ray k is foreign

NEW POP

2011-01-20T00:29:00.002Z

Okay, so I forget things. So I posted this (about music).

Maybe in the future, the future will happen?

Review #2!

2010-04-08T18:12:00.004+01:00

From fellow We Make Zinester Matthew who I met at the WMZ midlands meet-up in Notts a little while ago. Go read, and find his zines too!

Here is review.

EDIT
Fixed linky!------------^^^^^

a nice review.

2010-02-24T12:50:00.005Z

No really! A nice man in Germany who I came in to contact with via We Make Zines wrote a vely review of City Sacker 8. I think this is my first review ever. I'm quite chuffed.

Anyway, you can look at his very pretty review blog here. What are you waiting for? Run along...

New Stuff!

2010-02-17T20:52:00.014Z

I've been spending more time on We Make Zines recently and forgot to update this place. Maybe I shouldn't bother?

Anyway, There's a new City Sacker available (No.8) as well as a one-off minizine called Horses! and they are, of course free.

I've also updated the Myspace. Really though, you should check out my We Make Zines profile.

Oh, I nearly forgot, thereare also three shiny badges available too, wowza!

2009-11-16T19:42:00.003Z

SO.

I was going to have another City Sacker done for this weekend but I threw a wobbler and didn't finish it. Also, I decided to spend the fiver I was gonna use to print it on buying beer instead.

It'll be available soon though, should anyone want a copy.

I'm only really posting this in the optimistic hope that someone will have popped over here after picking up a copy of CS at Nottingham Indiepop All-Dayer. If you have, hello you! Thanks for picking up my zine. Wasn't the pop show GRATE fun?

I'm completely out of all the zines at the moment but will get some done when the next shiny dole cheque arrives (cheers Gordon!), so feel free to ask for 'em.

Also, the PROPER zine is still waiting for me to save up enough money to print it. However, pop music, books and beer keep sabotaging my efforts.

I think I popped till I dropped last night. Sleep please.

the calm before the rest of the calm

2009-08-06T12:45:00.002+01:00

hey.

the *proper* zine is all but finished. i'm not telling you the title yet cos i haven't decided (i have a shortlist of 2). i've still not got the ca$hola to pay for printing though cos i've been busy spending my dole on shoes, booze, and indietracks tix (yes it WAS awesome, thanks).

City Sacker/Optical Devices are still available. there may be another OD soon if i can focus on anything for more than 30 seconds.

and, if yr that way inclined, i have a WeMakeZines profile over here

Optical Devices

2009-06-08T11:45:00.003+01:00

word.

Optical Devices #2 was released into the world on saturday at ATTA Girl @ the Island Bar. Cos I'm a moron i forgot to scan it, also I don;t have the original at the moment. I'll track one down and will send one along to anyone who's interested. It's a single sheet of A4 folded, printed both sides, it's mostly about nothing at all, rambling bile fuelled nonsense.

Gratis, as ever.

Pee. Ess.

I've now found a (slightly scruffy) copy of OD#2, so that'll be available anytime, should you want one, I also have a full compliment of CS numbers 2-6. I am super-organised and I am listening to Kenickie on Spotify. yea, the future's ace.

Lacking Constants

2009-05-10T13:51:00.001+01:00

hello.

well, this blog was originally started as a way to keep people who cared in the loop about things i was getting up to when i was somewhere else.

then i sort of had ideas, but i never kept it up.

from now on i think i will use this to offer people the chance to order zines from me when i get them finished.

right now i have copies of City Sacker #6 and nothing else, though i might get some more of #3 and possibly #5 copied if anyone wants them? they're free.

also, i'm about 1/3 - 1/2 way through a *proper* zine, so get in touch if you think you'd be interested in that. i doubt i can afford to do this for free but we'll see, yea?

there was a one of zine the other day for a gig. maybe you can have one of those if you want.

one happy island

2009-03-24T12:10:00.005Z

this band are super-mega-badass.

i'mvery excited about them playing at the autumn store in the summer.

i want to share with you could people a vvideo that someone posted on the one happy island thread on anorak. apparently there isa tv show on a chicago public access channel which features live bands or recoridngsand has a bunch of poeple dancing. it's a bit weird, but it lookslike fun. here is yr youtube linky.

today's linky

2009-03-13T16:22:00.002Z

is the carrots' documentary. the carrots are playing at indietracks, but it was on peter's recommendation that i checked them out. indietracks is gonna be mega!

80's Love Songs

2009-03-12T17:41:00.004Z

My Favourie MP3 of the day is called 80's Love Songs and is by those Bobby McGees and that Winston Echo doing it together like.

Tonight I MAY go to a free pop show (KateGoes/ Betty and the Id/ Bom and his magic drum stick/ Falling and Laughing), but I MAY be ebing to much of a miserable arsehole to do anything other than drown myself in daal.

Veggie Pride

2009-02-21T11:03:00.004Z

Sooo

Birmingham, home to theUK's first ever vegetarian hotel, first "health food store"and currently home to the Vegan Society, is soon to host the UK's first ever Veggie Pride event.

If people who would like to attend could register their interested on Pledge Bank and also join the Facebook evgen thingy, that'd be quite nice, dontcha think.

Also, I believe there *may* be a crossover between pop and vaggie types, so I'm considering sortingout a POP event for the evening.

Who wants in?

seville

2009-02-08T00:02:00.003Z

i'm in seville right now.

in case anyoneis wondering, seville seems incredibly lovely. i seriously cannot understand why no one told me to go to seville.

ps
BLOODY HELL! at leadt 2 people read that last post, so id better stick some more pictures in soon, unfortunately i dont have my flash drive on my right now.... ooh im a tease!
dont forget the map, loik

marrakech

2009-02-05T20:34:00.006Z

Marrakech!

there are millions of people doing crazy stuff. snake charmers, story teller, monkeys in nappies, werid dudes dressed like god only knows what and of course, people harassing tourists to fuck to buy shite.

its saturday night out there (sort of) so im gonna nip out and see whats going down in the square 'djeema el fna) but im not buying OWT.

i think ive been to rabbat since i last blogged, but the weather was SO bad that i didnt get up to much. i got led down a dark alley by a local who insisted that the VERY locked up building was his friends restaurant which was open, honest and he thought i should give him money. i got lost getting away from him.

remember the monkeys and snow i was talking about?

voila:

azrou

2009-01-31T16:44:00.004Z

hey kids!

im in a small town at the foot of the atlas mountains, there is SNOW. yesterday we hitchiked a few ks up the road to see monkeys and have snowball fights.

ive utterly failed in my efforts to locate gram flour and so am living off couscous and a sort of chana balti, good times.

right, now im off to the (greek!) offie to buy some overpriced beer.

ps
can someone tyell me why i just bought a ticket for popfest next month§ im a dunce!

chefchouen

2009-01-25T12:11:00.003Z

it looks like coming here in the off season may not have been a stroke of genius, the hash sellers (and carpet sellers, a,d jilaba sellers) are seeing some mean times, and with fewer europeans around, i make an easy target;:

on my first morning here i was followed, harassed and eventually grabbed by " guys, they were areseholes, you get them all over the world and unfortunately they were more or less the first people i came into contact with

one tactic they used in an attempt to extort money was saying that because i had bought hash from their friend the night before and he had been fined by the police i owed him the money for the fine; the problem being that i hadnt bought anything from anyone the night before so it was full on horseshit an i -politely- intimated as much, they followed; it escallated (only on their part i might add, cool as a cucumber i was) until one guy grabbed me, i pushed him away, told them where to go and wwalked off (not looking back but hoping to fuck they werent following)

latrer on in the day i met some LOVELY local people, drank some mint tea ('berber scotch'), met a vegetarian berber(!) and located a fridge magnet for my dad, well, actually i got someone to make one for me;

right, i might be off to fes toay so i better scarper,,,

pee ess

2009-01-21T13:29:00.002Z

i started a googlemap thingy.

i don't really know how to use it properly, but here it is anyway, i'll try to update it as and when.

2009-01-21T11:15:00.002Z

ok!

so, on monday i decided to go to the Museo del Prado, which is closed on mondays. My énd choice was Temple dem Debod, also closed on mondays. Eventually I settled for a long walk around town and through Parque del Oeste which is a huge park on the west side of the city stretching from the swanky Moncloa barrio (the prime ministers official residence is there i believe, hence men with BIG GUNS) down to Principe Pio (where Im staying). Its a nice park with winding paths and fountains and birdies and a stream. it was deserted on a grey and showery day in january and that suited me fine.

later i met 3 my hosts in a swanky bar near the university called delJardin Secreto,it was nice but the staff wanted us out, the heater thingy melted the handle on my bag, and the drinks go up in price after 10, and because we got there at 9 they told us we had to pay the higher price because wed still be there at 10!

Yesterday (tuesday) i decided to go to Museo del Prado, but changed my mind and headed to Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in the belief that itd have a greater variety of art.

i started with italian primitives, 14th century religious paintings, tryptichs, and my first ever dyptich! there are c.700 paintings in the museum and ill confess to skipping a few, theres only so many adorations you can handle. i made a point of seeing the famous ones that im supposed to recognise and be in awe of. i cant say that titian, tintoretto or caravaggio do much for me.

the museums exhitits are arranged in chronological order, so by the time i was half way through the 1st floor (starting on the 2nd) i got more in to my stride; there was a lot of 19th century american painting by a barrage of people id never heard of, but you can see why people fell in love with the new world. Eventually i got to the impressionist/post-impressionist, fauve, and expressionist exhibits. And eventually the experimental avant-gardes.

Picasso, Monet, Manet, Degas, Dali, Earnst, Rothko, Kandinksy and Lichtenstein.

I particularly enjoyed Monet's 'Waterloo Bridge' , the lichtenshtein. I had a good long look and sit down when i came to the Rothko, no matter how i tried i just couldnt shake The Endless Bummer song out of my head.

I also leqrned thqt i will never understqnd Kandinksy.

