Man doesn't need a home.

All man needs is a shelter,

We can condition him with food at the factory.

So it seems as if the future really is here.

No need for housing any more.

Just boxes.

This is the website incase you are interested.

Unfortunately this video doesn't have sound so I've attached this link so you can listed to Population control by Company Flow as you watch it.

Knife child

So I just went out side on a bit of a DVD hunt. (I was trying to find a film called Idiocracy).

Any way I was stood in one of my usual DVD shops on the river and as I'm looking some Book selling kid comes in trying to hit me up for some change.
Now I'm not into giving cash to kids in the street because I don't think its going to help anything.
So I tell him no good.
Anyway I thought he left so I carry on looking.
Turns out the kid ain't gone. he's right behind me and lets me know he's still there by shooting me repeatedly in the back of the legs with a pellet gun.

Naturally I ain't into it.
So I spin round and grab the gun from out of his hands.
The kids giving it "give me my gun back"
so I'm like "You need to apologise and until you do you don't get it back"
The kid's like "fuck you I kill you" And walks out the shop.

A few moments later he's back in brandishing a 6 inch kitchen knife "I kill you" goes this kid as he comes at me. I don't reckon he actually meant it, he was probably just giving it the big un but just to be safe twisted his arm up a little took the knife of him and choke slammed him on the floor.

Worst thing is the DVD shop ain't even got Idiocracy. Proper let down.

Lisa S

When I'm at home I like to do a lot of different things.

Two of these are watching TV and using the Internet.

I like to both at once because sometimes I'm waiting for something to load/stream/buffer and sometimes it's the adverts/commercials/nothing good's on.

So it kind of balances out.

Now out here both can be a bit difficult.

Internet is generally slow due to a lack of decent broadband.

And TV can be difficult because of the small number of TV channels that are in English.

Generally it comes down to a choice of 6

HBO

A version of the popular American Channel. The Wire, Heroes, etc.

Things you probably downloaded or bought the box set of.

Star World

The predominant force behind English language TV in South East Asia. American Idol, How I met your mother, America's next top model, etc. The 1st channel I ever saw that had the same presenter for everyone of its shows/links/adverts/idents.

The incredibly hard working Lisa S.

The DVD Channel

Cambodia's only feature in my regular channel hopping. Basically this channel broadcasts a selection of the latest Pirate DVDs.

DVDs that were most likely purchased in one of the shops on the riverside.

Star Movies

That's right same company as before. This time all movies and movie related shows. Thing is though once again all the shows/adverts/idents hosted by Lisa S.

AXN & MAX

Actually 2 completely different channels. But they are next to each other numerically and I can never remember which shows are on which.

These 2 just fill in the blanks left by Star World and HBO. Total Wipeout, House, So you think you can dance, etc.

V

Music channel playing alternating videos of the same 3 Korean Girl Bands with the occasional Boy Band to keep it interesting. Never really stay on this channel long. Only included it here because once again all the links/shows/adverts/idents courtesy of Lisa S.

So what you might notice is that 50% of my TV watching potentially involves Lisa S.

Now before I came here I had never heard of her and I wanted to make a blog about her for people back home to read.

and when I started this blog it was originally gunna be about how lackluster she is sometimes and how I don't understand why the use her so much because she's not really that good.

But then I discovered something.

Lisa S isn't on the Internet.

Well at least not like she is on TV.

it is infact surprisingly difficult to find a picture of Lisa S on the Internet.

This freaked me out. I mean I know not everbody's got pictures of them on the Internet. My Nan for example.

But I'm also pretty sure that my Nan doesn't present 68 simultaneous hours of TV 7 days a week.

And that's when I realised the inescapable truth.

Lisa S is obviously a registered trademark of Star World.

Maybe even more than that. Maybe it's much more sinister.

Maybe Lisa S has somehow been put in the position where by she is no longer an employee of Star World's but she is now infact their property.

There are no pictures of her on the Internet because Star World's legal team made them all disappear.

And if they are in fact that powerful, just imagine what they could do to my web-presence.

Due to this inescapable fact I'm not actually going to put the one picture of Lisa S I found. (Actually unable to view the page it came from without "registering" and to be fair I just don't like the word.) Here's a link

I'm genuinely a little bit worried that what I say is the true so if you don't hear from me for a wile then maybe they got to me too.

