Got a friend, he doesn’t have a blog (how 20th century!), doesn’t want one, but keeps sending me items in email, never any comments attached but I get the feeling he thinks they’re post-able here. Here’s one that caught my attention:

British Man Murdered by His Thai bride and her lover … just weeks after he predicted his own death

A Brit marries a Thai woman half his age (wonder how they met?), moves to her village, buys land (has to put it in her name, of course), builds a house, finds out she’s also got a Thai boyfriend and is selling off everything behind his back. The most seriously horrific part is that the article says it took 7 hours for him to die.

Trouble started just four months ago when Beeston, married nine years to his 42-year-old Thai wife Wacheerawan, nicknamed ‘Wanna’, discovered that she had cashed in all the property he had bought in Thailand at a local bank.

He had invested all his life savings in over an acre of property and built his marital home, a guesthouse and a restaurant near a village called Suwannaphum, meaning ‘Golden Land’.

Thai newspapers this week described him home as “palatial”. But under Thai law, as foreigners cannot own property he had put it in his wife’s name.

“I thought she loved me but she just wanted my cash,” penniless divorcee Beeston, who arrived in Thailand with £350,000 told friends at the time. He then asked his wife to leave the marital home and live in a shack with corrugated iron room nearby.

And he began selling all moveable objects in the house and restaurant piece by piece to survive until he could legally get the funds to return home.

“His wife lived behind the main house with her Thai boyfriend. Every time we went to visit she would come out and scream and order us away. ‘This is my house. This is my land.’

“Ian knew that he was going to be murdered. He had already complained that while he was away she had put something inside a beer in his fridge.

“He had felt ill. So he sent the beer away for analysis to a local hospital. He was awaiting the results.

“But it was an open secret in the area that Ian was going to be murdered, but she had a secret police lover.”

Olympics – if anyone cares, as of now China has won the most gold medals (14) while the US has won the most overall (26). Kazakhstan has won more than Uzbekistan, which must make Borat happy. Kyrgyzstan has won one bronze medal and is hoping to trade it for some vowels.

Variety reports that Anger Grows Over Olympics Opening. Oh my gosh. If the government lied about who sang on a TV show, is it just possible that they lie about other things too?

Chen said Lin Miaoke was chosen to appear onstage instead of Yang because she was better looking. It was a question of the national interest, he insisted.

Some commentators claimed both girls were heroes, but others were horrified at the message that the ruse sends to children.

“Since this happened, 7-year-old kids all think you should judge a person according to his or her image. They now think that being good looking is better than having a good voice. Shame!” said one comment on a website.

Fernando Lamas and Billy Crystal have known this for years.