Banjo's Bum Dance

Banjo belongs in the Big Brother House of Phnom Penh.

Here is a long lost video of Banjo busting moves at our wedding that my sister Sarah pulled off her phone whilst she was with us.

Check it out. Style,panache,grace....and pure drunken lunacy.

We Love it.

The bastards stole my battery

Sometimes you should listen to what the locals tell you. When they tell you never leave your car on the street, it is because they are locals and they know that thieves come under cover of darkness. However, when you mate tells you that he has left HIS Jeep Cherokee on the streets for 4 years and has never had it stolen or vandalised, you think maybe you too can become carefree and abandon all good advice.

So with a cavalier attitude,I left the Jeep on the street on Friday night....right out the front of The Compound. " No-one ever steals Jeeps" I was told by my mate. "They want Camrys". I woke up the next morning to find some little bastards had pried open the Cherokee's bonnet and stolen the battery. Of course.... the security guards next door heard them just as they were finishing their dastardly deed and the culprits could not be stopped. As I asked Jeff...why is that you only ever here about Cambodian Security Guards either missing the crime or committing the crime but NEVER EVER stopping it ?

Anyways, the battery was old and shit and I now have a nice shiny new one which the bastards will not get next time because I have learnt to listen to the locals and my car is now behind our razor wire where it belongs !

Mini Dengue

Just had a bloody awful little flu virus sweep through me. When it first started I thought maybe it was the dreaded Dengue Fever. We have so many mosquitoes in our place at the moment it is ridiculous and alot of them are the tiger mosquitoes that can carry DF.After an early night on Saturday, yesterday I spent most of the day on bed with chills and sore joints. We had intended on going to a pool party at Paul and Ang's but that got canned and my super-wife was left holding the baby all day. I only made it downstairs to have lunch and pick my car up from the garage ( where it went due to having had the battery ripped out of it by thieves the night before ). I was in the back bedroom at 6p.m last night and Leakhana bought Grace in and lay her on the bed with a stern " here..YOU look after her while I cook dinner " and I sweated through a bottle feeding session. She then passed out in sheer exhaustion and slept with me until about 2a.m when I had to return her to mum for a feed. I spent the entire night in some fever induced LCD hallucinatory state. One minute I was freezing cold and under the blankets and the next moment I was throwing everything off and cranking up the aircon. At one stage I thought there were people in the room with me and I finally got up at dawn , had a shower and dragged my stumps into work.

Grace ; Congenital Torticollis

A week ago or so Leakhana and Phalla noticed that Grace had a hard lump in the left neck muscle. I googled straight away and a visit to the Royal Rattanak Hospital confirmed what I had thought might be the case ; Grace is suffering from this condition. Our very nice female Japanese doctor,Dr Lui, was recommended to us by Super Sandra our midwife. Being Japanese,Dr Lui has a very nice,gentle bedside manner and she gave Grace a thorough going over with the stethoscope and her hands. Interestingly, by standing Grace up and supporting her head and leaning her forward, she w able to make Grace walk !! Dr Lui was very impressed with this ! " She walks great ! ". I thought, bloody hell, for a one month old isn't that a world record ?

Anyways tomorrow we will go back for an ultrasound and then in a month we will go back for another to see if the muscle lump is increasing or decreasing in size. For the month we will start doing our own rounds of physical therapy (PT) for Grace and hopefully we will see some improvement or it may come to surgery which means we have to go to Bangkok.

Art my arse PART 2

One can of Merde de Artiste

But wait, it gets better...................

My friend Darren, a former Sotheby's executive now based in Phnom Penh alerted me to this piece of artistic doo-doo. I had to google hard but type in SHIT IN CAN ARTIST and I found it.
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In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans of Artist's Shit. Each was numbered on the lid 001 to 090. Tate's work is number 004. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.' (Letter reprinted in Battino and Palazzoli p.144.)