For now I'm just gunna put Star World on. To see if Lisa S is trying to call for help with her eyes.

Babore Chigai

Due to the fact that my job and my house are actually in very different places, I am forced to go outside at least twice a day, (more if it is one of the days when I also need to eat food).

Now this in itself doesn't seem like such a problem.

Although the additional factors attributed from living in one of the worlds dustiest sun traps, as well as owning the smallest petrol powered motorbike ever invented by man, do tend to make it slightly more of a struggle.

Now one thing that I will recommend to anyone who is planning to spend any amount of time on the road is decent eye protection.

Partly for the sun, after all squinting can severely lower your ability to see shit and as the majority of the local population seem to have no great attachment to signaling or lane discipline this can be problematic.

But the eye protection is also useful for trying to cut down on the amount of dust that's going directly into your eyes as your driving.

See in the west we are well aware that if you get your eyes full of dust this might be the cause of an eye problem. The same is not necessarily true out here.

See the other day for for whatever reason I had to go outside. In doing so had forgotten to put my sunglasses over my face before starting out on whatever arduous journey I had decided to undertake.

Needless to say upon my return as I was sat at my work desk inspecting my reflection in the permanent sleeping computer screen that occupied about 60% of my desk, I realised I might have a problem. Or at least the tell tail warning signs of a future problem that would probably come to light at some point in the next few days.

Bad news.

Now back home I'd have referred to it as a sty.

Out here it has another name. A name that indicates the cause but not the cure.

Babore Chigai.

That's what the Chemist told me.

The direct translation means Stares at Dogs.

"You watch Chigai boom boom?"

enquired the chemist.

Apparently the reason I had this problem with my eye was because at some point in the recent past I must have watched 2 dogs having sex.

I refuted the Chemists assertion but did have to admit to the fact that several days prior when I'd been enjoying some down time at Wat Phnom I had indeed seen 2 small furry animals making the beast with two backs.

Not dogs though, Monkeys.

And to be fair I imagine that if you'd seen these hairy little bastards going at it hammer and tongue then you also would have cast an inquisitive eye over them.

(I mean their hands look like people hands.)

The Chemist took this as conclusive proof and gave me a small bottle of what I can only assume were her own tears.

Accompanied by instructions to drizzle the viscus liquid into my own eye as and when I see fit.

The most important thing was that under no circumstance should I watch any more animals having sex.

The way I see it is that the Chemist is not the boss of me and what I do in my spare time is none of her business.

On a related note the university I work for has decided to start monitoring Internet downloads as of Monday.

Flash walk cycles.

Man

Woman

Skype

Now I Know what you're thinking.

How can I be performing at the Albany when I'm supposed to be in Cambodia?

Two words....

Skype Bee-atch!!

Yeah check it out, Polarbear dune booked me for a gig where by I'm on skype.

I actually appeared as an enormous disembodied head on a big screen at the back of the stage.

this is what I could see.

See the original plan was that I'd be performing live from the screen.

This week (thanks to the paranoia associated with live Internet links) that plan changed. It became me introducing videos of me performing that I had previously emailed to Polar.

Due to the time difference the show started at 2.30am my time and ended for me just after 5.

Apparently my big face was on the screen during all the other acts.

I personally might have found that a bit distracting if it had been the other way around.

(Mainly because I didn't realise that was what was happening so I was just eating biscuits, drinking coffee and smoking through out).

By the end of the gig I was at least partially delusional.

At on point I forgot I was not actually there. At another point I forgot that what I was seeing was actually live. Thousands of miles away.

I really liked the way it blurred the lines of reality for me and I think this might be how I perform from now on.

Even if I'm in the place where I'm supposed to be performing I still want to do it through my computer. Sat in a dressing room eating blueberry dueberrys while my enormous head floats over all on stage.

Big Berko is watching you, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Call of the wild.

Now have you ever seen that “March of the Penguins” film?

I’ve not seen it, but I think I get the gist of what it's about.

I heard it’s basically a documentary about how every year this group of penguins, (in fact lets say that they’re Emperor Penguins).

How every year these Emperor Penguins march all the way across (Lets say Thousands), thousands of miles of frozen Arctic (possibly Antarctic, never can remember), Tundra to the same place, (possibly some kind of nesting/breading ground).

