I don’t know if anyone else has been getting the messages about the two-year-old in Phuket hospital, found near Khoa Lak. I’ve received them from a) a PR consultant in Brussels, b) a work colleague, c) a NATO mission in the Balkans and d) a presidential adviser in a different Balkan country (these last two only this afternoon, as people come back from Orthodox Christmas holidays I suppose).

The good news is that the child’s family has indeed been identified – see http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/children/hannes.asp (not working last time I checked) and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6766709/ for more details. Unfortunately the mother is still missing.

One lesson here is that the family was actually identified as early as 29 December, and I’m still getting emails about it almost two weeks later. It’s always always worth checking out such emails with a quick google to see if someone has already solved the problem. And as a general rule, if you get an email asking you to forward it to everyone you know, it is never a good idea to do so.