Later on I went with 2 of my hosts, nora and matteo to a couple of bars, one specialises in vermouth. on tap. it was incredibly spanish, cigqrette butts on the floor, avess to the toilet was under the bar, and there was a documentary on the tv about anti-bullfight campaingers!

mi gusta madrid

2009-01-18T14:02:00.003Z

im writing this on a french laptop in madrid. everything is in the wrong place, so gimme a break;

after the mammoth coach journey (30ish hours) taking in 2 of the ugliest bus stations ive ever seen (paris something or other and area succo) and discovering that most of spain is covered in snow i arrived in sunny madrid, cold, but sunny.

i had to run around a bit to find a netcafe as i still didnthave the address of the people i had arranged to stay with, eventually i got it sorted. there are è or _ of them conpring of various nationalities: italian, french, american, new zealanderish and maybe even spanish, imnot sure;

after a much needed shower i went to the reina sofia and looked at their odern art, including a someti,es quite pleqsing photo exhibition. though really i - and everyone else - was there for guernica. when you get to that part of the gallery theres a definite bottleneck. its not surprising considering the paitings notoriety; and i ,ustve gone bqck to it ' times to take it all in;

also, the nuseun was free on the day score; also also, i got told off for standing too close to a painting. i stormed off muttering about LITTLE MAN WITH A BADGE SYNDROME and forgot to find out who the painting was by. stupid face me;

theres much more, but ihad enough of this keyboard. madrid is so far pretty good. im off to find a veggie cafe..

everything is wrong

2009-01-03T19:04:00.003Z

i'm fucking sick of fucking wars.
i'm fucking sick of murderous flag-waving cunts.
i'm fucking sick of spineless politicians.
i'm fucking sick of people clinging to religion, nationality or anything else to excuse their base actions.

where do you think these arms are made? who profits? the quietist ones.

i'm too angry to think.

pop front

2008-12-21T23:31:00.004Z

i'm more addicted to this song than you have ever been addicted to booze, crack, chocolate, sex, cigarettes or love.

unfortunately i'm only aware of 2 songs by The Artist Formerly Unknown and both were from compilations on the sadly now defunct Asaurus label.

also, since i've figured out how to upload mp3s you can expect more between now and morocco.

PS
City Sacker #3.5 is done. I'm not sending out indiviual copies, but if you want some (and/or #2&3) to leave around just let me know. they're free of course. otherwise Caramel or Marching Stars can sort you out.

i'm fucking haulicinating

2008-12-11T12:39:00.004Z

Indietracks makes me hallucinate. it's official.

After Christmas twee I spent a TERRIFIED night in my rubbish, freezing barn in Cumbria. and I was absolutely convinced that either a) a mouse or b) a person was trying to force entry through the skylight*, and this had me almost in tears.

Now, some things to take note of. when i DID have a mouse sneaking in to my room i simply caught it in a teapot (honestly!) and walked in to the woods to release it. it wasn't in the least bit scary. why it would try to gain entry through the skylight and why i should find this so frightening i have no idea. Also, anyone trying to get in through the roof would soon find that it is QUITE a drop to the floor and would very much risk breaking something. Also, there is a single-pained window at shoulder height with a nice ledge to clime on to. Normally neither of these absurd speculations would have bothered me, but after Christmas twee i was half dead with fear.

And when I managed to convince myself my mind was playing trick on my i thought i was being sexually abused in my sleep. fucking great. cue whimpering.

After Indietracks in the summer I spent a good 24 hours believing the most vivid dream (nightmare) i have ever had in my entire life. No other dreams have come anywhere close in the past 15 years. But in the summer I was under the impression that ALL of indietracks had turned against me because of a plot which had left me in possession of John Slade's digital camera and I was completely unable to explain how it had come in to my possession. I was in the main shed bit and surrounded by 1,000 kids all staring me down. the futility of my protestations was evident. I had the camera and no way of explaining how or why, because until someone accused me of having it I hadn;t seen it at all.

And then things started to get weird. For some reason everyone was saying that i should kiss some random girl I'd never met before. i was reluctant to do it inasmuch as i had no idea who she was and 1,000 people were watching me. then the girl produced her own digital camera and started showing me videos of her home. it seemed to be a sort of tropical background and i assumed she was from South America.

also instead of teeth she had stringy-pointed gums.

now, except for the seriously unbelievable parts, i was convinced this was real. so basically, although i KNEW there was now pointy-gummed freakish South American lady, and i KNEW I hadn't been anywhere near John Slade, let alone his camera, I couldn;t shake this feeling. I felt as though leaving my room would make everything real and bring it all crashing down.

why did you do this to me indietracks? why are you messing with my head?

*skylight makes it sound more glamorous than it really is, it's a single-pained, slightly cracked, detritus covered piece of glass way up in the ceiling.

skipping!

2008-12-05T12:20:00.002Z

Dumpster diving to our friends across the pond.

I think my first skipping adventures were when i was about 15. i lived by a secondary school and used to cut through the school field to get to my mum's house. there was a skip in the car park at the top of the field and outof it i got a projector! slightly knackered but i'm sure had i ever known anything about technical sorts of stuff i could have got it working without much trouble. but i didn;t and i didn't.

then not long after i was walking the same way with a friend and we spotted a GUITAR in the skip! he got his hands on it before me and kept it for a while before selling it on.

10 years have passed and skipping is more common then any time in the modern age (i have no evidence ot back this up but i'm pretty sure that bombed out houses etc during the second world war would've been routed through by all) and seems to be particularly embraced (in theory) by liberals and particularly yr Grauniad supplement type journos ("I once got a perfectly good four-course meal at the back of a restaurant on High Holborn").

Anyway, in recent weeks I've been keeping my eyes open and have come up with some TOP finds including:

+ A virtually box fresh pair of converse shoes (no, not even the pumps, proper trainery type ones) that are exactly my size

+ A Hot water bottle

+ a pair of (slightly too small but useable) gloves

Fuck the credit crunch, fuck the creditors, fuck the venture capitalists and fuck the seasonal sales. the world is hours for the taking.

Buy nothing, love everyone.

no change

2008-11-28T13:36:00.001Z

i still don't know when i'm leaving, i still don't know where i'm going or what i'll do.

something will happen, one way or another.

being foreign again

2008-11-03T13:33:00.001Z

so i've been trying to save a bunch of money. it's been extremely tiring. not least of all cos i spent 5months on the dole without a pot to piss in. eventually i found a job at a factory but i hated the agency (well, more precisely the stuck-up condescending pen-pushing, commission making, topmap shirt-wearing, toni & guy haircut-sporting, fucking wankers who seem to run the scene).

i then got an 'ideal job' which i thought was ethically sound, within my abilities and offered new experiences and encounters. in reality it's another minimum wage job where the people earning the money are left by the people keeping the money to ensure that the money keeps rolling in. and the general public seem to be even cuntier around here than i've noticed previously. i'm fully ready to accept that it is just the bitterness that's within me that has lead me to this negative experience. Nevertheless, i can;t stick it out.

i gave plenty of notice cos i think it's a reasonable thing to do. there are people who would have to pick up the slack of a missing employee and again, it's not those who's responsibility it is to ensure correct staffing levels. nor is it necessarily those people who will most likely suffer that i am trying to escape from.

so what's next? fuck knows. i got a few quid and sure as hell not enough to last til june when i will need to be in the uk for mister pete and ms rach's wedding.

in other news i made a zine, see? positive output. and i suppose i'm back to blogging,

doodle

2008-06-06T15:22:00.002+01:00

whilse waiting in a garden centre cafe for a fat girl to finish instant messaging i decided to bide some time and GET MY OWN BACK by drawing her. hah!

then i drew a crow and a phallic pepper pot.

i might start doodling lots in the hope that i become competant.

images would be provided but i have not a scanner nor do i understand this blog-putting-photos-on-stuff-how-to.

yea.

2008-05-21T21:27:00.002+01:00

sometimes when things are quiet i can't help but remember occasions where i think i've made the completely wrong decision in life. and i feel like a total chump for those missed opportunities.

maybe in the future i'll go in to detail, but perhaps detail may only serve to make those instances seem irrelevant and my musings melodramatic.

still, it's rubbish having those memories (or at least the regret of the thought of missed the experiences) to dwell on.

no mango! (nutroast)

2008-03-19T15:30:00.004Z

i ate the mango on it's own. pah.

okay, so it's going to be another food post, this is because i rarely leave my house and hence have little to mull over.

so for now i will leave you with a link to Toothpaste for Dinner whoch is taking up significant portions of my day at the moment.

Also I have for you THEE SIMPLEST (and mega tasty) Nutroast recipe ever.

2 hand fulls of almonds (soak in hot water & remove from water before adding to other ingredients))
1 cup red lentils (cooked in 1 inch of grated ginger)
1 stock cube
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1-2 tsp dried mixed herbs (or use any mix of marjoram, sage, parsley, oregano)
2 tsp chilli powder
handful of linseed/sunflower/mixes seeds (optional - can be added just before cooking)

mix all ingredients and blend*

let stand

put in greased muffin tin

cook @ gas 6 for 30 mins.

I threw this together the other night and was really surprised how well it turned out. I think the trick is cooking the lentils in ginger. Also, cooking the mix in a muffin/cake tray makes serving easier and it looks kinda pretty too. (one day i'll get hold of a camera)

*I use a blender like this one which I think was about £10, you can get the same sort of thing from about £5 upwards and it's a pretty good investment- in my opinion the stick kind is better than the bowl kind because with the stick you're not limited by volume of food to blend, you can use the stick for one cup of beans or for 20 portions of soup in a HUUUUGE pot.

salad dodger

2008-03-10T12:22:00.003Z

i've not made the exciting salad because i've been waiting for the mango to ripen [read as 'eating chinese food']. so in the meantime enjoy this wonderful pop video i strayed across. apparently it's a cover of a eurovision entry from 2006 but i wouldn;tknow anything about that.

regular posts

2008-03-06T12:01:00.003Z

i've been thinking about updating regularly, the theory being that the more i do it the better at it i will become. there may even be interesting nuggets. i wrote an 'open letter' to pete dale once but when i re-read it i felt it was too stupid to publish- i still like the idea of it though.

anyway, peter the-man-behind-the-night-he-should-make-a-regular-event-called-Wishin' and Hopin' complained about me not updating, so here we are.

at the moment my life revolves around comic and books and daytime tv. my most exciting plans for today are making some sort of salad. i'm thinking mango, chickpeas, and onions, maybe green peppers. i'll let you know how that turns out.

protein pills and flying cars.

2008-01-19T19:42:00.000Z

The last few weeks for me have been spent grooming the interweb for jobs. and also grooming the interhighway-superweb for not jobs, hence...

Things the Internet has taught me recently:

Richard Blackwood - noted turn of the century comedian, rapper, actor and all round mediocre entertainer declared himself bankrupt in 2003.

Life Without Buildings released a live album last year. I completely missed this but have lifted my self-imposed record buying ban for this album only.

4 out of 10 of the hospitals put on "special measures" in because of poor hygiene standards 2001 were in Dudley. I think I knew this at the time but reading it now seems even more shocking.... out of 689 hospitals in the UK 40 failed a 2nd test, 10 were on special measures, and 4 of those 10 were in Dudley. Yikes!

There's such as thing as Burmese Tofu which is not tofu as we would know it. no soya beans - it's made from gram flour! I might try to make some myself.

Mithraism - or the belief system of the followers of Sol Invictus in the Roman world - should be a problem for Christians. But then again, faith is faith.