Now they make the same journey each year and every one of them knows where to go because of some built in inner calling that directs them back to where they were born (/conceived).*

I think Turtles and salmon do it to, and also that frogs might do it as well. But in their case the breading ground is the pond they were born in and the thousand miles of tundra is replaced with a brand-new 3-lane bypass somewhere near Birmingham. But the basic thing is the same.

The point I’m trying to get out is that for some wild creatures part of their yearly routine is a life-threatening journey across treacherous landscapes to return to the place they were born. They don’t actually have any real choice in the mater; it’s just in their nature.

(I may well have gotten a lot of my facts wrong but I’m writing this somewhere sans Internet connection and I very much doubt I’m gunna check my facts in the time between now and when I publish this tomorrow. But for the sake of this blog just take what I’ve said thus far as true regardless of its factual accuracy).

Any way here’s the thing.

At present something in my subconscious keeps telling me that what I should be doing right now is pushing all my most brightly coloured clothes into a rucksack, pulling my tent from the crawl space it’s spent the winter hibernating in, finding myself a van, buying some “supplies” and getting ready to spend at least 12-46 hours a week on the road.

Chasing down and riding on the back of that most magical, transient, shape-shifting beast of a place.

That beautifully malevolent paradise of contradiction. That place where we can all die and be reborn in the same instant; I am of course talking about the festival.

See I personally harbour the idea that all festivals are in fact manifestations of the same powerful creature.

In fact I’d go as far as to say that it would be naive not to realise that the phenomena we know as “Festival” (from the Latin festivus) is very much a sentient being. An all-powerful host upon whose glorious undulating teats we suckle yearly, quenching our thirst for fun and adventure.

A beast that should be both loved and feared, a beast that demands to be respected.

Oh Festivus can turn a beggar to a king in the blink of an eye.

It will reduce normally rational men to the very edge of mindlessness.

Festivus can be your provider or it can be your undoing.

I first met this beast when it took the form of Glastonbury 1998.

Long story short,

0 tickets + £32 + (1 x 2-man tent) % (5 x 18/19 year old guys)
% 4 days of near solid rain.

Needless to say, not the best one.

Although it was the first time I’d heard 2 very familiar phrases

1. “Imagine if everywhere was like this”

2. “Why don’t we just live here?”

I’m pretty sure that anybody who has ever been to any reincarnation of Glastonbury has at some point uttered one if not both of these 2 phrases.

Of course by the Sunday we have all no doubt realised why we don’t live here and imagining a world where everywhere is like this is no longer something we want to realistically consider.

For me Glastonbury is always the start. The Festival big bang, the moment the creature begins its’ existence.

Glastonbury is boot camp for the rest of the summer. It trains you for what’s about to come. It shows you the best and worst sides of festivus, it teaches you to walk.

Oh how it teaches you to walk.

Back in 1998 you had the added adventure of not actually needing a ticket.

Back then it was all about getting in for free be it via a Scouser’s rabbit hole or by a Bristolian’s ladder. All you had to do is get past the fence and the world was your oyster.

I had a short hiatus from festivaling the year they introduced the alleged “super fence” around Glastonbury.

By this time several seasons had passed since my first encounter with festival. It had been responsible for some of the best and worst experiences I’d ever had.

But I just lacked the organisational skills or self-motivation to actually go about purchasing a ticket.

It wasn’t until 2005 that I climbed back onto the horse. Glastonbury again. This time (thanks to the organisational skills and self-motivation of my brother/co-performer,) I was performing.
For me this was very much the start of something. Although I did notice that the “super fence” looked exactly how I remembered the old fence to look.




*Turns out they were Emperor Penguins going thousands of miles to their breading grounds, in Antarctica. Swings and roundabouts really.

Dining with the Devil.

So it's been a little wile since I tasted this particular poison.

As I was in an actual city over the weekend I thought I might as well push the boat out and shave a few years of my life.

Back on the Crackky-D's. After 6 months of being clean.

To be honest my taste-buds weren't really that into it.

My digestive system was even less impressed.

in and out of KL.

Now last summer over the course of the festival season I was pretty busy.
What this meant was that quite often I'd arrive at the place I was performing litterally moments before I was due to step out on stage.
I wasn't the only one.

I know Kate Tempest, Ross Sutherland, Inua Ellems, Jamie Woon and Joshua Idehen (to name but a few) were all in the same boat.