It is not known exactly how many cans of Artist's Shit were sold within Manzoni's lifetime, but a receipt dated 23 August 1962 certifies that Manzoni sold one to Alberto Lùcia for 30 grams of 18-carat gold (reproduced in Battino and Palazzoli p.154). Manzoni's decision to value his excrement on a par with the price of gold made clear reference to the tradition of the artist as alchemist already forged by Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein among others. As the artist and critic Jon Thompson has written:

Manzoni's critical and metaphorical reification of the artist's body, its processes and products, pointed the way towards an understanding of the persona of the artist and the product of the artist's body as a consumable object. The Merda d'artista, the artist's shit, dried naturally and canned 'with no added preservatives', was the perfect metaphor for the bodied and disembodied nature of artistic labour: the work of art as fully incorporated raw material, and its violent expulsion as commodity. Manzoni understood the creative act as part of the cycle of consumption: as a constant reprocessing, packaging, marketing, consuming, reprocessing, packaging, ad infinitum. (Piero Manzoni, 1998, p.45)

Artist's Shit was made at a time when Manzoni was producing a variety of works involving the fetishisation and commodification of his own body substances. These included marking eggs with his thumbprints before eating them, and selling balloons filled with his own breath (see Tate T07589). Of these works, the cans of Artist's Shit have become the most notorious, in part because of a lingering uncertainty about whether they do indeed contain Manzoni's faeces. At times when Manzoni's reputation has seen the market value of these works increase, such uncertainties have imbued them with an additional level of irony.

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Now Just imagine a rich uncle leaving you this little gem without any explanation. You put it away in the pantry thinking " that mad old bastard Uncle Oswald" and then one day you get hungry....................

Art my arse

Damien Hirst and his $30 million Golden Calf

I am not sure whether this guy is a wanker or a genius.

Actually, yes I am. He is a goddamned genius.

Damien Hirst just entered the record books after an unprecedented auction of his works raised £70.5 million ($158.75 million) with more than 160 lots still to be sold. AND becuase he went though Sotheby's, he avoided the usual 50% agent commission.

So what did he sell exactly ?

The top selling item was The Golden Calf- a real calf in a tank of formaldehyde with 18-carat gold hoofs and horns and a gold disc on its head.It had been estimated at between £8 million and £12 million, but in the end sold for £10.3 million, establishing a new record for a Hirst work at auction.

Another highlight was The Kingdom, a tiger shark in formaldehyde, which easily beat its estimate of £4 million to £6 million by selling for a spectacular £9.5 million.

Although the preserved animals were out in force, the collection - which Hirst has said was "probably the most amazing show I've put on" - also expanded on his other classic themes, including butterflies and spot paintings.

Jesus H Fucking Christ.Not bad for a geezer who looks like Bricktop out of the movie Snatch.

Imagine having a tank with a dead calf in it in your living room ? What kind of wanker would that be and how would the dinner conversation go ?

Dinner guest ;" Oh....Nice cow "

Super cashed up idiotic twat wanker art collector ; "Not bad hey ? It was a snip at $30million ...."

I am thinking of pickling a Cyclo Driver ( like the one below) in a large jar and calling it The Pickled Cyclo. I reckon I could raise....oh..$175,000,000R from the sale ?


Actually, the Pickled Cyclo isn't a bad name for a bar. Maybe I will just open a bar, wear a beret and pretend to be an Avante Garde Artiste.

ps; Please let me know if you see any large jars lying about.

Book Review ; The Kite Runner

I now know definitively what my two favourite books in the whole world are.

In no real order, the first is PERFUME by Patrick Suskind. The movie unfortunately sucked the big one, as did his follow up novel, THE PIGEON .

Which brings me to my next book.

THE KITE RUNNER. by Khaled Hosseini

I actually watched the DVD about 3 months ago and it brought tears to my eyes. I am never going to swap that DVD out as it is now part of my growing collection of "classics".

I then decided to read the book and I finished it yesterday and I have to say, this book is a bloody pearler. If you have not read it, go out and get it today !