The term for entering and nosing around abandoned buildings is Urban Exploration*. I'd never realised this was such a common interest. If i ever get round to buying a camera I'd be happy to do that sort of thing more often. *no link because there are so many varied sites - go look!

Rhubarb Crumble is surprisingly easy to make (and by extension apple/pear etc)and you don't even need to follow any instructions. I didn't and mine turned out pretty bloody well.

I bought all my xmas presents for myself from AbeBooks, it's sort of a portal for indie/used book stores all over the world. There're MILLIONS of 2nd hand books, multiple copies of stuff that I've not been able to find anywhere else, and often very cheap too. yays!

There's indiepop in Peru! who knew?

The official snack food of the state of Idaho is Jell-o, and Philadelphia is known as the city of brotherly love because that's the literal translation of the name from Greek.

and finally, this game is a fantastic way to waste time (well, up until a certain point cos then I got stuck and wanted to set fire to things).

THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE

2007-12-16T19:11:00.000Z

I went up to Stoke on Friday to the
SUNNY INSIDE night at The Glebe to see MJ HIBBETT AND THE VALIDATORS/ HOROWITZ/ THE DEIRDRES.

The venue was a bit weird, it was run by proper rock fans and the man running the door had some sort of flame/birdies motif tattoed from around his eye back across his head. There was a motorbike INSIDE the venue.ROCK.

All the bands were ace as is to be expected of the lineup, but it was the EXTRA BITS that made the gig fantabulous: there were mince pies being handed out, and the Validators gave out lyrics sheets so everyone could sing along to the chorus in "THE ADVENT CALENDER OF FACT". lovely.

There was a fantastic moment in the validators set when they got to play THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE in "DO THE INDIE KID", Mark ran off to do a wee - the toilets being at the opposite end of the room to the stage - while the validators treated us to the peculiar MUSIC OF THE FUTURE, and on his way back was RUGBY TACKLED by a deirdre! The Deirdre then attached himself to Mr Hibbett in an attempt to keep him from the stage so that we could continue to enjoy THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE. Eventually Mr Hibbett got back to the stage and continued the set.

The evening was BIG FUN and was topped off with a pop-popshow curry, wat more could you ask for?

It's Invisible!

2007-12-07T12:54:00.000Z

It matter not why, but if it were not for unforseen circumstances I would not have been coerced into eating Invisible Crust Bread. I can whole-heartedly advise anyone reading this against ingesting this fucking awful horseshit of an attempt at bread.

I understand it's an attempt to get fussy kids to eat bread without leaving crusts. but there must be a better way, this stuff would put me off bread FULL STOP if i didn't know what real bread was like. it's fucking terrible.

Cloudberry

2007-11-23T13:24:00.000Z

A little while ago I banned myself from buying any more records in a bid to save money. It turned out to be far too difficult a task and as such I compromised by buying inexpensive records instead. Cloudberry release a HUGE number of 3" CDrs, of which I ordered 5 (one with a zine) more or less randomly.

Parker Lewis - "Written and Directed by" Cloudberry42 is a collection of 3 songs by this Swedish guy who I can tell you nothing more about as there is no info whatsoever on the cd case. It's sweet and breezy pop with vocals that remind me a little of a mix between Wayne Coyne and John William Davies. In the first song I can't help but be reminded of The Avalanches. The rest of the songs use a number of samples of strings and things I can't really identify, it all adds up to quite a lovely, delicate, and at times plinky plonky little collection of songs.

Log Lady Train - s/t Cloudberry 45.Log Lady Train are a Swedish two piece with a more classic c86 style of pop. The first possibly contains the line "you are shy and pathetic/ everything that i like" so I suppose that gives an idea of what it might sounds like. I'd happily dance to this at the disco, and I'd probably sing along loudly and poorly too. It's sun-shiny and optimistic, but not saccharine- just the way we like it really.

the deirdres - "dinosaurs that can swim" Cloudberry 55i think everyone knows by now that the deirdres are from derby. and i don't know how many of them there are.. 7 according to the credits. They sound to me a little bit like the retro spankees, but if you could somehow have more retro spankeees and be quite a bit quieter. I'm quite impressed with the variation on the "ba-da-ba" / "la-la-la" as in the 1st song we're treated to a "fa-fa-fa-la." There are handclaps and vocal harmonies, there's a melodica, it's often a bit of a shamles, it's great pop music.

Komon - "punk ep" Cloudberry 56this is drum machine, distorted keyboard, female vocals noisier than the other stuff so far, but there's till "doo-doo-doos" and a melodica. Frankly, it's a little bit too noisy to play through the speakers on my laptop (which is what i'm doing) so it's hard to fully appreciate these songs. Still, it's boppy, poppy, keyboardy and catchy, which is nice.

I'll write about the zine and compilation over the weekend.

God Damn Doo Wop

2007-11-23T10:59:00.000Z

The God Damn Doo Wop Band - "Broken Hearts" Afternoon Records

I only heard this band because of the mixtape that was being given away at Wishin ' and Hopin' the other week, the one song on that tape - "posso", also the first song on this album - coupled with a quick look at their myspace was enough for me to order the album.

Comparisons to the pipettes would be as lazy as they would be inaccurate. True, there are three female singers, and the male musicians are absent front the front cover (though i think it's them pictured beaten and bloodied on the back), and the songs are very much in a retro style. BUT the songs on this album have a much more authentic 1950's Doo Wop feel to them, and the quality of the vocals would make a the Diskettes a sounder point of reference, but still wide of the mark.There's a hint of girl gang swagger in a number of the songs and it contrasts with - or perhaps compliments the Doo Wop style excellently. It could be the presence of a saxophone that adds extra depth to the songs, and it's obviously important to the band, so much so that that the 4th song on the album "johnny" is a lament about their sax player being grounded and thus a gig is threatened with cancellation.

I wrote 2 full pages of notes about this album, but really what I need to say is that I've listened to it on average 3 times a day for the past 3 days.

POP MUSIC!!!!

2007-11-17T20:00:00.000Z

I don't know how I ended up at the Wee Pop website, but I did. Initially I managed to resist purchasing anything, I'd banned myself from internet shopping cos all my money has been disappearing via paypal. Eventually I gave in, and in all honesty it's probably a good thing. Their 3inch ltd edition (120) cdrs are lovely and come with so many little inserts it's not only exciting but slightly intimidating. Camila and Thor let you know that it's all alright though with a personalised note (complete with heart-shaped cut-out) and a lollipop!

So I was attempting to be responsible and only purchased 2 of the available releases.
POP! 005 is "Pizza under the sea" by tinyfolk
For some reason I thought I knew tinfyfolk already, on listening to this cd I realised I didn't. It's massively (minutely?) twee guitar based pop, that reminds me a little bit of Matt Mason. It's the sort of dream-story acoustic pop that you'll be familiar with if you know asaurus records. It's tender and lo-fi, you're either going to like it or hate it, if you like tape hiss and story songs then you can't go wrong.

POP! 007 is "Call and Response" by Sunny Intervals (Andy from Pocketbooks) which he describes as his "..occasional lo-fi imaginary pop project." It does pretty much what you'd expect from it, it's multi-instrumental sweet, breezy, twee pop about trying to have fun in pubs heaving with hipsters and in towns being bludgeoned by councils and corporations. About finding whimsy and beauty in the quiet spots that are our own, or in the chaos that's communal. The fact that this was recorded in a bedroom is perfectly apt (of course it is not unusual for the genre we now and love), in as much as we find ourselves marginalised not only for our attraction to an esoteric form of pop music, but also that the option to not shop at asda, or buy coca cola, find a career path, get on the property ladder, or whatever has pretty much been wiped away in society. This might be a one-man imaginary pop project, but it's good enough to let me know i'm not alone.

2007-11-13T10:50:00.000Z

I think I’m going to make this a whinging blog/ cookery blog/ music blog.

And I’ll start with saying that I’m in my new office at work, it’s an open plan thing but pretty small with only 9 desks. HOWEVER, there is a separate office with the manager in. Currently they are having a training meeting with 2 Marketing staff and a new sales man. They’re all coming out with buzzwords and it makes me want to die.

Our new office is meant to be dead swanky but it’s actually a bit rubbish. Not least of all because there is a windowpane missing between this office and the next once, so I can hear everything they’re saying. I mean, they all seem to be trying to talk louder than each other anyway, but the missing window doesn’t help.

Before we moved over to this office last week there was much talk of all the new furniture and so on. But one of the most interesting things that was being talked about was the new Kitchen! Café Pays Noir, we were expecting a decent waterside eatery, you know, polished floors and sandwiches in boxes, demerera sugar for our craftier coffee.

In reality "Café Black Country" is a room with a sink and a fridge. There’s not even a kettle or a microwave; it’s a step down from what we had in the old office with its enormous ancient microwave. Instead of a kettle now we have this thing built into the wall that dispenses "boiling" water.

There are some "arty" black and white photos from around the 30’s and 40’s so obviously they’ve gone for the black country/film noir connection. Maybe.

Change of Direction

2007-10-07T19:29:00.000+01:00

I don't know that any one's read this for ages, but more fool them if they have- it's not been updated since June. Anyway, I heard some people were reading it, and since I randomly Email some people with recipes, I thought I'd publish them. Not one tonight because I just don't feel like it. But in my immediate arsenal there's Ace Muffins, N'egg' Fried Rice, Cheez Cake, Chinese Takeaway-Style Curry and so on and so forth. None of my recipes include "fake" ingredients, none of them necessitate popping to yr local Hippie emporium, and none of them take forever to cook.

I'm not pretending anything will rid you of Liver Cancer, nor will they help you win Master Chef, but they may point you in the right direction at times of trouble, when you need the things in the cupboard to turn up trumps.

i'm back

2007-06-22T17:23:00.000+01:00

hello, i'm back in the uk,the journey took 2 days and was eventful but i can't be bothered to explainit all now.

i am enjoying access to high speed internet

ladies and gentlemen, it's the fucking DISKETTES http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lrJKEOFycg

more kampot

2007-06-11T09:57:00.000+01:00

kampot is dead, dead hot.

i decided that when i return people will take a look at my lack of tan and ask what i've been doing for the past 8 months (cos of course all there is to do here is sun-bathe). So now that i am OFFICIALLY on holiday i decided to take myself and my book (a pilfered cop of 'Guns, Germs and Steel: a history of everyone for the past 13,000 years' by Jared Diamond) down to the riverside, to sit in the grass and bake myself.

i was put out somewhat by the appearance of an aging local man who felt the need to tell me it was hot (he pointed at the sun and his head and said 'g'dal' - 'hot') so i nodded and replied 'g'dal na!' (very hot) and returned to my book. Then he kept trying to get my attention and repeating that it was hot. So, when I tired of agreeing with him, i tried to ignore him and continued to read my book. I was again put of by him spitting in the ground near me. this spitting seemed to pick up in regularity, and i noticed chatter, but i tried not to look up as i didn;'t want to get involved in a conversation about the weather (or possibly my wife/girlfriend/prospects thereof). Eventually temptation was too much and 8 or 9 Khmer guys were just sitting around watching me. I tried to continue reading but found it difficult knowing so many eyes were on me. eventually they left.