Well if you are still in England then you must have realised, Summer is back, and this time it's personal.

The reason I know this because one of my sisters sent me an email telling me how it was so hot she couldn't even go outside.
Apparently it was like 25 degrees C in Leicester.
Seeing as how I set my air-con at around 20 I wasn't really that impressed but it's all relitive eh.

Anyway what with the arrival of summer and with poetry being the new rock-n-roll an all,

I figured I'd do a gig.
not just a gig; but a far away gig.
One where I'd inevitably be cutting it close.

So here it is, performing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Flying out from Phnom Penh 4.45 saturday
coming home 2.55 Sunday Malaysian time, (1 hour in front).
21 hours total.

Having lived in Cambodia for the last 6 months KL felt like I'd arrived in the future.
All be it a strangely malign future who's chief arcatect was a 16 year old Gun-Dam robot enthusiast with an obsesive desire to create a searies of Urbainian-style satalite cities scattered across an intensly confusing network of vast, sprawling, seemingly endless super high-ways.

The gig was the first monthly slam at Map. Anyone living in or going to KL would do well to check it out.
Elaine Foster runs it and it's a very possitive night in an amazing space.

After the gig I went out for a drink with some of those in attendance. We went to a place called Boathouse that felt like it was in Bristol but looked exactly like the room in Warrior King where they eat the endangered animals.
I kept expecting Tony Jar to kick some one through the wall screaming, "Where are my elephants?"
unfortunatly that didn't happen.

pretty pricey an all.
In fact if you're sick of having all that money in your pocket then I recomend going out for a drink in KL.
I think it worked out about 18 Ringit per beer.
If US$1= about 3.23RM you can do the maths eh.

Here's a little video I made so you can see what I did.
Mostley just motorbikes, taxis and airoplanes, oh and one poem.




I'm back in Phnom Penh now that due to it's geography is physically 1 hour behind KL
and due to it's history is Artistically 20 years behind the rest of the world.

Time to get cracking on that renaissance.

Motorbike Tours (001)

So When you are driving around Phnom Penh you need to know the rules of the road.

Out here there's no insurance.

The rule of thumb is if you crash into someone else then you have to pay.

it means that every body looks out for what's in front of them and we al get on ok.

Same as walking though a large crowd of people.

It just flows.

Here's an example.

This is my drive home from work last wednesday afternoon.

More broken transport

Cost me $7.

Broke after 10 days.

Fixed again for one Dollaar.

Akun Bong.

Return of the Mo-cap

I found this on you-tube.
That's me.

This is what it came from.
MO-Cap Mo-Fo

Bag of mixed Cans (Cambo Style)

Broken Transport

Fork-tailed Ghecko

Asian gig number Moi.

So I final decided to break my vowel of silence and once again this weekend I managed to fulfill my obligated time on stage.

That's right every body had to shut up and listen to me Talking.

I was part of an event that saw the opening of Java Arts brand new exhibition space "J GALLERY."

Also on the bill were,

Sound Artist and Musician
David Gunn

and

Contemporary Cambodian Performance Artist.

Leang Seckon

The whole thing was organised by a lovely woman called Dana. She started the Gallery several years ago and has worked hard to try and bring contemporary Art to Phnom Penh.

And so begins my part in the Renaissance.

Slight stumbling block for me manifested itself in the form of a group of 4 or 5 kids who's combined age barley scratched the 40's.

Once again I was the man responsible for teaching kids "exciting new words."

Although to be fair I did warn the parents and suggested they cover their ears.

I also realised that a lot of the English speaking crowd were in fact Australian/American so a lot of my regional references were lost in translation.

1 page from a screenplay I might write.

Happy Dan

Now the thing with all psycotropic drugs is that it can be very much
like standing in a hole. If you look up then you get the opportunity
to see the whole world from a different perception. You can look at
the world from a different/distorted perspective.
But if you look down, into the hole. Then you'll realise you're in a
hole.

See 4 hours ago I'd arrived home. At the time my friend Dan who'd been
staying with us for the last week or so as part of his whistle-stop
tour of S.E.Asia was also starting to feel a little bit hungry.

"I'm gunna go out use the Internet and grab some food to bring back
here. D'yu want anything specific?" Dan's voice.