The story of two boys growing up through Soviet and Taliban era Afghanistan, it has all the ingredients of a true masterpiece. Friendship, betrayal, hardship, redemption and a happy(ish) ending. You are in immense pain for the young Hazara lad Hassan the whole way through the story and in despair for Pashtun Amir as he sets himself up for a lifetime of guilt .Whilst Hassan's story as an ethnic minority living in Afghanistan goes from bad to worse to shocking, Amir escapes to the US and a life of relative prosperity thanks to his skills as a writer.

The movie was quite a decent adaptation of the novel and on completing the novel I went straight back to the DVD and watched it again .I would like it to have been made clearer that Sohrab ( Hassan's son) only agrees to go to the US with Amir because as a Hazara orphan,he has no other choice but that really, he just wanted his old life back living with his own parents
( brutally executed by Taliban in front of him) and in his own county. Unfortunately, that is never going to happen .

It really is a great tale and I could not help but see the similarities in the way the Afghani and Khmer boys fly their simple kites. It also has a great soundtrack which I intend on buying as it has some really cool Afghan music on it,Leakhana loved it and I can see The Compound lit up with some Tiki torches, a pig on the spit and Jeff running around in a kaftan.

GRACE; Baby got a brand new chair

For about a year now I have been eyeing off a lovely wicker rocking chair that a lady at work owns. I figured it would make a great breast feeding chair and baby soother so I asked if she would sell and she passed it on for the bargain basement price of $20. What a hit ! Everyone loves it and Tra and Phalla took photos and went straight of to the wicker shops to order their own !

The chair's first session

Grace loves it.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Even Vichea loved it ! ( Luckily,Grace also loves her papasan satellite dish chair so no dramas !)

Bath time for Aliyah

Here are some fantastic b&w shots of little Aliyah having a bath in the front yard. She was loving it and it reminded me alot of when my mother used to bath me in the stainless steel laundry tub ! I can;t wait until Grace and Aliyah are old enough to bath together !

Weeeee....this is fun !

Am I the cutest one year old in The Compound or what ?

Google Earth image

Ok Uncle J, enough is enough. Gimme me some space ok ?

Yo SECURITY...get this guy out of here will ya !

Galveston Oh Galveston

Back in 2000 when I was a gun selling software for BMC Software, they sent us to Texas for Sales hi-tech sales training. We were based in Houston for a few weeks and on the weekends we would do runs down to Galveston to eat crab and hang out on the ocean front and we also lucked it with Mardi Gras while we were there. So today it was with nostalgia and regret that I read about Hurricane Ike that seems set to slam this Texan icon.

Hang in there Galveston, I am thinking of you and your kind people........

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Source Sydney Morning Herald ,September 12, 2008 - 12:45PM

The coastal city of Galveston, Texas faces complete inundation from Hurricane Ike, and those who stay behind in one- or two-storey homes "will face certain death", the National Hurricane Centre said today.

"All neighbourhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the centre said in a special bulletin released at 0119 GMT (1119 AEST) ahead of the powerful storm's forecast landfall later today."Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-story homes will face certain death," it said.

Slender Galveston island - about 5km off the Texas coast and whose city of Galveston has more than 50,000 residents - could be flooded by a storm surge as high as 6.5 metres."Life-threatening inundation likely!" blared the warning from the Miami-based NHC, which said that many residences on the immediate coast "will be destroyed" with widespread personal property damage likely elsewhere.

"Entire flood-prone coastal communities will be cut off. Water levels may exceed nine feet (three metres) for more than a mile inland," it said."Damage from beach erosion could take years to repair." Ike, which left more than 100 people dead in its rampage through the Caribbean, was expected to barrel into the Texas coast as a major hurricane packing winds in excess of 190km/h.

A mandatory evacuation order was already in effect earlier today, when some residents in Galveston said they were resisting the order to get out."There's more people here than I would have thought," said Alicia Cahill, a public information officer for Galveston.

Its hard to find good staff

This was posted yesterday on a local internet forum . Now, I don't want to disenfranchise any NGO readers I may have but when people mention Cleaner and Nanny in the same message, I get suspicious.

