the political landscape in Thailand was the advent of Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire telecoms tycoon who embodied the aspirations of Bangkok's business class and symbolised the economic pride of Thailand as it emerged from a decade of booming growth (which came to an abrupt end in the crash of 1997). He became the hero of a nation in which success had come to be measured by the size of one's bank account.

When Thaksin ascended to power on a wave of popular support in 2001, he inherited a country where decades of development meant that almost every house in every village had television and electricity. Using well-built roads and modern media, the State could now reach into every household. Campaigns were launched reminding people of their responsibility to vote, of the evils of vote buying. Most importantly, the politicians in Bangkok were now able, more efficiently than ever, to reach deep into the countryside to deliver their message.

Thaksin was a new-style politician who no longer sought to rely solely on local patrons to secure the majority vote in the countryside. Learning the lessons of his business success and applying modern communications techniques to his political campaigns, he set about marketing himself not just to the Bangkok elites but to the country as a whole. For the first time ever, a national politician spoke directly and pointedly to the needs of the rural constituency, while maintaining his image as a champion of the middle class. He promised a CEO approach to politics, restructuring the bureaucracy and at the same time mingled happily with the farmers promising them easy credit and a raft of policies aimed at alleviating poverty.

The result was a landslide victory and a euphoric rise to power.

What followed is well known history. The same instincts which drove Thaksin to accumulate huge wealth pushed him to accumulate ever greater political powers. He placed his cronies in the independent institutions which, under a constitution promulgated in 1997, were designed to maintain checks and balances on his power. Having won the hearts and minds of both the countryside and the city, he became a kind of democratic dictator whose rule, many thought (feared even) would likely remain unchallenged for years.

In accumulating such extensive powers and by garnering the adoration of the rural majority (ensuring his success in future elections), Thaksin also began to challenge the position of Thailand's traditional establishment. His perceived arrogance, and that of his closest collaborators even came, ultimately, to be seen as a marginal threat to Thailand's much revered monarchy.

When Thaksin blithely sold his business to Temasek of Singapore and used legal loopholes to avoid paying some half a billion dollars in taxes, he committed an error of arrogance that turned his urban constituency against him and gave the traditional establishment the opportunity to have him removed.

The coup of september 2006 was the culmination of a popular urban-based movement against Thaksin led by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Though the PAD's leaders were an unlikely ensemble of disgruntled right wing former business associates of Thaksin's (like Sondhi Limthongkul) and left wing labour union activists (like Somsak Kosaisuk), the movement had wide appeal, particularly among the middle class, because Thaksin's avoidance of tax and his increasing arrogance were seen as a betrayal of the trust which had been placed in him. His middle class supporters in Bangkok were furious - their passionate opposition to their one-time hero resembled, to me, the fury of a jilted lover, whose anger is in inverse proportion to his adoration.

The coup was an unimaginative return to old habits. It was like using an old tool to fix a new and different problem. The military succeeded, for a year, in putting Thailand's political tensions in the deep freeze while the traditional establishment worked on drawing up a new constitution (which was offered up in a referendum without any other alternatives, leaving people with little choice but to approve it) and on discrediting Thaksin in the hope that when new elections were held his allure (for the rural majority) would have evaporated and the Thai political landscape could return to its original form, with political power being dictated strictly from the center (read Bangkok).

Despite banning Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and 111 of its members from politics, the coup makers proved unable to inspire the support of the countryside nor to dismantle the aura that Thaksin had created for himself among Thailand's farmers.

Sure enough, using a nominee in the form of Samak Sundaravej, Thaksin's political establishment was returned to power in an election held in January 2008. Once again the rural vote spoke out in favor of Thaksin, flexing their democratic muscle in the face of obvious establishment disapproval. Predictably the PAD resumed its street protests, claiming (with justification) that Thaksin was ruling the country by proxy.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the situation had come full circle. Only this time the war cry of the PAD is not just for a removal of Thaksin-dominated politics but for the creation of whole new political system, one where 70% of the government would be appointed representatives of various sectors of society with the remaining 30% elected by direct suffrage. To many observers this seems strangely undemocratic for a movement that claims to advocate democracy.