I'm like all about eating the sale kind of food I eat back home and I
explain this to Dan.

"so like pizzas, burgers, fish and chips etc?"
And off he went.
Into the wild.
Looking for sustanance, food for our hungry bodies and Internet for
his distracted mind.

I stayed at home to try and devote some time to my underapriciated
girlfriend.

It must have been over 2 and a half hours later that Dan returned. He
seemed like he'd really enjoyed his adventure.
"I love how everybody's so friendly. So much better than Thailand.
It's like they're all laughing and asking if I'm ok and what my name
is. I love it."

As I swallowed my 3rd slice of pizza I felt the aching hunger I'd been
suffering all day start to release it's grip on my stomach.
Dan also had not eaten all day and as we raced our way clockwise
through the pizza we were pretty much neck and neck.

As only 2 slices remained we reached a standstill. That much pizza in
such a short space of time can really put you on your ass. Especially
when you haven't eaten cheese in weeks.

It was at this point that my girlfriend became involved. And as she
took her first bite of our leftovers she realised this pizza had weed
on it. Dan didn't believe it but I knew it to be true.

"why would they just put weed on it without asking you? What if you
didn't want it? It doesn't make sense."

See what Dan hadn't realised was that when he'd ordered his pizza and
the guy in the shop had asked him the question "happy?" he hadn't
actually been asking about Dan's temperment.
Now it's too late.

And as Dan stares into his hole no ammount of me telling him to look
back up at the world is gunna help him.

Sent from my iPod

motorbike maintenance

Now before I moved to Cambodia I'd never actually ridden a motorbike.

Infact the only time I can remember being on the back of a motorbike is when I got a lift down London Road on the back of my friend Shailesh's 250. Scared the shit out of me to be fair.

Now since getting here that's all changed. In the last few months I'm generally on the back of at least 7 motorbikes every 24 hours.

Well anyway I went and got myself a motorbike.

Honda Chaly CF70.

Looks like this.

That's not actually my one I've lost the lead that connects camera to computer. So my photo's are pretty much trapped for now.

Well anyway I paid Booun Roy Dollaar, ($400) for the Bike,

but since then in the last 2 weeks I'va also paid:

$25 on a new back tire and inner-tube.

$14 on an oil change

$2 on a basket

and $20 for a part that nobody I've shown it to could identify.

see the $20 part came at a time of real desperation.

It must have been half 9 on a Sunday night. My phone was at home charging and I only had $21 to last me till I next got paid again later in the week.

As I'm pulling out on to Monivong (one of the main roads that crosses the city from East to West) my bike lost all power.

Literally just died in the road.

It seamed no amount of aggressive kick-starting was going to bring it back to life so I pulled up along side the men who live on the street corner and fix bikes for a living.

Now one of these guys spent about 45 minutes taking my bike to pieces and reassembling it in various ways. None of witch lead to its resurrection.

After an amount of time on of the older guys walked over and pointed into the heart of the machine.

The other guy nodded and beckoned me to come closer.

"m,Umm Paye Dollaar"

He said pointing at the bikes engine.

$20

Over the next 5 minutes we communicated though excited mime as he explained that I'd have to give him the money so as he could go get the new part.

Reluctantly I agreed and handed over what was essentially all my money.

The mime continued.

Now I've played my fair share of charades in my time and understood straight away what he wanted.

But I played dumb for a few moments just to acknowledge the reality of what I was about to do in my own mind.

See he needed to take the bike away and bring it back fixed.

So that's what happened.

I think it must have been only about a minute after he'd pulled off that I started to feel uneasy about giving all my money, my motorbike and also my house keys to a stranger who could not understand me any better than I understood him.

I mean isn't that how westerners end up married to villagers?

and how did I know that this guy even worked/lived on this corner.

Thankfully the older guy who'd diagnosed my bike invited me to sit with him, gesturing up the road and saying the Cambodian word I recognise as meaning Baby.

After 44 minutes I was pacing with worry.

After 45 minutes the man returned. Bike fixed.

I was relieved and told myself that I should try and trust people more.

Bike's been cool since.

Lark a Like

Dear Sir,
Here's one Larkin and Cameron.
Yours sincerely Luke (age 14) East-Anglia

If you want to vote for/support Steve Larkin in his bid to become a professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Click here

If you want to Vote for Cameron to be leader of the country then your a nob.

press

I was in the paper.