For the record, my Eurotech deliveries are so fast I am sure they are waiting out the front for us to call. Also, the water bottles are available on just about every corner ! I guess that would involve leaving the pearly gates though..........

I am left speechless and I hope you are too.

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Hello All,

Today I had a really stressful day trying to get water delivered by Eurotech GASP !. Apparently my cleaner usually has difficulty getting water delivered however today's experience was the worst yet. We rang the driver and the Eurotech Office 6 times in order to get water delivered. Each time they said it would be a specific time, however no water was delivered. Finally, after several phone calls, I rang the office to complain. They again assured me that the water was on its way. When I rang back 20 minutes later, I was passed to a man who started yelling at me and abusing me. I said that I had ordered water 5 times that day and it had not arrived and I wanted an explanation and the water to be delivered. He then started yelling at me saying that it was all my fault and I was wasting his staff's time and his staff had already come to my house 3 times that day and we had not opened the gate. I assured him that we had been home all day, we would have heard his delivery man arrive (as we have opened our gate once a week for this same man for the past 6 months) and that we had gone down to the gate at the agreed upon delivery time. We have also
repeatedly asked this delivery man (only one guy for our block) to call us if the gate is locked and we will come down immediately.

He accused me of lying and said that his staff had in fact arrived. I told him not to speak to me like that and I asked to speak to his boss. He then went silent and said that the water would arrive in 30 minutes. I told him to forget it, cancelled my order then hung up.

30 minutes later he called me (my nanny spoke with him this time in Khmer) to say he was waiting outside our gate with our water. My nanny went downstairs to open the gate. Surprise surprise - NO ONE WAS THERE. When she called the man back, he insisted his driver was outside our house. When she asked him where he was he admitted he was in the office. She then asked him how he knew his driver was outside
our house. He said he trusted his staff and this time accused my nanny of lying to him!

The reason I am writing is that I know of many people who have experienced similar problems with Eurotech delivery. I am planning to write a letter to the General Manager of Eurotech listing my complaints. If any of you would like to add your comments please let me know and I will include them.I do not appreciate being yelled at or accused of lying and wasting some one's time, particularly when it is a case of me being lied to and having my time wasted.

The other thing is, I can't find out who the head of Eurotech is or their email address. If anyone knows this information can you please email me?

With kind regards,

(name witheld )

PS. Not sure if anyone already does this but am planning never to use Eurotech delivery again, however buy their water from the small shops in our area. Does anyone know of a good shop that delivers?:-)

Courtesy in Cambodia ; An oxymoron?

One of the things that is great about living in Cambodia when you first get here is the almost complete and utter lack of rules and stifling limitations that can beset you in the west. You can do just about anything you in Cambodia as long as you adhere to some basics. Don’t tread on gun-toting toes in nightclubs, careful what you say in public about politics and take your shoes off when you enter a temple or house. Other than that, go crazy! I have slowly realised, however, that a few rules and restrictions here and there are what keeps the social status quo.Here in Cambodia, there seems to be a fine line between common courtesy, custom and just plain out rudeness and I am trying to keep it together as I attempt to differentiate.

Firstly; Weddings, Parties and Funerals. We all need to have them and in the west there are clear laws and common courtesies to ensure that (most of the time) things stay in control and there is a harmonious outcome for all. Not so in Phnom Penh. You can walk out your front gate on any given day of the week and find that a massive marquee has been erected in front of your house, totally restricting not only your ability to use your own entry gate and get your car out but also blocking off the whole street to traffic. Then comes the dreaded music pumped up to volume 11 and broadcast by stadium sized speakers – usually pointed directly at your house for maximum effect. If you are lucky, it will be a wedding, the music will be bearable and it will only last a night. If you are dead unlucky (pardon the pun) it is a funeral wake and can go on for days with chanting that will drive you mad and drums that start at 6a.m. Now… I can actually deal with all of this BUT would it be so hard for the people having the party to do leaflet drop saying “Dear Neighbour, sorry to inconvenience you but we will be having a shindig and it will go on for (x) days so you are welcome to join us or you might want to move your car or go stay in a hotel for the night”? What courtesy! You can then ensure your heavily pregnant wife isn’t stuck in the kitchen having the baby whilst the party roars on outside and generally make alternative plans to endure the event. Apparently this idea is so radical, it just cannot be considered and as my Khmer wife says, everyone will have a party at some stage and be inconvenienced so what goes around comes around.