I got back into reading my book when I heard 'hello,sir!' which is the commonest war cry of the motodop. Eyes down to continue reading. 'hello, sir!' again, but this time from a lesser distance. I'd decided that i couldn't ignore this guy so I looked up and said hello. He had a book with him and asked if he could talk with me. This is almost certainly the sign of an English student. I decided to indulge him, it turns out he was reading a book for his class called 'Cry Freedom' Which I've never read but seemed to be about an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa who (i think) was beaten to death in the cells. I asked the young Khmer Guy - named Vanna- if he knew about South Africa. He didn't even know where it was. so I gave him a vague background and tried to explain apartheid. He asked me to help explain some of the words in the book and I tried, but explaining what a 'Liberal' is to someone over here is pretty difficult. These guys exist in a quasi-anrachist, ultra-conservative, pseudo-democracy.

So to explain to him the conventional meaning of a Liberal when he live sin a society where you can do anything you want, even though elected officials, and officially oppointed judges have made laws which you may glady break, unless a police officer decides they want to arrest you either for breaking a law or not breaking a law, but only so they can exploit you for money and without your possesions until you pay up, and in a country where many things which are not against the law are big taboos.. well.. i found it difficult.

He told me about a pop concert that was happening in the town that very night. So i sais I'd go along and maybe I'd see him there. The concert was a free promotional thing dubbed the "Anchor Rave Tour" (Anchor is one of the most popular beers here, along with Angkor..) featuring singer from Phnom Penh! Wow!

The venue was one side of the main round-a-bout in town, they just took over one side of the street. When I turned up a typically dull khmer pop singer was onstage with the bargain bin choreographed dancers behind her. The scene itself was far more engaging. Dozens of food stalls had appeared, even an ice cream van! there were people with some sort of ballooon-bursting competition stalls, and there was a general carnival atmosphere. Though in a reserved khmer way. After one pop performer the compéres got some people out of the crowd (some boys, some girls, though of course the girls took a lot of coaxing on to the stage, being considerably more shy than the males) to do 'western-style disco-dancing' in a competition. the winners (or maybe all competitors- i couldn't identify any winners) received 2 anchor glasses and an anchor t-shirt. each!

I left the pop concert early as I was so tired i could barely stand up.

and now I am staying on a spare bad at a bar called Comfortably Numb.
See you soon kiddy winks!

Kampot - Sihanoukville -Kampot

2007-06-06T09:31:00.000+01:00

So I finally got out of Phnom Penh. Jake and I decided to head for Kampot, a small French town on an Estuary.

When We arrived we chose a random Guesthouse and got pretty lucky cos the rooms were cheap and good, and the food was VERY cheap and very good also.
Walking around the town we soon discovered that a western person in this town is still something to be gawped at. Every child and many adults to would say hello to us. There were no motodops but people who were working with strange psuedo-cyclo bicycle-trailer contraption smiled and waved.

In the market we soon found that people we much less chatty than in Phnom Penh. Normally we'd have a little play with the people on the stalls,, chat in Khmer and/or English. But the people were not able to speak English and apparently a little too intimidated to speak Khmer. Nevertheless everyone was friendly enough and the one time we wanted something we couldn't find a woman spoke to a man who spoke to another man, who came over to us with his very meagre English skills which were far outweighed by his eagerness to help and eventually, we managed to find some Chess pieces for $2. (since then I have cut some ripped jeans in to shorts and used a marker pen to make a roll-up chess board- or chess table cloth i suppose)

Kampot is quite a pretty town, many of the buildings are run down after years of neglect (The KR held out in this area for some time and even abducted tourists as late as 1994 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2235750.stm) but it still rather picturesque.
Jake and I both fell in love with an art-deco cinema and were desperate to find out more about it. a quest of 2 or 3 days essentially led to us discovering that the place has only recently been leased to a company in Phnom Penh for TWENTY YEARS. The dream of The Groove Palais is no more.

There are 3 bridges crossing the river all quite close together, The New Bridge, The Old Bridge, and The Railway Bridge. We've been back and forth across the river a few times, either cycling around just for the hell of it or to visit a place called Bhodi Villa, which is a Guesthouse/bar just up the river. It's nice and relaxed with good views and friendly people.
Crossing the railway bridge was pretty intense. I'm not the biggest fan of heights, so when we got to the edge of the bridge and i saw that it was quite literally made of railway tracks and bugger all else there was no way I wanted to cross. Jake said he would've had he not had his bike with him. I reckon that makes him crazy.
It wasn't long before we realised there was a separate walk way going along one side of the bridge and crossed there. The water was a LONG way down. I noticed cow shit on the walk way.

Our reconnaissance missions to the train station offered nothing by way of train times or prices. So a our prefered method of transport to the coast was no go. We had resigned ourselves to a shared taxi but a Motodop hustled us for a coach. i turned out there was a new coach service provided by Sorya Bus Co. (Phnom Penh) and it would be cheaper than the taxi, guaranteed seats WITH aircon. The icing on the cake was that as it was a new service we got tickets numbers 000001 and 000002.

Sihanoukville.

Aggressive motodops,

typical 'crazy' partying tourists,

dirty old men with women unfortunate enough to be in such a precarious financial situation impacted by a generally less than salubrious social standing that they have to suffer the fat sweaty balding deluded perverts slobbering over them

everyone seemed on the take.

on my first day I saw a needle on the beach (and more since)

I had 2 pairs of flip-flops stolen. It's not that they were taken that bothered me, it's being left with no shoes and having to walk in to town with no shoes on just to buy another pair. only to have that pair taken again. with the staff denying any knowledge of their disappearance even though one of them was WEARING them.

I didn't see much of the town, it's spread out and difficult to navigate. and on the occasions i did go anywhere I was harassed by motodops, shouted at when i politely refused to use their service, harassed further by pimps, and seemed virtually unable to purchase anything without someone trying to bleed me dry.

The bets event in Sihanoukville was probably getting lost after we'd been to the market. Assuming the road we were on would eventually lead us to the street we wanted. walking for miles, turning down a dirt road, jumping in the back of a work truck simply to get wherever the hell it was that we were going a little more quickly. arriving at some village, following the general direction to the sea, passing an abandoned go-kart track, crossing a river by the airport, fording a paddy field, and eventually winding up on the beach approximately 500m the other side of our guesthouse than we had anticipated arriving from.

I was trying not to each in Sihanoukville, partly because the food all looked so unappetizing, and partly because the prices were extortionate. Far more than I've become used to paying, and with very little variation in peoples menus. Eventually I decided it was stupid and decided to go for some vegetable fried rice, reasoning that it was relatively cheap, nutritious, and tasty. I got a small plate or rice with perhaps 1/4 of a carrot, and maybe 2 long beans finely sliced. Not what one would normally receive in this part of the world when ordering a rice and vegetable dish. Since this morning (ie the morning after) I've felt pretty ill, have provided physical evidence that SOMETHING not right has entered my system, and spent most of today in bed.

This morning we got a taxi back to Kampot cos it's just a much more enjoyable place. Again the guy from the guesthouse in Sihanoukville who offered to arrange the taxi service for us took us for utter morons. Told us bare-faced lies, but with little option other than waiting another day we took his "brother's" (he was Khmer, his brother was Chinese) and have each sworn to not reveal how much we paid. it's an embarrassment.

I hope all this doesn't sound to negative, on the whole I've been enjoying Cambodia hugely and think every day how privileged I am to have the chance to be here as an outsider. Having a red passport is incredibly useful.

Only two more weeks then there will be no more tales of SE Asia. oh dear..

SARC, and the damned place I call home

2007-05-16T13:14:00.000+01:00

This is a post I just sent out on Myspace. The thought of returning to the UK really makes me unhappy, something stirs inside me, and I can feel tears welling up. There are people there I love so much, the music I love generally comes from there. And I was built there. I came out of the place but I feel very little other than animosity for the place in general. hopefully I'll see all you good people soon, and before long, we can destroy what we know and hate, or you will all join me outside of that soul-destroying lump of rock.

Show you're in love with the world
x

(maybe i'll go get drunk now)

********************************************************
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sorry for the spam guys. but i am coming home soon and it is exactly this sort of state oppression that I hate and makes me want to leave the UK forever.

the cops are brutal, power-crazy, and they have no rights to conduct themselves the way they so often do, this is exactly why new laws are passed WITHOUT public consent, or even consultation, to give them 'legal rights' to silence all dissidents.

I know what I sound like, but the government is getting more and more out of control. I know many of you may not agree with my views, or the stance SARC represents, but we should not pretend that we are free anymore. we should not suffer in silence. We need to support each other in what we know is right, and we cannot let our freedom of speech be stolen by an ever more controlling government, and their ever more ridiculous specialist branches. Down with thought police, now and forever.

Ray x

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MAY DAY (photos!)

2007-05-11T12:41:00.000+01:00

(this is totally unedited. spellceck it yrself kids. also the photos aren't integrated cos i'm not one of those blokes wot makes newspapers look nice and that... sorry)

As it was May Day and most of us had the day off, we decided to attempt to have some non-pecuniary fun. The idea we had come up with was a bike ride. As there is not really anywhere at a decent distance to ride too (within reason for 3 untrained cyclists) we had to find something to do in Phnom Penh. Ariella mentioned a book of Architecture of Phnom Penh and it was decided that we would find a few of the places for a close up look.

When the day arrived we were greeted with a decent belt of rain, so it was decided to postpone for a couple of hours. Instead of setting off at 9 as planned, w\it was nearly midday by the time we set off (I myself armed with a peanut butter & banana baguette, 2 bottles of water, and some sunscreen). The architecture book was pretty useless in that it had NO maps to show where the buildings were in the city. And the place picked out by Ariella- some sort of church- didn't even have a street number listed. Somehow we got the idea into our heads that it was down by the Tonle Bassac (the Bassac River meets the Tonle Sap near the Quay in Phnom Penh, Then they both run into the Mekong- I think). On the way we decided to stop to look at anything interesting along the way. The 1st sight of interest was the National Archives and Bibliotheque, not being able to read Khmer or French I couldn't figure out the passage on the wall, all I remember is that it ended with 'Toujour's.'' I was mildly amused by what appeared to be a coat of arms-style motif on the national archive which featured Buddha- definitely a touch of East meets West going on there.

