The Last Odyssey

*

While reality generators may have maintained the last city on earth, at the end of time, while the multiverse collapsed all the way back to the present day; here there were other patterns; where their addictions still ruled their lives; where it was possible to disappear down any tunnel you chose, in bars called The Heart Of Darkness, Sharkies, The Walkabout, The 69ers, The Top Ten, The Happy Hippy, where any predilection was barred from its full flowering by remarkable self constraint. They giggled. There was garbage everywhere. The dust swirled up in storms from the potholed, unpaved roads, wretched smells drifted in the baking heat. Flies were everyhwere. Wherever he looked a beggar was approaching.

Dysfunction had reached the highest order. Nothing worked. Hundreds of houses burnt down in the middle of Pnom Penh and the news story focussed on whether the firemen had accepted bribes to save a few houses over the rest. Was it possible? Did anything work? The German and Austrian tourists, escaping the rigidity of their own cultures, embraced it with gusto. On holiday, they could do anything they wanted. He last saw them polishing off three Singhas for breakfast at the guesthouse. Gary, hungover to buggery, is marching around in the midday sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen. We are heading to Bangkok tomorrow. His eyes are still puffy red; having barely survived the battery of pathogens.

At least he knew now where he could achieve his delinquent goals. In the last frontier. In one of the most lawless places on the planet. Far away from anyone he had ever known. Half the English criminal class were floating around Asia, with indeterminate exit dates, often unable to return without being arrested. They loved it here. They, too, could now do almost anything. Totally indulged the simpering classes, whsipering in the wind, offered perversion or indulgence or straight forward oblivion seeking; and only the tiniest shred of self preservation kept him from joining them forever.

For as long as it lasted. For all good things come to an end. All empires crumble. All marginalised activity finally shifts on its access, unable to hold the centre, unable to go on. The human frame wasn't made for it. He would listen to them once again, their stories, their bullshit. He didn't believe half of what he heard, wouldn't trust half of them to walk him around the block. The biggest bullshitters on the planet. With his cocknehy accent and slightly camp loping London crim gate, because nobody could get to him and nobody could mess with him and get away with it, no one, he took to him immediately.

Turned out Rodney had been drinking a bottle a day of vodka while in Pnom Penh and things were starting to disappear from in front of him, black holes just opened up in the table and he couldn't his keys, things like that were happening all the time. So he flew to Bangkok to see the specialist who told him his brain was shrinking and it was the alcohol doing it. So he decided to go down to Sihanoukville on the Cambodian coast to straighten himself out. Sihanoukville is nothing but one long line of bars, at least along the beachfront where he chose to stay, so once more he was into the Passis and happy as God could make him, sitting up there at the end of the beach in the British bar, watching the view, flirting with the girls, being entertaining. And everyone else had a problem, everyone but him. Life was a wonderfjul thing, when you can watch the sunset and flirt with girls and get pissed, all at once.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g0tHL0lMZBAEpTMRlvmgYvx2Y7yA

Thailand's Thaksin supporters set to march on Bangkok

By Rachel O'Brien (AFP) – 6 hours ago

BANGKOK — Supporters of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra were set to gather on the streets of Bangkok Friday for mass protests aimed at toppling the government.

The so-called "Red Shirts" say they will start marching at noon. They expect their numbers to swell to hundreds of thousands on Sunday for the main rally against what they claim is the government's elitist and undemocratic rule.

"Our aim is to topple the government, to force them to make a choice between suppressing us and stepping down," Red Shirt leader Jaran Ditsatapichai told reporters last week.

The rally, to be attended by many from poor, rural areas in the kingdom's north, comes two weeks after Thailand's top court confiscated 1.4 billion dollars of Thaksin's assets, frozen after he was deposed in a 2006 coup.

Senior Reds insist the demonstration will be peaceful, but the government said Thursday it had begun deploying a 50,000-strong security force to oversee the gathering after intelligence reports warned of "sabotage".

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has cancelled a trip to Australia that clashed with the rally and a harsh security law has been invoked, which allows the government to call out troops, impose curfews and limit movements.

Thirty-three countries have issued some form of warning to visitors to the kingdom because of the protests, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

"Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. You should exercise caution at all times," the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said on its website.

Bangkok's main airport, which was besieged by protesters in 2008, has made contingency plans for the rallies and The Stock Exchange of Thailand also has measures prepared to ensure trading is not affected between March 12 and 15.

Red Shirt leaders have dubbed the rally a "million-man march" but last week told reporters that up to 600,000 people were expected. The government estimates a figure of 100,000.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/nigeria-sectarian-massacre-murder-charges

Forty-nine people are to be charged with murder after a sectarian massacre in Nigeria left hundreds dead at the weekend, it was reported today.

Police spokesman Mohammed Lerama told the BBC that 200 people had been arrested since the pre-dawn attacks, near the town of Jos, in which children, women and elderly men were hacked with machetes and burned.

Most of the 49 facing murder charges are Muslims from the Fulani group, he said.

Nigeria is under international pressure to enforce the rule of law after accusations that it failed to protect the victims.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has called for the arrest and trial of the perpetrators.

Today, several hundred women, wearing long black dresses, marched through downtown Jos to protest against the killings, which happened in mostly Christian villages nearby.

The women waved Bibles and crosses made of scrap lumber.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross said they were distributing food and water to nearly 5,000 people who have taken refuge in police stations, and to around 300 detainees.

Almost 3,000 people fled from Jos to camps in the neighbouring state of Bauchi after the violence, the ICRC said.

The death toll – as often after outbreaks of violence in Nigeria – remains uncertain.

Police have confirmed 109 fatalities, but the New York Times quoted the Nigerian Red Cross as saying 332 bodies had been buried in a mass grave in the village of Dogo Na Hawa.

The state authorities, human rights groups and religious leaders estimated that more than 500 people were killed.