Secondly; Back home, if my dogs even so much as barked more than once or were out on the street for more than five minutes without me, the Ranger would come around and slap me with a summons. As a dog lover, I have no problems with dogs walking around unattended, barking (within reason) and dealing with the odd doo-doo outside my house! What I cannot handle is the way the owners in my street allow their dogs out and then watch as their mutts systematically rip my rubbish to shreds, leaving the contents strewn. My polite requests to keep them away from our rubbish have gone unanswered so the other day I (re)bundled up my trash and took it over to the main offender’s house and dumped the bag on her doorstep. In the ensuing verbal mêlée,I asked her how she would feel if I took a 9 iron to her rubbish every time she put it out and spread it all over the place ? She then tried to make to feel like the culprit. How dare I put food scraps in my trash! Later I had a chat with her neighbour and he quietly confided he had been putting up with it for years. I asked him why he didn’t get steamed and he said in typical passive resignation “but what can I do?.....”. Poison the god damned dog for one thing.

Finally, construction work. Again, I love seeing a house go up and I don’t mind a bit of industrious noise and at the moment, Cambodia is in boom time. Back home, here are the rules; No site work before 7am, no work after sunset, Sundays are an absolute NO NO and you clean-up after yourself. Failure to adhere to these rules ensures a hefty fine is imposed. We have a villa next door to us that is setting a new world record for construction time and it is starting to test us, especially as we have a newborn in the house. Power for tools is supplied by a generator that sounds like a World War 1 Tank rolling around a battlefield and the workers like to kick off at 5.30a.m with a rousing session of farting, spitting, showering and meal cooking by what must be one-armed, blind chefs. Pots are dropped and clanged, chilli is pounded into powder, songs are sung and hammers are tested against our walls for the day ahead. When we first moved in, I gave the workers our excess pots and bamboo mats which they were very thankful for. How courteous of us! Alas…..no such reciprocation. I have thus far had to complain about concrete being splashed over our wall and onto my car, workers walking around semi-naked (and I don’t mean the top half ) on OUR rooftop deck , nails hitting our windows and my stolen ladder. The other day I snapped. Imagine their surprise (Sunday no less) when their early morning pre-sunrise cooking fires were doused by me (accidentally) as I watered my plants. I have lousy aim – what can I say?

I know this is Cambodia and I know things are different but surely common courtesy is just that? I am not asking for miracles. I just want to be able to enter and exit my house when I want, for my rubbish to remain intact until the garbos arrive and for a bit of early morning kip on my days off. If a few basic common courtesies were adhered to Cambodia, and the world, would be a much easier place to live in.

OUTRAGEOUS KHMER MYTH # 1

I have heard so many of these, I wish I had started this series earlier. They apply to nearly every aspect of life and I will list them as and when I hear them. Feel free to add your own Outrageous Khmer myths via commenting.....


Myth;
Apparently, if you tickle your baby too much, it will develop severe stomach problems and will die.

Source;
This happened to one of the stall owners at Psar Kandal where Leakhana gets her hair done.

My thoughts ? ;
Utter bullshit. My daughter loves it when I tickle her.

Poll results regards baby news

I recently asked the ?? of my readers about whether or not they want / are happy to see news about our daughter Grace amalgamated on www.thephnompen.com. or would it turn them
away ? (I understand not everyone wants to read about babies ! ).

20 people voted ;

16 said YES ABSOLUTELY
3 said SURE, I will still come here as often as I do.
1 said NO THANKS ( rude bastard ! )

So the masses have spoken.