We continued on, down Riverside and headed for the Buddhist institute as we had heard that this architecturally splendoured church was just past it. When we got to the rather opulent Buddhist centre we noticed the Khmer Kite museum and went into the compound for a nose around. The place looked pretty much abandoned, there was a stage with an old set on it, a plaster of Paris copy of a sculpture and even though there were a couple of cars parked inside there was no sign of life. We found a replica of Angkor Watt and I had my photo taken in what was meant to be a King Kong-esque attack pose. (PHOTO) We continued on and found the room with the kites (locked by bicycle locks) and in the window a poster advertising an event from 2004/5 (can't quite remember but a couple of years ago anyway). We walked around looking for some easy way to enter but couldn't find any. Inside there was just bits of paper on the floor, the fountain was not functioning but still filled with water and a layer of sediment on the bottom.

We left the Kite museum and continued to search for the church. We rode up the side of the Buddhist institute, the magnificence of which was in direct contrast with the shanty town that seems to run long the side of it. We rode along some more til we saw a sign saying it was the institute of fine arts. We entered and found an extremely run down coach park with half a dozen or so we- and probably functioning tour buses. We continued around the building and quickly came to realise that it was in a serious state of disrepair. We found an entrance and by it a man lying in a hammock- we asked him if we could enter and he said yes. There were a few more people hanging around but no one really took any notice.

Once inside we found puppets from the traditional shadow theatre, they must have been for sale at some point as some of them still had prices on ($120, $180), we also saw some stretched and dried animal skins just lying around- The smell could be detected even over the general hum of detritus and rat piss. This building once more featured an indoor water feature. all kinds of rubbish was floating in it and it appeared to be stocked with catfish- I've no idea how long they could have been there nor how long they are likely to survive in that state.

We made our way up to different floors choosing different paths- using the back stage area or different 'public access' flights of stairs.. The vast majority of the way was hampered by collections of building matter that had one way or another become dislodged and impeded our progress. Some of the stairwells were scary stuff as the banisters were long gone, and when treading with crushed brick and rat shit underfoot it is easy to imagine how one might find themselves loosing their footing and impaling themselves on a nice rusty piss streaked spike several storeys below.

At one point we stopped to admire some Pornography that had been sketched onto the wall. (Photo) and in a number of other places some Khmer had been written on the wall. In one place some poor English accompanied by a rough sketch seemed to be implying something about the Queen of Cambodia. Her tits were out.

Our exploring was cut short when 2 dogs made it quite clear that they were not happy for us to be there, they followed us down some stairs and we had time to open a couple of boxes labeled 'Royal Cambodian Ballet'' (I've no Idea why this was in English as opposed to Khmer of French- but that's how I remember it.. perhaps it actually read 'Royale ballet du Cambodge'' I'll have to check the photos) and in one of them found some sort of papier mache Badger/Bear head. I was intimidated by the dogs that now numbered 3 and we'd been there for a while so we decided to have lunch sitting outside under cover of shade.

a REAL NEW blog

2007-04-26T13:45:00.000+01:00

Tuesday 24th April 2007

So this is my first new new blog since about January. I'm sure an awful lot has happened - some of it may even have been interesting- but I can't really remember what happened when right now. So I think I'll just give a basic outline of what's going on nowadays.

Some time- possibly back in march- I decamped from Mondulkiri to Phnom Penh. Mondulkiri was alright, but now I’m back in a city it’s hard to believe that I lived in a mud soaked and/or dust-strewn backwater. I have been basking in the delights of Indian food, Chinese food, bread, baked beans, and sometimes even draught beer and air conditioning!

At the moment I have 3 jobs- my main work is for a graphics shop (http://www.chakravisions.com) where I sort of bugger about a bit with Photoshop. My 2nd job is flyering for Sunrise Guesthouse where I am living at the moment (I even have my own fan, toilet and shower!), and last but not least I do about one shift a week at The Magic Sponge which is a bar on the Lakeside, popular with ex-pats and backpackers alike- even a few locals come in to use the pool table.

I am sitting at the Chakra Visions shop as I type this- totally exhausted from working in the Magic Sponge last night. I don't have set hours because the sponge has no set opening hours (''6pm til bloody late") but Dan (the owner) said it'd be quiet and I should be able to close around midnight... I left at about 3:30am, only to be woken by some random phone call at 8am, that was it for slumber and I started work at 10 am. Tired...

SO what's happened? mmm It was New Year* here recently, which essentially means running water fights and talcum powder fights. And dancing in the streets around pot plants. Phnom Penh was deserted as everyone goes back top their hometown for new years and the majority of people in Phnom Penh have migrated from the provinces.
On the last official day of new years (it's officially 3 days long but parties started up a good 2 weeks in advance) I found myself sweating and exhausted in the guesthouse, I had worked til 5am in the sponge the night before but couldn't sleep cos it was too hot. So at about 11 I was talking to another guy at the guesthouse, he complained about the heat and I told him I knew of a place that had air-con and draught beer. After a quick shower each we hopped on a moto to The Pickled Parrot, which I forgot to mention also has a swanky pool table. After a few drink we decided we should fetch other people from the guesthouse to enjoy the aircon. On the way back we went past Watt Phnom where there were a few people hanging around, maybe a bit of water being flung about but nothing special. In the time it took to gather 4 people from the guesthouse and jump in a tuk-tuk Watt Phnom had exploded, hundreds or thousands of people were cramming the place, the streets were filled with motos and tuk-tuks. We decided to get some cold air, some cold beer, and some food before joining in the fun. An hour or so later we headed back to watt Phnom, stopping off at a shop to buy large bottles of water on the way. We each bought 2 litres and poked a whole through the lid so the bottles could be used a water pistols. Upon arriving at watt Phnom some people obviously thought we were bemused tourists and delighted in the opportunity to cover us with water and/or talcum powder, so as a united force we opened fire on everyone around us. ha harrrrrr
There were people at the watt selling talcum powder for 1000r (about 13p) so I bought some and lobbed it around a bit. People actually come up to you and rub it in your face- it's all in good humour. That was one of the most amazing things I've seen in Phnom Penh.

In the New Year I have taken to riding around the city on a push bike. I've been meaning to get one for ages. Using one makes the city seem much closer together- I can get from the lakeside to the riverside in a few minutes, pitsaa thmei is just up the roads as is the sorya centre (the western-style mall with a roller-skating rink at the top!). Also it means I get to know the streets a little better AND I get out in the sun. Until cycling I spent most of my time indoors, and travel was done on moto, which gets you there quicker so less exposure to the sun. Also, because the motodop needs paying you can’t just go down random streets and ride around for a while to see where you end up. This does happen sometimes but that's generally frustrating cos it means the motodop is lost.

Books: Urban Grimshaw and the shed crew.
Written by a self-important, big mouth bigot. It was an okay read about some kids born into a life of drink and drugs on rough housing estates in Leeds, but the guy who write it is a prick.

Mr. Nice - Howard Marks
Never read it before, it was more of less what you might expect from such a book-confusing in parts because of all the names and places and deals and whatnot. Howard marks also seems to feel the need to lie about his drug of choice saying that it is a ''beneficial herb with absolutely no negative side effects'.' The man has such a strong case for the decriminalisation of marijuana I've really no idea why he felt it necessary to tell porkis. We all know that smoking ANYTHING AT ALL is inherently bad for the user's health. And While Marijuana may appear demonstrably less addictive than nicotine, and may be provide relief for sufferers of chronic (no pun intended) arthritis, MS and other illnesses, as well as providing recreation for others, it IS dangerous to the user's health. Until the spokespeople in the pro-weed camp live in his real world they are not going to sound much more convincing than those who claim that decriminilisation/legalisation of marijuana will lead to the downfall of society.

Viz
''Remove head lice cheaply and easily by putting onion juice on your head. When the lice rub their eyes they will simply fall off!''

Started reading catch 22 but it doesn't seam so great.
Re-read The Subterraneans and Pic by Jack Kerouac, also bought a Keruoac Biography.
Read some trash called ''Idiots in the works'' nice idea about a man's theory about tin-foil, poorly executed though.

Also read a book by Jeremy Paxman about being English. I was surprised that he came out as less of a knob in the book that I've found him on TV. Some pretty spurious reasoning but on the whole more-or less acceptable.

*I've no idea why people continue to refer to it as ''Khmer New Year'' I find it sort of patronising: I understand Chinese New Year being called ''Chinese New Year'' When we're in Cambodia, and even ''International New Years day'' on 1st Jan. But I would never back home call it ''english/british/european/christian/business new year'' because that's the New Year I'm used to. I saw some people who run a kids education program get the kids to write happy New Year cards. They were in English which makes sense because that's part of the point of the program, to teach the kids English. But I don't understand why they told the kids to write ''happy Khmer new year'' like celebrating their traditional new year is odd in some way. I mean, apart from teaching the kids English - the profoundly imperialist language that is my first - and only- language, I think it's just too much to shape the kids minds in this way. It’s not Khmer New Year in Cambodia, its New Year!

a little delayed..

2007-04-23T07:20:00.000+01:00

Phnom Penh - Koh Kong (Friday 5th January 2007)

So I'm in a taxi and the 1st thing I notice is that there is a VCD machine with an LCD display. Cambodia is a cheap country but even so that's a swanky piece of kit for a car. It's playing karaoke of course. One song features a group of men and a group of women dancing, and I suppose the main purpose if each group is singing to their counterpart. I have no idea as the only words I manage to decipher are "I"/"me" and "woman". Anyway, I find the dance the girls are doing charmingly attractive and even sexy, though it is not in the least sexual.

The next thing I notice as we head off is - I think at the time - a good thing. There are a total of 6 people in this taxi, a Toyota Camry comfortably, and advisedly accommodates 5 people, but it is common practice for 8 or 9 to fit. A bonus I think, there's the driver, and a father with his small child in the front, the kid is sitting on his lap so it's hardly an extra person at all. In the back there's me at one end, the guy at the other end has a mobile phone and everyone knows it. He annoys me 1st. Soon though, he is beaten by the guy in between us. I can only describe him as a "YOUTH." He has a flash mobile phone on which he was watching some god-awful Khmer pop videos - no doubt these were "cool" videos as people were shown that "looked like bands" though the music sounded very similar to other Khmer pop music, the videos to which invariably involve a boy, a girl, motos, and either a beach or a shopping centre. Oh, and someone crying.
[Pete Waterman says there are only 4 pop songs "I love you", "I hate you", "Go away", and "Come back"]

Anyway, he starts fannying around with his phone whilst the other guy is shouting down his mobile - as a Khmer is wont to do when using a mobile telecommunications device - the VCD is still playing (3 songs on repeat) and the kid in the front is playing with the little toy keyboard his dad bought off a street peddler before we got into the taxi, so it's something of a cacophony. Then the "YOUTH" starts singing along to one of his karaoke videos, whilst simultaneously taking up more space on my side of the back seat. This is about when he secures poll position in the annoyance league. Happily, at some point a radio is turned on (I think instead of the VCD) and although it does nothing at all to reduce the noise, the DJ announces a request "Mouse Likes Rice." This song was made (in)famous on an earlier taxi trip (Phnom Penh to Mondulkiri) when the taxi driver had the CD case but no CD. The title ("Mice Likes Rice" (sic)) and cover of the ripped market version our taxi driver had was enough for us to talk it into a classic. This request at least confirmed it's popularity. It's also when I find out it's a Khmer pop love song in English about a girl who loves a boy "as the mouse loves rice." So I'm happy for a while.