The essence of the PAD's campaign is that the country's political future cannot not be left entirely to a democratic system where the majority rural constituency would always carry the day. Rural folk, many in the PAD claim, are poorly educated and simply sell their votes. It is not possible, the argument goes, to leave the country's future in their hands. The farmers will continued to be 'tricked' and 'bought' by corrupt politicians.

Meanwhile the PAD is vague about who the leaders of its 'new political system' will be and on what measures will be put in place to prevent the temptations of power resulting in further corruption.

More recently, their campaign has moved from advocating new politics to warning ominously that Thailand's monarchy is under threat from the present government's leaders and their supporters; a call to battle that resonates profoundly and dangerously in Thailand.

In years gone by it might have been easier to believe the PAD's argument that the rural vote is for sale to the highest bidder. But political landscapes change.

Thaksin Shinawatra opened the pandora's box of the rural Thai vote. Through populist policies, such as offering a million baht to every village and 30 baht healthcare, he spoke directly to the masses in the countryside, who after years of government education about their democratic rights and responsibilities, responded enthusiastically. Freshly enfranchised, and fully aware of their political power, Thailand's farmers are naturally reluctant to return to the passive idyll that made them such a malleable constituency in the past.

Thus while farmer Pengsopa may look like a typical Thai peasant, the two dimensional caricature of him is less valid than ever. "Sure people offer us money for our votes, but it's not like before," said Pengsopa in an interview I helped translate while photographing Pengsopa for the International Herald Tribune. "They used to offer us money for our votes. But last time round nobody even tried to buy our votes and even if they did I'd make my own decision. Nowadays we don't just look to the local headman, we look at the leader of the party at the national level and if we like their policies we vote for them. If they do well, we'll choose them again. If they don't we'll choose someone else."

Other farmers from the same village echoed Pengsopa's views. "It's insulting that the people in the towns look down on as ignorant," asserted one.

Gone are the days when Thailand's farmers could be counted on to simply sell their votes. Nowadays, like voters everywhere, they're looking at policy platforms and saying 'what's in it for me'.

Thailand's political landscape has been profoundly reshaped. Attempts to hammer it back into its old form through the PAD's proposed system of 'new politics' is likely to be wishful thinking.

In future Thai politicians will have to build their power base by reaching out directly to Thailand's rural majority by speaking the to the hearts and minds of men like Prasart Pengsopa.

If Friendship Be the Food of Life...Play On

Friendship surely is the food of life.

And if it is, then a recent week we spent in Sweden was a rich feast indeed.

A group of dear friends materialised in the streets of Stockholm like time travellers beamed from the blue sky.

Jesper and Nok from New York, Jim from the World, Gerhard from Everywhere, Patrik and Nasim from Stockholm, Scott and Nym from Singapore and Bangkok and Paddy and Denise from Bangkok and many others from corners of the planet too numerous to name.

And there we were. Living, breathing evidence of the global village. A close-knit network of friends who had agreed to meet in Stockholm as others might have agreed to meet at the pub around the corner.

We had gathered to celebrate the opening of a wonderful new hotel called the Lydmar which occupies a grand but unpretentious building overlooking the water in central Stockholm. We were celebrating the opening of an exhibition of photographs at the Lydmar, entitled 'Offering', by James Nachtwey. And, of course, we were celebrating our friendship, our love of life and the great fortune that we all share in being able to live it so fully.

Stockholm provided a glorious backdrop. Bathed in crisp autumnal sunshine, the city ignited our imaginations, setting our conversations alight.



Stockholm is not one of those cities that comes pre-fabricated in the imagination; like Florence or Paris. And whatever vague pre-conceived visions I had, perhaps of a dark and cold place (like London?), Stockholm surpassed them. The God of autumn turned out to greet us and Stockhholm was as seductive as ever she could be. Her trees were on fire. Her buildings glowed. The cityscape, punctuated with medieval spires, seemed positively to shimmer with beauty.