Look how bored I look.

Small world.

It's always funny when you're far away from home and you bump into
someone who know's someone you know.

For example I've met a couple of poets out here who know people I know
from the scene. I met a guy who used to be my neighbor in Leicester.
And then yestrday I found out that my new mate Nick actually went to
school with 2 of the guys in my brothers band.

I read that om faceboom when I was stood behind the shutter near the
window I steel my neighbors wifi from.
Litterally as I did this massive insect that was like a cross between
a flying ant and a crab came wizzing in through the other window.

This things circling me waving its gun-finger in the air and pointing
at me mouthing the words, "you, I want you"

Quick as a wippet I slide through his legs and grabbed a can of raid
from under the sink.

And there we stood.
A Mexican stand off.
Him holding his stinger like a flick knife. Me with trigger finger
poised just before the airosols biting point.

Tumble weed.
Close up on eyes.

As he moved I matched him ducking his strikes and lashing the spray
like a bike chain across his face.
He stiffeled his scream and shouted "out, out, out." before flying
back through the window.

My smug chuckeling was only momentary as litterally moments later he
came back in with his whole firm.
Trust me yeah, this kid rolls deep.
Like 50 mans deep.

The swarm collectivly solidified into the shape of a giant hammer and
I raised my coffee table about my head to shield myself from the
impending impact.

Then out of nowhere I heard a voice, "eh mate ain't you Raff's brother?"

Turns out one of the swarm use to work on site with my older brother
back in England. We had a bit of a laugh about the whole thing and the
first geeza ended up buying me a drink before they left.

Small world eh.

Sent from my iPod

Up your Contrast.

Language barrier

I’ve been learning a lot of Khmer words.

I thought that’d be a good way to learn the language.

Thing is, it don’t actually work like that.

The grammar is completely different. What it means is that I basically sound like a lazy Kung-fu Villain trying to read a ransom note that was translated using bablefish.

See they’ve also got like 27 vowel sounds witch means

it’s really easy to say the wrong thing.

For example the words that mean black, Ghost, Hot, Rat and Cock (as in penis) are all very close to each other.

I was trying to explain to an older Khmer woman, using a combination of those words and an elaborate gestural mime, that I had seen my friend kill a big black rat and he did it in his pants because it was such a hot day

Well you can imagine the rest.

Original replicas

Check this shit out Only $9.

Bargin

Big Lizard, Small Lizard, Broken Toe.

Bong Jon The Tuk-Tuk Driver.

My mate Jon drives a Tuk-Tuk.

This is a story Jon told me the other week when I saw him sat in a guesthouse looking really confused.

See Jon had picked up some people from the bus station that morning.

He thinks they might be Americans but maybe Australians or Irish.
Anyway he's brought these 2 Barang back to the guesthouse and checked them in.

Incidentally this coincided exactly with the 30-minute window when a family member from another city, who had been visiting Phnom Penh for the past few days, was covering the checking in desk. Keys had been given but passport numbers had not been written down.

The Barang left their luggage in their room and rejoined Jon for the usual tour of S21 and the Killing fields.

Jon drove them to the museum and parked his tuk-tuk opposite the old school building for the hour or so they were in there.

As they walked out of the building the Americans or Irish or Australian or who ever they were, recognised Jon straight away and got back in for the drive to the killing fields.

Now Jon admits he was actually quite embarrassed that he hadn't recognised them until they were sat in the back of the tuk-tuk. So he took extra care on the way to the killing fields so as he to put in a bit of staring at them in the rear view mirror.

Yu know, so he could remember their faces.

Anyway they got to the killing fields and he parked up to wait as his barang passengers wandered off chatting amongst them selves about the incredible atrocities they'd just been witness to in comparison to all the other atrocities they'd seen in their 8 weeks of travelling. And about exactly how lucky they were to come from a place like Australia or Island or America or where ever.

So Jon sat in his tuk-tuk and waited.
And he waited, and waited.

And eventually after a couple of hours he figured, these Barang should be back out here by now.

By the time he'd been waiting nearly 4 hours, Jon had reached the point of shooting his hand into the air every time a barang walked past and shouted, "Hey, hey it's me." Hoping that even if he didn't recognise them, maybe his passengers might recognise him.

