Planking

When I first heard about planking or the lying down game, I thought it was one of the dumbest things I had ever heard of.  Planking for those who don't know is an activity, popular in various parts of the world, consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. The hands must touch the sides of the body, and having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the internet is an integral part of the game.  Over the last 6months it has been on news more and more as there have been a few fatalities.  Participants have stepped up the danger level in an attempt to out do each other.  Lying down in the middle of the road or on railroad tracks.  Now even Thai super models are getting in on it.  Just the other day Odette Jacomin posted this on twitter.

Here she is on a modeling shoot:

Now due to some nude planking photos, which I'd love to see, the Thai government is even making statements about planking.

The Culture Watch Centre warned yesterday that posting nude planking pictures on the Internet was a legal offence.

Thai Visa - "We will write to the National Police Office as well as the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry to ask that they block [Web pages containing the pictures] and nail down the people who posted them," the centre's director Ladda Tangsupachai said. She said people who posted such pictures would face legal action for violating the 2007 Computer Crimes Act.

Ladda also said that although it was not illegal to perform nude planking in private places, she warned people against it, saying that it was "not constructive" and "inappropriate".

She was speaking after nude-planking pictures began to appear on the Internet. Ladda said, however, she agreed with Pabpiab (polite squat sit), or "Thailand Planking". "My praise goes to children who have done this. It's like turning a crisis into an opportunity," she said.

Planking can be dangerous and damaging to property if people attempting the act choose the wrong place for the "lying down game".

Lara Louise Pland Saen, 20, a tourist from the Netherlands, climbed over the roof of a car-rent company in Chiang Mai on Sunday night in the hope of planking, but ended up breaking many roof tiles.

The broken tiles fell and damaged a car parked below.

A security guard quickly alerted police and Saen, who was clearly drunk, was arrested. She later admitted she was trying to perform planking and offered to pay compensation.

The company, however, has refused to settle the case out of court. It has insisted that she should be charged with intrusion and causing property damage.

In a related development, Mahamakut Buddhist University's assistant rector for legal affairs Songkran Atchariyasap said that after personally offering a reward of Bt5,000 for information identifying a man seen planking in a monk's robe, he had obtained pictures and "crucial information".

He plans to give the information to the National Office of Buddhism today.

"It's not an appropriate thing for a monk to do. If we find that the man in the picture is really a monk, we will alert the abbot of his temple. A reprimand must be issued," said the office's director Amnaj Buasiri.

Amnaj suggested that monks should begin "meditation planking" if they saw the trend as an opportunity to promote the practice of Lord Buddha's teachings.