A New Zealander caught up in the rioting in downtown Bangkok offers his perspective on the crisis.
Shoppers keep shopping (but not in the affluent malls downtown), drinkers and bar-girls keep revelling, masseuses keep massaging, tourists keep ogling at the Golden Buddha, and the snipers keep sniping three blocks away.
The scene is unreal, with streets that radiate from the cordoned "Red Zone" pleasantly unhurried because public transport has stopped or reduced and an increasing number of Army and police roadblocks disrupt traffic.
This week the Army erected a razor-wire roadblock at a major intersection to send traffic the wrong way up a divided six-lane thoroughfare, creating instant chaos but no road rage in this land of smiles and courtesy.
But the atmosphere is apprehensive. There are too many wild cards in the game to gamble on the outcome.
A Government with questionable legitimacy, military and police forces with selective loyalty, an arrogant, self-appointed ruling class, a public clamouring to display greater loyalty to the King than everyone else, an awakening swell of underprivileged, and a scattering of thugs, adventurers and nutters make a dangerous mixture - and they are all in a humid cauldron on the streets of Bangkok.
What the Red Shirts in Bangkok are really asking is: "What about us?" The same question that was asked by Blacks in the United States until the late 1960s, the Catholic Irish in Belfast until 1969, the Aboriginals in Australia until 1973 and the French peasants until 1791.
Here, an under-represented, trusting and bewildered lowest class has watched the evolution of their democratic rights falter in the guise of paternalism by sleight of cunning hands and they have just seen the trick.
It is a social revolution as much as a political movement, but lacks mature leadership.
One of many brittle aspects of the machinery of Thai politics is the casual, almost flippant, approach to loyalty and duty assumed by the armed forces and police.
The political views of senior officers are discussed publicly, as is their enthusiasm or reluctance to do what the Prime Minister or ministers tell them.
With the current Red Shirt occupation of central Bangkok, the failure of either the police or the Army to remove them when ordered to do so comes up in conversations all over town.
The media uses the terms "Watermelon Soldiers" to describe soldiers who sympathise or openly support the Red Shirts - green on the outside but red on the inside - and "Tomato Cops" for police who feel the same way.
That changed on May 13 when the Red Shirts reneged on an agreement under which the Government agreed to hold elections in November - later than the Reds wanted but nevertheless their key political objective.
The agreement also required the Deputy Prime Minister to present himself to the police to answer questions about his role in the first military bungling when 20 protesters died.
He did so but the Red Shirts called off negotiations because they claimed he went to the wrong police station. At that point, the PM cancelled all agreements and told the Army, which was still recovering from a humiliating display of incompetence, to do his bidding.
The Reds have occupied an area of about 3sq km in the heart of Bangkok's high-rise retail and commercial districts and look like they are there to stay.
Our street runs parallel to one of the main occupied roads and about 200m from it. There are barriers at each end blocking traffic getting into access roads but not ours.
We walk past the barriers to get to work, shops and trains, guided by smiling Red Shirts who allow passage through the gaps to pedestrians and selected traffic.
The barricades make quite a sight with a base of car and truck tyres, supporting and interlaced with long sharpened bamboo poles like a giant reclining porcupine, fronted and enhanced with concertinas of razor wire.
The outer edges are draped with bike tyres and scrap sponge rubber that can be doused with petrol and ignited in a heartbeat. Some have netting suspended overhead for shade and to catch grenades and tear gas canisters.
These were not designed by any red-shirted rustic rice tillers. They look formidable and they are effective against humans, but are matchwood against a tank or armoured bulldozer. Unless of course they are burning.
It feels like a scene from Les Miserables where at any moment, someone is going to appear out of the crowd, climb on the barricade, and burst into Do you hear the people sing?
Seven weeks into a siege that started with a fairly routine designer traffic-jam, they are still there demanding the Government stand down and face an immediate election. They have the cheek to suggest that democracy should prevail.
They stayed overnight at first, then over-week, then over-month, and soon it will be over-two-months. Inside the occupied zone they have hundreds of tents and sleep on thin mats on the tarmac or concrete.
There are showers attached to fire hydrants, toilet buses, generators, kitchens, first aid stations, stalls selling Red Shirt souvenir paraphernalia, and huge loudspeaker trucks that make karaoke nutters break into ecstasy.
These go all day and night with full-volume speeches and Thai music, both of which are an acquired taste.
The cacophony must be audible on the moon. But Thais love loud noise and are immune to it.
Although the Government and Reds have been seeking a political way out of a deepening cul-de-sac, the Army and police efforts to dislodge or disrupt the Reds so far have been shoddy and amateurish, leading to accusations of half-hearted obedience to orders, hence the Watermelon and Tomato labels.
In one of their early attempts, the Army arrived with tear gas but no masks for themselves and had to retreat when the swirling urban breeze blew their gas back on them.
In another episode, faced with sticks, fireworks and rude words, the Army abandoned its armoured personnel carriers and retreated several hundred metres, losing rifles, rubber-bullet guns and the carriers in the process. Very useful resupply system for the Reds.
In a separate incident, when the police drove up in trucks and ordered protesters to leave or face arrest, the Reds climbed on top of the trucks to listen to what the police had to say and refused to give the trucks back if anyone was arrested.
The police left, taking no prisoners or souvenirs.
* Bangkok-based consultant Bret Bestic was a brigadier in the New Zealand Defence Force. He was forced to evacuate his apartment at short notice on Thursday afternoon because it is one street away from the Red Shirt occupation and within the area the Army said it was going to cordon off.