That is until the "YOUTH" falls asleep and insists on using me as a pillow. He turns out to be a noisy sleeper. All kinds of noisy emissions, though none that I have any words for. All very unpleasant when gushed into one's ear by a stranger whilst stuck to the door of a taxi, I can assure you.

Soon after this unpleasantness begins, I also notice that as well as my hearing and sense of touch being violated by this "YOUTH", another sense is being affronted. Yes, my olfactory appendage soon senses an affront to it's very existence, a mockery of it's intended purpose if you will (y'know breathing in fresh flowers after the rain, catching the smell of fresh bread from a country bakery in the morning, the scent of a beautiful girl's hair...) by way of the unnerving stench emanating from my taxi bunk companion. O f course, the smell causes me to take surreptitious looks at this "YOUTH" even though he is asleep, you never can be too careful, so I peek out of the corners of my eyes and only then is it that I realise he has the kind of acne that would be funny were it not so painfully and unbelievably true.

The state of the "YOUTH's" appearance, the smell he's sharing with me, as well as the moist warmth he forces upon me - in his changing sleeping positions his arm pit is pressed firmly against me "This "YOUTH" has it all!" I think when I've added hyperactive sweat glands to my mental list - causes me to make further sneaky peeks at the sensory fun park/disaster area/ghost train.. one, two, three... I don't know how many peeks I took but at some point I did notice something else - dandruff! The fairy on the xmas tree! The icing on the cake! The glitter on the card!(!!!) The "YOUTH" made me ITCH ALL OVER!!

So I suppose the ride is going okay, the time is ticking by without boredom setting in or even having chance to before I discover something awful and new about my friend.
Soon we stop, and Businessy McBusinessman gets out - the 2nd stop that seems to have been scheduled just for him - and then returns with 3 fucking cockerels! That's when I realise that some of the noises I have been hearing that I'd assumed were some sort of rattle somewhere on the car were in fact coming from one of the woven bags at the businessman's feet - 3 fucking fighting cocks! That's why there's no other passengers - Bastard McFuckCunt on his mobile phone must have bought up the extra space for his boys. Prick. So now there's 6 people and 6 fighting cocks. Great. At some point we stop again, there's some exchange and I lose count of how many birds are aboard, somewhere between 6 and 9 (at the end of the journey I think I saw 7 being unloaded). So I try to get my head around this. it's hard. I imagine asking a taxi driver in the UK "Er, yea, how much to take me, 4 people, half a dozen fighting cocks, and a bit of luggage to the border mate?"
Needless to say Arsehole McBusinessWank returns to top of the hatred pops.

At the 1st ferry we get to (there're a few bridges under construction on the route so we get 4 ferries across maybe 200-400m wide rivers) I get out to stretch my legs. I notice shortly after that a cockerel is standing on the driver's seat "Great," I think "that useless blood junky fuckface has somehow managed to let out of his "investments" get out of it's transport thingy. Fucking idiot!"
Later on I get back in to the taxi and it seems that I have got it all very wrong! No, no, no... the fighting cock did not escape, he let I tout, and 2 others. Y'know, just to hang out in the cab, with a small child present, 3 of them! Highly proud creatures, on a bumpy road, in a hot car, probably scared. Fuck's sake.
So basically I'm shitting myself the rest of the way, I'm sure one of those feathered fuckers has got his mean, beady eye on me. I have difficulty reading my book a) because I'm trying to keep an eye on 3 birds at the same time, and b) the angle I have chosen to read my book at was not chosen for it being the easiest position to read the book, rather the position that offers most facial protection should one or more of the cockerels attempt to savage me.
[Cockerel in Khmer is 'Mo-an']

This story continues... though I have run out of energy right now.... Tune in at a later date for more unbelievable tales of border crossings, taxi driver's dodgy deals, and the bonus taxi jack 'treated' me to as a reward for spending 4 days on the road......

BLOG PART II
Thursday(?) 12-01-2007

Today I saw 3 elephants and a snake. the snake was red and a bit black and it scared Sarim. She got all excited and kept pointing at it, I’m not entirely sure what she expected it to do, or me to do. I just stood around and watched it make it's way out of the garden. Sarim was convinced it was heading for the toilet, now I have never claimed to be an expert in all things snakey, but I'm reasonably sure few snake-like aminals (yea, I said 'aminals') are toilet trained.

How many snakes you seen today, huh? I bet NONE! and if you say you seen more than me I will call you a FILTHY ROTTEN LIAR!!

THOUGH: I think it is time to cut my beard off, a Finnish guy was in the bar yesterday and asked if I had any Ozric Tentacles stuff on my laptop.

barapaba

2006-12-29T04:45:00.000Z

there's not a hell of a lot going on in senmonorom at the moment.
the orean christans were still here yesterday, i've lost count of how many days they've been here and how many little po pconcerts they've been having at the top of the hill. i considered going to the one last night but thought i'd be much better equiped to cope with it with beer inside me. A couple of days ago i moved into a khmer house on the edge of town so i can't drink at night if i want to drive a moto home. for this reason i stayed at the bar reading instead of joining my god-fearing bretheren.

last night it was hella windy. so windy my window was sucked open half a dozen times. in the night i heard a little cat voice miowing constantly. i decided to go looking for it and discovered a teeny tiny kitten stuck on a joist below my bedroom floor. i tried to prize the critter off but s/he just dug his/her claws into the wood. the kitten was in a difficult to reach place so i could only really rach it with one or the other hadn at a time. i stuggled for a little while and then noticed Sarim's (mabe 15 year old) daughter appear behind me. she quickly scrabbled up a piece of wood, grabbed the kitten and ran off into the house. leaving me feeling like a useless fool. at least it meant i could go back to sleep in peace and not worry about the teeny tiny kitten.

at the moment there's not much happenign with ELIE as we're waiting for paperwork from the government. classic beauracracy. we need signatures on 3 pieces of paper. the guy from the tourist board said we needed someone from the fire dept to sign before he could sign the 3rd paper. he also refused to sign the 2nd piece - which he had no problem with at all- until the 3rd piece was signed by the other guy. utterly pointless.

that's about all my news so far.

winterval

2006-12-27T03:36:00.000Z

For Xmas we were given 60 or so Moonies - Korean Christians, complete with guitars.
Yesterday they walked up the street from their hotel, singing and clapping, up to the traffic island where they gathered and continued to sing and clap.

No one knows why they came to the far reaches of Cambodia to be christian when they could easily have done it at home one assumes.

In recent news Jack is a ruthless cheat at scrabble using a cambination of illegal words, mis-spellings, and diversionary tactics. oh, and he makes up his own rules.

finally

2006-12-21T07:53:00.000Z

Weds 20th dec

one thing i have been doing a lot of is reading. last time i was in phnom penh i picked up at least 10 books, i've read most of them. the few i haven't read yet are pretty heavygoing and i can't really face them at the moment (one is about Kirkegaard, one is 'Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, one is something by Isaac Bashevas Singer), so i picked up a book lying around the bar: The Art Of Travelling by Alain De Botton. Now i probably wouldn't have bothered with such a title, but I'm to some extent acquainted with De Botton's work so i had a look. The book is ace. Each chapter focusses on a place (or places) with 'guides' who have been artists, philosophers, lecturers and so on. And of course all the places feature De Botton's 1st impressions and how his perceptions were altered by considering what other people had said about the same (or similar) places. It is essentially a philosphical guide which can help us see new things and find beauty in what surrounds us every day, or can help to appreciate new things by learning skills which can help us decipher new scenes more efficiently so it is possible to appreciate something different rather than simply being overloaded with information.

I really enjoyed this book, and it actually made me think. De Botton's ideas are separate from those of our 'guides' and he tells us what effect they had on him, if any. one chapter even led me to sketch a picture.

Recently Read:
Pie Any Means Necessary - Biotic Baking Brigade: it's basically about people who have had pies thrown at them, by whom, and why. Also recipies for vegan pies (to eat or throw).

(can't remember the title) - Iain M Banks: short stories, i like iain banks' stuff and jack talked me into some of his sci-fi. he's still a good writer, i might even check out oneof his 'Culture' novels.

American Hardcore: A Tribal History - Steven Blush: i couldn't resist the cover- it had some singer with blood over his face. The writer seemed like a bit of an idiot. he repeated himself, some sentances made no sense, and he just seemed full of shit. I may be guilty of all the above but i don't have a proof-reader and i'm not charging owt. nor am i claiming to know anything about anything. If his version of the truth is anywhere near accurate then there were a lot more nazis in the (US) hardcore scene then I was aware, also homophobia was rampant. Before reading this book i had never considered Misfits a hardcore band... I still don't think they are. Nevertheless it was good to get some insight into the heritage of Hardcore, even if the author did try to playdown the fact that Minor threat were as important as they were. The book did draw my attention to some other bands, and even some documentaries that i may try to track down when i get back to the uk.

A memoir of Iris Murdoch - John Bayley: I'd never heard of this woman who apprently wrote 27 novels. Her husband wrote the book about her and their life together while she was suffering the effects of reasonably advanced Alzheimers. It was a good read, even if i felt by the end of it that neither he nor she were people that i would particularly like. They express some views that I am very much opposed to. still, it's nice to know that some people have interesting and fulfiled lives - even if i don't like those people.

A Drink With Shane MacGowan - Victoria Mary Claker & Shane MacGowan: I never got into the pogues. This book has some interesting stories but the man comes across as a racist, idiot, homophobe, and megolomaniac. She seems deeply inlove with him so i can only assume that she sees something other than these attributes or she has some masochistic mechanism within that leads to her finding the above 'qualities' desireable.

Sex Slaves - by some woman who works at Birmingham (or was it Aston?) Uni: Excellent book about people-trafficking in asia (mostly girls and young women), gives an insight into the inner working of the sex industry in different parts of asia. the lies girls and their families are fed to lead them into the industry, the coniditions their kept in, the debts that are rigged against them, they way they'rre treated by punters, the demographic of the punters. what various goverments are (not) doing about the situations, what various NGOs ae trying to do and some STI statistics. There's interviews with prostitutes, with 'Mama Sans' (who run brothels) and even a couple with punters. It explains the view of women and of prostitutes in the different cultures. At times it does read a little like the author is very angry with men in general so it may be a little difficult for some men to read- some blanket statements which are quite unfair, but at the same time understandable given what the author witnessed, and what millions of young women, and young girls (pre-teen) are forced into. Essential reading no matter what continent you are on, what gender, or sexual preference.