I have now imported all stories from www.gracegarnett.com to this blog and have posted them here under their original creation dates. I will now tag all baby stories with a GRACE; heading (like this one )so you know if you are looking back through the stories that a particular post is about our baby. You can then read it, or not !

For posterity sake, Grace's stand alone site had 77 unique visitors.

That domain name will now be bequeathed to Grace along with all the other assets so when she becomes a super-rich actress or pop star, her spot in cyberspace is cemented..........Unless of course another Grace Garnett becomes a super-rich actress or pop star and wants to cement her spot in cyberspace, in which case this domain is for sale for ;

USD$5,000,000

NEG

Kiddy Cocktails, frogs and freak-shows.

After weeks of sitting around with Leakhana just waiting to pop young Grace out, we are finally off the chain and as a family we are not wasting any time in getting our daughter acquainted with her City and surrounds. Luckily she travels well and is (thus far) an “easy” baby (whatever that is?). On Friday night Leakhana was very keen to get out of the house so we took her to Elsewhere for some baby cocktails. On arrival, we were warmly greeted by the staff that we had not seen in a long time and of course they were very happy to see Grace. While we waited for others to arrive, we sat in the very pool side day bed that Sarah and I had sat in when we first went to Elsewhere in 2006. It was quite a unique moment. I really felt a gush of emotion to realise (for the hundredth time) how things had panned out so well for Leakhana and I.

Grace's new sistaz !

Leakhana and Grace at Elsewhere. ( Sarah...does that seat look familiar ? )

Ollie, the Elsewhere ice-cream monster.

Soon Humphrey and Dai arrived so we then moved to the daybed on which I fell in love with Leakhana (gush of emotion #101) and we had a couple of Coronas and chatted whilst the skies grew dark and flashed overhead. The next arrival was Paul, Aeline and 5 kids so it was soon an all-out family affair. We had to move inside due to rain but the kids were happy with their ice cream, the parents chatted and Grace slept peacefully. I had an inner-chuckle as I realised I was now clubbing with kids and I loved it. Give me kids over adults any day!! Interestingly, the feeling of now being a patriarch is quite overwhelming sometimes. Paul and I were sitting there having a beer and watching the brood run around and I realised that between us we were responsible for the futures of a bunch of kids ( ok ok Paul 2 vs Justin 1 but still…………..) and it was a good feeling.

On Saturday we had a leisurely day and went over to Phalla and Tra’s for impromptu lunch. Not for the first time the mothers had dressed the babies in the exact same little suit and they looked like twins as they slept side by side. They have finally named their boy Socheat Vichea (Vichea) and we lay around on the floor eating and chatting and listening to the pitter patter of light rain outside. We then made plans to head out to Oudong Mountain (a holy site) the next day and so it was an early night for all.

Grace enjoying lunch at Phalla and Tra's

Getting out to Oudong was a leisurely 40km drive and we were soon ensconced in a hut with the obligatory plethora of food types. Fish, frogs (large and small), beef, chicken, pork,rice,fruit,soup,coke,beer,water etc. The babies were unloaded onto a bamboo mat and fed with mummy milk until they dropped off asleep and Veasna yet again proved his amazing nature as he sat with those tots for hours fanning them, cooing when they grizzled and viciously exterminating any insect that came within yards of them. Srey Nek and Srey Pek were also dispatched if they came too close and I can see Veasna is going to make a wonderful Uncle. We took a walk over to the Coca Cola promo concert that featured kids in traditional costumes and a large Katoey doing her/his thing whilst crowds looked on in amazement.

Vichea ( fore ) and Grace ( aft ) and many helping hands

Veasna ;Super Uncle at 18 !

Katoey Time

After lunch and a sleep, the mountain (hill) beckoned and I loaded Grace into her Baby Bjorn carrier for the first time. As we headed for the stairs through the throngs of picnicking Khmer, the attention was overwhelming as people stopped and stared. I guess the combination of such a small white baby in such a fancy sling and a man doing the carrying was just something they don’t see every day. I was soon outpacing Leakhana and her mother and the kids and as I hit the stairs, I looked up and all I could see was an endless parade of beggars and sellers and monkies. It was like having to run the gauntlet of shame.

