Thaksin Shinawatra is going to need a new lawyer now that his whole legal team has been thrown in jail for trying to bribe the Supreme Court, but he should have his old lawyer back soon, once Noppadon Pattama loses his job as Foreign Minister over the Preah Vihear fiasco.

Meanwhile, naturally, nothing’s actually changed, so back to more speculation about the supernatural.

The picture above shows an equilateral triangle superimposed on a Google Earth image of Central Thailand and western Cambodia. Preah Vihear is at one corner, and Koh Kong — the Cambodian island in which Thaksin is allegedly investing — at another. I added a triangle thinking the other point would rest on Bangkok, but it doesn’t. It sits almost exactly on Nakhon Nayok.

Five years ago, when Thaksin was at the height of his power as prime minister, he designated Ban Na, a largely agricultural district in Nakhon Nayok, about 100 kilometres northeast of Bangkok, as the future site of Thailand’s new administrative capital, along with adjacent areas of Saraburi province’s Wihan Daeng and Kaeng Khoi districts.

He called it Muang Mai, meaning “New City”, although the name Muang Sawan — Celestial City — was also kicked around.

The idea was to ease Bangkok’s population burden and, starting in 2005, to move the halls of government to 250,000 rai in the adjoining provinces to the northeast, to be shared with residential and commercial development, a new royal palace, schools, hospitals, first-class hotels, its own mass-transit system linked to Bangkok and Suvarnabhumi Airport, facilities devoted to “environmental tourism” and hi-tech industry — but no polluters.

More than a third of the area was to remain green, with parks or retained farmland. Ban Na means “home of the paddy fields”.

Civic planning began in earnest, and public forums got the citizens of Nakhon Nayok excited about the prosperity that development would bring. Land prices immediately jumped tenfold as speculators swarmed in, and at least one newspaper openly accused two of the country’s biggest corporations of hoarding thousands of rai while owners of small parcels were being duped.

Then, in August 2006, there was a larger-than-usual gathering of military officers for the annual anniversary celebrations of the Royal Military Academy in Nakhon Nayok. Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda attended for the first time in years, the Bangkok Post reported, quoting sources close to him as saying his presence “was aimed at fostering unity, amid reports of attempted political interference”.

“Army Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin told reporters the presence of all officers would remind them of the old days in the school where they stayed together, so they would realise the importance of unity.”

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was there, as were Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanond and the chief of the First Army Region, General Anupong Paochinda.

Just over a month later Sonthi had seized power, Thaksin was in exile and Surayud was interim prime minister. Anupong’s promotion to Army chief would come later.

Just before the boot came down, Thaksin with Prem Tinsulanonda, who was prime minister through most of the 1980s.

The people of Nakhon Nayok assumed the Celestrial City had gone up in smoke, but in fact the plan is still on the drawing board, with documents being circulated among government agencies.

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It’s not clear whether Thaksin’s eye is on Kong Island itself or generally on Cambodia’s southwestern Koh Kong province, of which the island is a part, but the province is already doing pretty well with its casinos and is developing an Export Processing Zone.

Thais pour across the border at Hat Lek, either to gamble at the Koh Kong International Casino or move on to the beach resort of Sihanoukville. The Thai government has already chipped in on improving the roads and bridges.

Astrologers plot trines in which the three linked components harmonise and foster understanding. “Action triangles”, also called “triangles of gain”, are concerned with worldly goods and accumulated honour, and are tied to the zodiacal houses 10 (mastery of a profession and power), 6 (subjects and servants) and 2 (possessions and the capacity to earn money).

The triangle is a favourite of Christians and Freemasons alike, seen as the essence of stability and yet fomenting change when it moves forcibly. A triangle pointing upward is a “blade”, a symbol of aspiration, rising up, male force and, yes, phallic. If it points downward it’s a “chalice”, symbolising flowing water, the grace of heaven and the womb, as well as female genitalia.

Is Thaksin crazy or clever enough to plan things this way, to try and influence the world with geomantic wizardry? I think my Preah Vihear-Koh Kong-Nakhon Nayok triangulation is a mad notion, but it’s a hell of a coincidence.

And, actually, Thaksin would try anything.

Nation managing editor Thanong Khanthong wrote a column at the end of March 2006, when Thaksin was scrambling to hold on, that summarised the Shinawatra sorcery up to that point.

In January that year, Thanong noted, Thaksin was already complaining that the planets were wrecking his duang — his good fortune — so he took Newin Chidchob’s advice and spent seven nights camping in a tent in the village of At-Samat in northeastern Roi Et province. It made for great TV, the billionaire living cheap, but Thaksin’s real intention, Thaong wrote, was to invert his luck by leaving behind his family and comfortable home in “an act of self-punishment”.

“He would re-empower himself from the harsh environment. The bed and the mosquito net were precisely arranged according to the principles of feng shui …

“While he was telling the At-Samat crowds how to escape poverty, the Shin Corp deal with Temasek Holdings of Singapore was being executed with the precision of a mathematical formula. It was a perfect deal worth Bt73 billion.”

When the offshore sale of the Shinawatra family’s mammoth Shin group was revealed, a large segment of the public went nuts. Street protests became so belligerent that Thaksin dissolved Parliament and called a snap election for April 4.

In March Thaksin spent three weeks on the campaign trail, Thanon wrote, and “some of the routes he travelled were similar to those of King Taksin the Great, who gathered all the feudal states under one Kingdom before founding Thon Buri as the new capital of Siam after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 …

“Thaksin paid respect to the statue of King Taksin in Chanthaburi. In Suphan Buri, he also worshipped the statue of King Naresuan the Great. He was drawing back his lost power.

“But the grand ritual was waiting for him in Buri Ram. Newin Chidchob, now a darling of Thaksin, arranged for him a Khmer-inspired ritual to jump-start Thaksin’s dying political battery. We do not have any details about the Khmer voodoo. But Thaksin did take a ride on an elephant, as if he were about to go into battle in ancient times.”

Then came the destruction of the Thao Maha Phrom statue at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, supposedly by “a man with a record of mental illness”. Thaksin expressed outrage at the news. “However, on that day, he crossed the border through Tachilek into Burmese territory. His self-banishment was completed.”

Thaksin returned to Bangkok and prayed at the damaged statue, releasing nine caged birds to make merit.

“The talk of the town was that a high-ranking politician has linked his duang at the base of the Phra Phrom at Government House and at the Erawan Shrine. So every time the people prayed to the Phra Phrom, his life would be lengthened and his power would become stronger.

“But [anti-government protest leader] Sondhi Limthongkul has another theory. He said a politician wanted to destroy Thao Maha Phrom so that he could rebuild it by himself and then bury ‘his stuff’ in the statue. This would be a way to avert the politician’s ill omens, Sondhi claimed.

“Quietly, Thaksin sneaked into Government House yesterday [March 28] while the protesters remained complacent elsewhere. The timing of his arrival to reclaim his commanding position was exactly 9.19am!”