News about the edge of the world when I can bring myself to collate the information.

Ps
if anyone comes across a copy of 'Jack Frusciante Has Left The Band' by Enrico Brizzi feel free to send it to ELIE, PO BOX 753, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

connection sucks

2006-12-16T08:13:00.000Z

It's been a while since i've posted. the internet in Senmonorom has been RUBBISH for the past few weeks. there's only one place to get online. the guy who runs it doesn't bother opening a lot of the time. and when he does open the connection often crashes for long periods of time. right now i am sitting in the only place with a connection and the guy isn't here! so i'm writing this waiting for him to show up so i can get online.

I can't remember what I last posted and i don't want to repeat myself so in this post i'm only going to say one thing that i know i haven'tmentioned in the blog. all my other antics will be included in the next post which should be in a day or two. maybe even later today- who knows?

SO.

We've been trying to get money out of the RSPA for a new truck. this might sound a bit swish and perhaps peripheral to the work we do, but without a truck we simply cannot get to the villages where the elephants are. We do havea truck but it is unreliable and relatively high maintenance. Just last week i had to go to Phnom Penh to fetch a part. It was a $28 part and it cost £20 just to get there and back, not to mention a guestguese and motos around the city. also it meant i was away from senmonorom for 2 days. the return journey took ELEVEN HOURS.#
Anwyay, the rspca have been a little reluctant to give us money. 1st they pretty much didn't believe we existed. then they said they'd send a guy from thailand to come and look at what we're doing before they would give us any money - i thought this was great and meant in effect that we were sure to get the money, otherwise they wouldn't bother wasting the money to send an elephant specialist to us. Then we got an email saying this wasn't going to happen.

INSTEAD they want to pay for us to go to thailand and check out an established elephant project their! We can learn from these guys and ask em questions and hints, and explain more fully what we're doing. our travel and accomodation is paid for - i'm not sure if that includes the visas or not, but either way it's a pretty cheap trip! we've been invited- at a time convenient for us- to stay for a week or two. this should be completely awesome. we're very excited about this for a whole host of reasons. it'll be very good for the NGO and it will help us with a number of connections. the more we show our collective face the easier things will become in the future. Also it means that i will beable to add to the0 hours i spent in thailand on the way here. woo.
also, jack has a puppy. his name is Gopher, and he's pretty much a little bastard.

PS
all the dogs in Cambodia have really curly tails.

Quickie in phnom penh

2006-12-04T06:06:00.000Z

I'm stuck in phnom Penh for qa little while. trying to sort out a new visa. i'm not going to bang on about the beauracracy of it all, though i will say that controlling the movement of people is contradictory to implicit human rights.

so we arrived in phnom penh on... wednesday i think, it was a reasonable journey if hot and dusty. i don't really remember the 1st day or 2- i didn't go out or anything i was just wiped out.

Friday night was the Elsewhwere party, it's a monthly event at some former french colonial mansion. it seemed very much like a place to be seen. i wasn't very comfortable with the atmosphere and decided I had 3 choices a)be anti-social, leave early abandoning my friends b) stick around and try not to let my misewry affect others c) get fucking drunk.... So every time i went to the bar i ordered 2 drinks - Gin and Pineapple juice goes down so very well on a warm evening. Eventually I tagged along with some poeple i barely knew to The Heart Of Darkness- this place is renowned by everyone who has been through Phnom Penh. it was alright but sort of reminded me a of a no-holds barred school disco. I sort of broke up a fight between 2 prostitutes. I told them that if they wanted to beat shit out of each other they should at least wait til i'd gotten my drink from the bar, no need for me to spill booze just cos they want to tear each other apart.

next day i was feeling the burn. severely. FAR TOO MUCH DRINK. i went to visit jack at his guesthouse where i fell asleep on a sofa, the guesthouse has a deck oonto the lake and i was EATEN ALIVE by mosquitos, i', covered in baits and look like i either have severe exzma or a severe smack habbit. either way, not V. attractive.

today i am waiyting for my visa and should hopefully be opff to SenMonorom early tomorrow morning, i'm really not lookinmg forward to the journey packed into a truck with a load of randoms. gah.

on the plus side i bought 2 new shirts today- mainl;y because i have run out of clean shirts and have no time for laundry. thery cost me $1.25 for both. not bad at all.

I was gfoing to send people postcards n shit but i forgot to bring addresses to town with me. and there's no post back in mondulkiri. so no one's getting anything

OH! ODD THING! i was browsing some CD stores in the Sorya Centre (the sole shopping mall in central Phnom Penh) and found a double CD of the new Camera Obscura album! i was dead excited cos i only have it on vinyl and hence couldn't copy it to my laptop. i was extra excited cos there's twice as many tracvks on the cd1 as there are on the vinyl album PLUS a whole other cd. i asked how much and the woman said two dollars. she must've seen the shock on my face cos she went on to explain that the readon it was $2 was because it was 2 cds... she was sorry it was expensive.... double album for a quid???! yes please! then when i listened to the 1st ced, it turns out the 2nd half is a fucking snow patrol album!! fucking snow patrol! i have no idea why. i saw all the song titles i didn't know and thought i had a load of b-sides or something but no, pissing snow patrol. i haven't had the3 heart to try the 2nd cd yet...

right, i'm not sure what i'm doing for the rest of the day but i think i'm going to try to find someone to share the back seat of a car to phnom penh with...

Thanksgiving!

2006-11-27T09:19:00.000Z

friday 24th
last night was my 1st ever Thanksgiving. So far as i could tell it was like any other western holiday. a bunch of people in a room eat and drinking and talking, with perhaps a fomral nod in the direction of the origin of the festivity. Our hosts were Christians and went to the trouble of explaining to the non-american guests (ie the majority) what Thanksgiving was about. The folks leaving europe to escape persecution, arriving on the east coast of the US with no food or idea of how to work the new foods in the new land. The native people offered help to the newcomers showing them the techniques that had been perfected and showing them the good land to work, and then how after the 1st harvest the newcomers ahd a big feast and were thankful to god for what they had been given. I'm sure they were very thankful indeed to their god, but i couldn't help but notice that no one mentioned thanking the native people who did all the work. hrm..
anyway, the thanksgiving do was alright, i tried to avoid too much conversation cos, well basically, i didn't know most of the peopel and didn't feel like i had the energy to plough on with small talk.
After everyone had filled their bellies with many kinds of food, a little meeting was held and from the discussion it seems that the Phnonh here are in pretty deep shit, the rice crops are pretty mucha complete failure this year and in 2 months or so the situation could be very serious. We arranged a meeting for next thursday and all the NGOs are goingto bring to the table the best idea they have and some sort of way to implementthem will be agreed on. hopefully.

thurs 23rd (no time to spellchack- battery dying!!)

2006-11-23T08:35:00.000Z

thurs 23rd
today we set off at 7:30 to putang to see an elephant that jack has been treating more or less every day for the past 2 weeks. We took with us some Malaria drugs as we had heard tale last night that a young Mahout had symptoms. On arrival it seemed that the elephant we had come to see was fine and needed no treatment, neither did any of the others. so we asked around about any mahouts with malaria, no one knew what we were talking about- it didn't help that jack and the people he was talking to were not speaking their 1st languages (the phnong have their own language- communication is in khmer) and jack didn't know the word for Malaria. eventually we go through. it turned out that while no one knew of a mahout with malaria, one guy we were talking to had a 4year old girl with a bad fever. we found out that he had gotten her some medicine off the market- it appeared to be pain killers and fake malarine. knowing that the father had been ripped off, and that the drugs we had were not good for a small child to take we offered to take her and her father to the hospital. The father said he had no money (art loi) but obviously we were not going to let that be a problem. so they both got in the truck, and at the same moment a yung mahout came past (on a bicycle) and HE was the kid who had the symptoms we're heard about. Jack gave him the medicine and told him when to take it -he took the 1st dose in front of us - and gave him a bottle of water to take the pills with.

Off we headed to the hospital, in the waiting room some guy piped up that treating a small child was a waste of time. I have words for people like him, i do not know any of them in Khmer - luckily. After seeing one doctor we were sent through the carpark to the kids clinic where we had to wait outside the waiting room as it was full. In the mean time a Septegenerian Phnong lady asked if I would be interested in marrying her daughter- i told her that I have no money and she should try Jack. In the mean time we tried to keep this tiny, wasted looking Phnong girl happy. she sat dead silent, it was pretty difficult trying to get her interested in anything me or jack might have to say - my limited khmer was waster as she only spoke phnong and the only phnong word i know is her name (Eerb) which i learnt today. After some time Me and Jack decided all we hasd was our facial featues. so we both called out her name at the same time and immediately I stuck my tongue out and jack did a sort of Pob-like face. We succeded in getting a reluctant and quickly hidden smile. ut it was deffinitely there at some point and i'd like to think that perhaps she wasn't completely terrifird by us.

Eventually the girl and her father got to see another doctor who wrote out a prescription for anti-biotics and child-malarine, and maybe something else, i've forgotten. but as soon as jack was spotted with them 50% was added on to the price, it went from 2000reil to 3000 instantly. Now, the father wasn't paying (neither was I come to think of it) so I wasn't concerned about him being ripped off (or jack), and 1000reil is about 12.5p so it's really nothing. But the thought of someone lining their pocket and using a 4year old tribe girl with malaria as the bribe was simply too much for me. I know that everyone in the world everyone is ripping each other off, and i know that cambodia is rife with corruption. but to see it happen there and then made me fucking angry. there is nothing i can think that i could have done, and jack said that if anyoone kicked up a fuss then next time the price would go up- or perhaps treatment may even be refused. I had a little walk around the car park to try and calm down as at that point I was definitely the angriest and most frustrated I have been in this country yet. I felt like walking in to the surgery and pointing out one way or another that I am probably a foot taller than anyone in the building. But I know that that is not the right course of action, violence is a terrible thing, and in the long run would just make things worse for any sick Phnong. and i could get shot. I suppose that's another thing about being in a poor country- there's nothing to turn around and smash to pieces when your wound up like that. so i just paced around til they came out with the new medicine.

after that we sent them home on a moto and went to get our breakfast.

weds 22nd (no spellcheck)

2006-11-23T08:33:00.000Z

WEDS 22nd
for the past couple of days it has rained pretty heavily for a few hours each afternoon. i say heavily and i mean leaking roofs and rivers in the streets. i didn't change clothes for 3 days cos i could see no point it wrecking some people got stranded on the road back from calsay ma (sp??) a town in the north which means our trip to the very same town has been postponed. even though it is particularly sunny today the road is likely to be sludge.
because of one thing and another it looks like our jaunt to phnom penh is going to be brought forward a week or so. this is pretty much all good. obviously if we could get all of our plans completed forst that would be great, but we can't. so it boils down to the fact that i am going to check out phnom penh in a slightly less hectic and confused state. it also means that when i do my border run for a new business visa i MAY be staying over in thailand for a day or so to check out the elephant camp that inspired jack to start ELIE. Also, while in Phnom Penh i aim to stock up on 2nd hand books.
for no other reason than i am feeling the burden i feel like adding that the noodle soupl at Chom Nor Tmei restaurant, Senmonorom is a full-on onslaught of carbohydrates, so, maybe if yr about to run a marathon you should check them out the night before.
Oh, and last I heaerd we were invited to a Thankgiving affair tomorrow at the abode of some Christian Missionary types. ODD. apparently it's a pot-luck and we were gonna show u
p with out very own AMERICAN! but due to the change in weather conditions he has just set of north on a moto, which will apparently be easier than in a truck. I suppose our addition to the pot-luck dinner (bearing in mind we don't have a kitchen at the moment and hence cannot possibly provide food) is going to have to be our condescending air and ghastly arrogance- they are yanks after all.