The stairs, oh......the stairs.

It was pretty hot but Grace was handling it and we were soon at the top albeit a little out of wind. I chose a place in the shade to unclip Grace and soon there were 50 people sanding right in front of me gawking at us. The mums and little kids all came over for a touch and a feel and the photographers went mad. I felt like I had just walked into a remote Papua New Guinean tribe for the first time! When some of the mothers started berating me for carrying her in the sling “too hot, too tight, she is dying, where is the mother etc ?” and actually started trying to unhook her, I drew the line and loudly told them all to “BUGGER OFF” with a hand wave. They got the message and we were soon left in (relative) peace.

Wat Oudong ( above and below )

The drive back to Phnom Penh was easy although stained by having to slow down to pass a serious two-scooter accident on the riverside. I am sure one of the very young lads was dead and the other one was seriously injured. As usual crowds gawked but did nothing. I spared a moments thought for the kids parents and realised again how careful with Grace we have to be in this country. Other than that, a very enjoyable weekend concluded and we were soon eating my home made spaghetti and heading for bed early.

Dingle Dongle up the Wazoo. PART 3

Jesus H Mother&^%$ing Christ !

I went home for a hot dog at lunch and guess what ? The bloody wake has re-ignited like a Michael Jackson ghoul coming out of the ground in Thriller !

There is a new, bigger tent that comes right to our bloody gate and the dingle dongle has started.

I asked the missus and she said that the first party was for when the dead people are in the ground and this one is the 7 day anniversary.

*deep breaths*

Breakfast of Champions ; Pho Olympic

Anyone who has ever been to Vietnam will be familiar with the delights of Pho soup. A delicious broth served with flat rice noodles,fresh herbs, bean sprouts and beef strips, this is truly one of the better if not the BEST meal in town. In Cambodia, the best Pho in town is Pho Olympic and it has 4+ outlets spread across the city. Luckily there is one in a direct line between home and work so I eat there about 4 times a week.

It is also fantastic on a Sunday with a stenching hangover and I usually run in to my old Aruna mate Paul as he tries to keep his eyeballs from falling out of their sockets. Best of all, while the NGO yuppies are paying $3 for a latte and $6 for a sandwich,the bowl of Pho, pot of gratis Green Tea and my strong iced coffee runs me $2.

Super stuff !

Pho-fect !

GRACE ; Midget # 1...meet Midget # 2 !

Jeff and Vattey got back from California last night and Aliyah and Grace met for the first time. I think Aliyah knew straight away she had a new mate because before too long she was giving Grace little kisses on the cheek and patting her leg. There was a small moment of jealousy when Vattey was nursing Grace but you can't blame Aliyah, she had just hauled 29 hours to get home !

The Compound has a new business venture.

My Compound buddy Jeff has decided that sitting around in his underwear all day trying to figure out how to get his Super Duper Sub Woofer to put out more ampeage ( or whatever it is the hell they do ) is highly overrated. With the Compound Car Wash now up and running and successfully franchised into 50 different locations city-wide, Jeff has come up with a new way to make money.

The Compound Cyclo Co. ( CCC...pretty neat huh ! )

This will be Jeff's baby so I am looking forward to reducing my rent by charging out my car space to Jeff at say....oh...$500 a month.

I love the promo shot for the new business !

Dingle Dongle up the Wazoo. PART 2

Well the wake outside is winding up ( I think ). This morning as I headed off for work at 6a.m, the "hearse" was backed up and the bodies were about to be loaded. I say bodies becuase there was a double death in the family - the Grandfather and Grandmother died within hours of each other of old age !! I would like to know how they keep bodies ..er..."in shape" for 5 days in the family home?

At any rate, the whole affair has actually been very non-intrusive and low-brow with alot less dingle dongle than I was (not) hoping for. The guests have been polite and have not parlked out driveways or peed everywhere and now I will just wait to see if the organisers clean up the street's 5,000,000 tissues when they go.