The thing about modern travel is that it really does feel like entering another dimension. We arrived in Stockholm from Bangkok in thick fog, barely able to see the tip of the wing. Then, like blinking rabbits emerging from the magician's hat, we found ourselves hugging dear friends, meandering through historic streets and sharing Persian delicacies with an opera director and a dancer.

Which reminds me. I must say something about Patrik and Nasim, the incredible couple who invited us into their home for our first two nights in Stockholm.

Patrik (one of Jesper's oldest friends), is the perfect gentlemen: kind, reassuring and a paragon of modesty. He is a cool Swedish lake, whose calm surface belies the depth and wonders which lie beneath. A classical dancer by training, Patrik now teaches directors how to direct opera; when he is not directing one himself. And in his spare time, which cannot be many hours of the day, he builds websites working happily with indecipherable code.



Nasim, the fiery counterpoint to calm Patrik, is perfect in her petite beauty and effervescent hospitality. Persian, from Iran, Nasim is all movement, sound and life. Her large almond eyes drink in the world around her, dancing from face to face with impish delight.



To complement these great characters are their children, Tiam (9 months) and Keana (3 years), whose beauty mirrors that of their parents and whose glittering personalities, full of the innocent joy of childhood, held their inevitable audience spellbound.

Playing back the memories of Stockholm, I have the impression of an incredibly diverse mosaic of moments and emotions. It seems barely possible that so much life could have been squeezed into so few days.

It seems incredible, too, that so much Champagne (thanks to Pelle) could have been drunk in so few days too!

One experience flowed seamlessly into another. From standing listening to Jim opening his exhibition and blessing the Buddha which had been carried from Bangkok to preside over it, to jiggling in fits of laughter while belly dancing with Nasim, to the lazy strolls and the endless, endless food.

For me the trip to Stockholm was also something of a pilgrimage to the roots of a great friendship. Jesper has long talked of his family in Sweden, of summers in Stockholm and of his sister, Lisa, and brother-in-law Jonas's sauna boat.



We spent two unforgettable afternoons at Lisa and Jonas's 18th century farmhouse. Just 15 minutes drive from Stockholm, we found ourselves surrounded by forest, looking out over a lake. Another time warp: out of the cosmopolitan city and into a more traditional Swedish setting - with handpainted wall paper, burnished wooden floors and and an exquisitely harmonious and tasteful interior that conjured up a flavour of the past while retaining a hint of the contemporary.

What I will perhaps most remember, though, is the Sauna boat - if only for the bracing cold of the water that brands itself on the memory.



What a perfect concept. Row out to a floating pine cabin. Light the stove and row back to a warm kitchen. Sip wine, chat and laugh for 40 minutes then row back out again.



By this time the light was already failing and the temperature dropping. The lake was turning from shades of blue to black. The horizon was tinged with the purple of dusk, reaching slowly upwards like ink spreading from a blot.

On the last afternoon, seven of us clambered onto the sauna boat, stripped down in the dusk light and dashed into the steam of the sauna room. Then, one by one, screaming, laughing we plunged headlong, feet first, however we could into the icy waters, applauded by those brave enough to stand in the cold and watch and photographed for posterity, as everything must be.



It is in those moments of sheer thoughtless abandon, when your body penetrates the icy water and your lungs push out an involuntary scream, that you feel most definitely, most fundamentally, alive. We emerged dripping and giggling from the icy ordeal all understanding what it means to be truly refreshed. A wonderful, wonderful experience.

Finally, in writing this, and casting it into the blogosphere like a virtual message in a bottle, what I feel most I should say is thank you.

Thank you to Pelle Lydmar, the Ldymar's owner who gave us all the unique privilege of enjoying his incredible hospitality in the incredible context of his brand new hotel. Thank you to Thomas Nordanstad for germinating the idea of an exhibition which provided the catalyst for bringing us to Stockholm. Thank you to Jim for inspiring us through his intense, beautiful and moving imagery. Thank you to Jesper for inviting us into his Stockholm universe.

This, for me, is the food of life.