HAJJ

2006-11-23T08:30:00.000Z

we were watching CNN in a cafe and they mentioned something about Hajj and showed a shot of all the pilgrims around the thingy in Mecca. I said it'd be incredible to be in mecca at this time of year, to be surrounded by so many people so into what they believe.
and jack said "yea, and slaughtering an incredible number of goats"
to which i immediately replied "that's no different to Christmas in Britain, 10's millions of turkeys"
he shut up then. i don't even know if there is any slaughter that goes on- i can't pretend I know anything about Hajj at all.
But, being born and raised in a mostly Christian country i do know a liittle about common practise in christian festivals- in the Uk at least. christmas is a time of mass ritual slaughter in the uk, though the important part is the consumption of the flesh rather than the act of slaughter. it amounts to the same to any non-human animal who is unlucky enough to take part in such an activity.

The rituals continue in Western birthday traditions as well, how many parties have I been to where different varities of flesh are laid out in celebration of someone's time on this planet?
This is not a dig at meat-eating in general, i'm just trying to point out that through secular and religious celebrations in the west we do engage in ritual slaughter, even though most of us label it barbaric when it's not for OUR religious ceremony, or OUR secular ceremony..

i am white dontvha know

2006-11-20T05:33:00.000Z

hTurns out I got TRES DRUNK the night before the wedding. Due to a confused communiqué, I and a comrade were under the impression that we were stranded for a good 4 hours. To relieve the boredom we purchased a bottle of Mekhong (sic), which is a sort of rice whisky. No sooner had we poured our first glass each than people we weren't expecting showed up. So we got a couple more bottles. Suffice to say we saw the end of 7 bottles of this stuff and all woke up dead the next day.
Even so I was made to MAN UP and go along to this wedding. We as ELIE comprised the total of the token Barang at the wedding- highly honoured were they to have a table of white folk. We were assigned high ranking family members and plied with drink and a succession of foodstuffs. Jack and I were even made a fuss of as it was known that neither of us partake of the flesh and hence a platter of fruit and a plate of cashews each. Rumour has it that in an attempt to whiz up some animal-free food the kitchen was SET ON FIRE and hence we ate a raw meal. This is just as well because the Khmer have a traditional form of dancing that the Barang were BEGGED to join in with. It went something like this:

Groom: Hello. I am happy you came to my wedding. You must dance! Learn from me!
Me: umm... er...
Groom Grabs my arm.
Me: um... okay then, i'll just copy you.

There was a table in the middle of the dance floor, covered with a red table cloth and a vase of flowers. Two girls of about 17/18 were moving anti-clockwise around the table doing some sort of footwork and complex hand movements.

As soon as a couple of white guys were up at the table about a dozen Khmer shot up to join in and hang out with the Barang. Everyone wanted us to copy them and they all seemed to want to copy any of our "western" dance moves i.e. poor imitations of their own. Normally I'd find being so highly regarded painfully embarrassing and faintly annoying that something as stupid as race should make me important. But I'm glad that everyone was too excited about dancing with Barang at a wedding to care that I moved around that table like a crippled tuna fish suffering an epileptic fit. Lots of smiles and laughing got the token white men through what could have been a mortifying ordeal.

Ooh! This reminds me, every guest gets a present! AWESOME! We all got a key ring with a plastic fruit on. I got some sort of raspberry type thing.

There are too many things I could say about the wedding for me to type here, but several demand a quick mention: the grooms pink silk dinner jacket; they innumerable change of costumes for the newlyweds; the brides gold-coloured genie shoes; the TINY guy who learnt to drive in one afternoon and used to drive troops to fight the Khmer Rouge; older people covering their mouths when the speak French; the instantly replenished stocks of drink; the unfathomable square dance/Macarena song that was played about 5 times; the fact that we got invited to a 2nd wedding on the strength of being Barang; the fact that the only remote inkling of disapproval of us complete strangers was when someone wanted to 'cheers' my glass and realised it had Fanta in it; the special sign language which means you are (un)willing to down your drink and can show extra respect to your drinking partner(s); all the guests turning up on Motos...

wedding??

2006-11-20T05:32:00.000Z

Wednesday 15th

Morning:
Today I saw 8 elephants. Elephants are big. Boy elephants are scarier than girl elephants.

Afternoon.
I’ve had enough of reading about elephants for one afternoon. Not least of all because I am finding it hard to concentrate due to the VERY LOUD Khmer music coming from the wedding next door. It is unnecessarily loud and distorted. A minute ago someone seemed to be checking a microphone- interesting to hear him say “hello", the international mic-checking codeword apparently.
We at ELIE have all been invited to the wedding tomorrow- these affairs last for 3 days- so I am expecting an Uber headache from actually being in the same room as this offensively loud (through 2 walls) music. I hear it's free booze though so I might be able to drown out the sound with rice wine. I'm told that guests are expected not to bring a gift (few!) but we ARE expected to PAY $20! I don't remember ever buying a wedding gift due to my utter tightness, but it's hard to jump a queue at a wedding when there's a tax on the door. $20 is about a week’s wages out here, so they're not playing games. I have no idea what fifteen dollars worth of rice wine looks like but I am gonna have bash at getting value for money.
I'm afraid that the Khmer happy couple will have to make to with a pretty un-swanky Barang showing up at on their magical day (but then so has any couple who've invited me to their wedding). Though I reckon that for $20 I should be able to show up in an inflatable sumo-wrestler outfit should the fancy take me. As it happens I am going to leave the petulance in my guesthouse and I am even going to leave my beard there too. I bought a razor the other day ("super shave fancy panda- I kid you not!) And I reckon a wedding is as good occasion as any to break it out.

Coming soon: the aftermath of a Khmer wedding: earache, headache, bellyache, shaving cuts and memory lapses. Probably.

DEAD LONG arrival business

2006-11-20T05:25:00.000Z

I’m writing this in the office, I’m going to upload it later; tomorrow maybe (today is Monday).

So I’ve been in mondulkiri for a week now. People who've been in Cambodia for months or traveling for a while all seem to ask me what I notice, or miss or what seems weird. At the moment everything seems to make sense, I reckon this could be partly because of the way I got here: from Dudley to Heathrow- Heathrow to Bangkok where I decided to go in to the city rather that loiter at the airport- then Bangkok to Phnom Penh where I stayed for the night (1st sleep for 2 days) and then up early to travel 8 hours north to mondulkiri, check into my guest house, eat, then sleep.

I saw so many places and people... i think 2 long car journeys, 3 aeroplanes, a couple of buses, several encounters with customs, using 3 currencies and being awake for 2 days straight just led to information overload which meant that nothing seemed to stand out as being odd. E.g. why should a dirt runway in a town with no streetlights strike me as peculiar when just a few hours back i was sitting in bangkok thinking about the tourist info i was being shown about jordan on my plane when i'm heading to cambodia?

Anyway, when I arrived in Phnom Penh at about 9 am the sky was clear, the sun was bright and it was dry and hot (Bangkok seemed comparatively cool) and after dealing with the slightly mardy immigration (but we expect that, right?) I got outside the dollhouse-esque airport to find -with some relief- jack was waiting for me. we got in his truck (sans seatbelts) and did what people do in Phnom Penh- horns beeped, motos squeezed through spaces that were too small for the single moto next to them.. Baptism of fire. Then on to the guesthouse which was partly flooded so we had to wade through a "moat" to gain entry, but it was nice inside and there really was a fantastic view of the lake.

after lunch we went to a gathering on someone’s rooftop which overlooked the river- I arrived in the middle of the water festival so the street below us was heaving with people, mostly locals I assume but the rural folks were noticeable by the way they literally clung to each other in the crowds that they clearly were not used to-I could see virtual conga lines of what must've been extended families or groups of coworkers snaking through the crowd. So yea, we had a great spot to watch the boat races (no one could figure out who was racing who, nor were we able to identify any winners) and the huge boats covered in lights, and later on the fireworks. After all this we went for a drink at the peculiarly named Magic Sponge, a western owned bar that all western people in Phnom Penh seem to know, and then I went in the early hours of Monday morning to bed for the 1st time since Friday morning. Apart from the guesthouse’s cat scaring the shit out of me it was a good sleep.

My 1st experience of a Phnong village was after a 9 hour drive across the country, I’m sure I was still suffering jet lag. The 1st thing that jumped out at me was a dog's head on a stick. I've heard that Phnong eat dog (though I have not seen any confirmation) and i understand that they use them to hunt. Yet I cannot fathom why they would put a dog's head on a stick on the edge of the village- not just a dog's head though, I mean, I don't understand why they would put any animal's head there. But the fact remains that there was only a dog's head on a stick, no pig, cow, chicken etc.
I went back to the village this morning (9 days later) and it's still there which I am also confused by, it hasn't been scavenged, washed away, decomposed or taken over by maggots. An enchanted decapitation perhaps?

More to come

I am not foreign yet

2006-10-29T15:15:00.000Z

hello all,
i thought i'd set up this BLOG malarky while still in Blighty as it may well cos me dollar (well, baht or Reil) to do this when i'm paying in a cafe or whatever.

So, I'm leaving on Friday from Heathrow, on to Amman, Jordan (i don't think I'm allowed off the plane) then to Bangkok where i will spend about 16 hours feeling VERY LOST INDEED before getting my connection to Phnom Penh where I plan to meet Jack. He'd better be in the right place at the right time or i will CRY.

anyone who wants a postcard should send their address. anyone who wants any stuff back i may have borrowed is just gonna have to wait til i get back.

See you in June kids!

x