In these troubled times it may be wise to give the biting satire a rest. 

The average Prachatai reader will of course have no problems in understanding the gist of a typical Harrison George article.  But one fears that in the bowels of an army base somewhere, there toils a poor recruit who has been told to check on the Prachatai English website.  And no one can guarantee that he enjoys the same level of sophistication. 

The result will inevitably be misunderstanding.  And the generals have issued a clear ban on misunderstanding, no matter whose ignorance and inexperience causes it. 

So this week we will recount another episode in the lives of our old friends Nolan and O’Flynn, whose escapades never fail to provide much food for thought as well, one hopes, some sorely needed entertainment.

Now they had, over the years shared many enthusiasms of varying durability.  There was, for example, their tireless efforts to promote a Bangkok branch of the Offaly Gaelic Athletic Association Hurling Team Supporters Club. 

Based on a vague memory of Offaly winning something in the 1990’s (possibly apocryphal – they’ve certainly won nothing since) and news from home that a nephew of Nolan’s had signed as left half forward for the Kilcormac/Killoughey team, their branch club got off to a flying start. 

Nolan was General Secretary and O’Flynn Secretary General (each assigned to lick the other’s pencil) and their core membership consisted of the 3^rd Secretary (Culture, Sports and Agriculture) of the Irish Honorary Consulate, a drunken expat claiming to be a distant cousin of Wayne Rooney who was, he swore, a true Leinsterman (‘just look at the head on him’), and the owner of the Irish pub where they held their meetings.  (This last was a non-paying honorary membership.)

Alas, with the abject failure of the Offaly hurlers to win anything and of the Setanta Sports channel to show their games even when they lost, the club gradually lost momentum and eventually folded with O’Flynn’s claim that his green-white-and-orange supporter’s scarf had been stolen due to the pub-owner’s negligence.  They were evicted from their headquarters with some rancour on the unusual charge of excessive rowdiness and not drinking enough Guinness.

Then followed a detour into occuplanology (the study of the plastic parasitoids found on bagged pastries, breads and other commodities), where Nolan’s natural overexuberance was soon baffled by the devilishly complex taxonomy of the Order Haplognatha.  

This in turn was superseded by a brief foray into the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, once run by FIFA President Sepp Blatter.  But any campaign to stop women replacing suspender belts with pantyhose was bound to falter in a society where they wear neither. 

More recently, the redoubtable pair lighted on wargaming with miniature military figurines (not ‘toy soldiers’), an absorbing pastime that brought out the hidden anorak in them but which almost ended their friendship. 

Nolan gravitated to first millennium contests and slowly assembled a respectable contingent of Sumerians and Akkadians that was beginning to prove its worth at the tounaments of the Bangkok Wargamers Society. 

O’Flynn was more attracted to late 18^th century hostilities, where the colours of the uniforms are certainly more arresting.  His Bosniak lancers made a resplendent appearance in their hand-painted red tunics and his chasseurs à cheval won him widespread admiration among his fellow gamers. 

Nolan’s envy first showed when he carped about ‘not the right shade of blue’ on O’Flynn’s trompette, but this was pooh-poohed by the wargaming fraternity as jealous nit-picking.  Nolan plotted his revenge and eventually gained it with a rash purchase of a regiment of troops of the Holy Roman Empire under the German Nation under the colours of Feldmarschall Carl Borromäus Joseph, Fürst Liechtenstein.  For convenience, Nolan named these his ‘Marschall troops’.

He promptly challenged O’Flynn to a battle.  Observers were puzzled by this since Nolan’s previous experience had been with the technologically undeveloped soldiers of the ancient Middle East while O’Flynn’s prowess with Napoleonic era forces was becoming legendary.

But once the two contingents had lined up, O’Flynn found himself frustrated by a series of preliminary ‘rules’ that Nolan read from some manual.  O’Flynn’s soldiers could not be positioned in groups of more than five, making a cavalry charge impossible.  Then there was a ban on his signal corps, hence a total breakdown in communications.  And finally his commander, the Feldmarschall Carl Borromäus Joseph himself, was summarily removed from the battlefield before even the first move.

‘What’s that you’re reading from in heaven’s name?’ expostulated O’Flynn.  ‘You’ll not can have a decent game with rules like that.’

But Nolan was insistent.  His rules were perfectly valid and based on a century-old convention governing German warfare of the period. 

‘And what convention’s that, then?’

‘Marschall lore.’

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).