Gradually he got less enthusiastic and eventually he got just down right bored. It must have been about 10 a clock at night by the time he decided they weren't coming back. When he'd arrived it was barley mid-day. But now the gates were being locked. He was the last Tuk-tuk kicking about. There was also clearly no more barang anywhere around here. So he went back to the guesthouse.

That's where I saw him. The out of town relative had gone back to his city on a bus about an hour before and nobody else knew anything about any Irish or Americans or Australians either for that matter.

There was no luggage in the apparently unused bedroom and the key was in the lock hanging on the open door.

It's obvious to me what had happened but it was funny to see how confused Jon was about the whole thing.

He blames Ghosts.

Back on the horse

So you may have noticed it’s been a little wile since I sat down and put something up here.

And what with the recent unrest in the area I’m sure a lot of you were wondering if I was in fact dead. (Just check the arrogant subtext of that last sentence, “a lot” like “a lot” of people read this. Classic delusions of grandeur shit.)

Anyway I’ve been busy eh so I was off living my life and doing shit.
I’m still in Phnom Penh Cambodia; please post me music and books and shit.

P.O.Box 1498

Phnom Penh

Cambodia

I am now actually working.
I lecture in Film Language and the History of Multi-Media at Limkokwing University in Phnom Penh. Got my friend Victor to thank for that.
Here is a picture of us in our work clothes.



We don’t ware the dog collars when we’re teaching. Just on the way to work, wearing it in class would be inappropriate.
But that’s not the only outfit’s we’ve been rocking of recent.


Fans of garishly load “Urban” clothes will no doubt appreciate the photo shoot I was part of the other day for my friend Jim (see pics here). It’s part of a fashion thing for the magazine we work for. (I introduced Jim in this story, where I call him Tim.)

Yeah I still work for that magazine. They say someday they might even make me their bottom-bitch but I ain’t been tricking so good since I got all those rejections. And I copy pasted a load of stuff of the old Wikipedia and it ended up getting printed in there under my other name. I rearranged it a little bit but basically 80% lifted.
Funny that it got in.
I think key members of staff were away and whatever but still how else would I come up with a list of 50 celebrities born in the year of the tiger?

Incidentally they printed something under this name.

By John Berkavitch it said. So if you really care what magazine it is you can Google my name plus words like Cambodia, Phnom Penh and Magazine and you’ll probably find out. (Now that is an arrogant sentence. Like people are gunna go trawling around the Internet trying to find out my open secrets. Get a life mate.)

Anyway I’ve got a hot scoop at the minute so I might be able to redeem myself a little bit. And they’ve got me out eating pies for another article so that’s good news.
I live down riverside now and it’s well beggy.

I ended up paying for this kid to go school for a month in exchange for not trying to sell me sunglasses every fucking day. How many pairs does he think I need? Although I did lose my grey ones and my Dr Jackobies. Some motherfucker showed up on facebook wearing them. I lost them weeks ago but I was actually at that same night.

Also anybody who read the thing about me going out in a cyclo on Christmas Eve might remember the break-dancing kids I battled in the street.

Well I tell you what I gave the smaller two lads money for food every day for like, time yeah. Then one day they’re like “hey mister, iiey knoow yoou give me wan dar-la.” (Not actually racist. That's an exact quote of what he said).
I was like “nar sorry lads I haven’t got any money on me.”
So these kids keep on a it for a minute and I’m like “nar look I actually don’t have any money.”
Then this one kid, he’s like “fuck you. You have to give me money or get out my country.”
Straight up this kids giving it the bong un going off at me in the street.
This shit went on for like a week every time I come out of my house him and his mate are telling me to fuck off out of their country.

It reached it’s peak with both the little fuckers came up to me outside the DVD shop and like pressed their heads into my torso and started banging my legs with their book-baskets.
So I did what anyone else would’ve done.
Grabbed them both by the top of the head. One in each fully spanned hand, like I was picking up 2 basketballs or doing some 2-handed melon ripeness testing.

Then I just simply banged their heads together. Admittedly I might have banged them a little hard. I forget they are malnourished little kids after all. Felt a bit bad afterwards. I saw them a day or so later and tried to make friends but when I went to shake the first kids hand he pulled it back and pretended to style his hair then told me to fuck of back to Australia.
I worry about the day when one of them gets fucked up on sniffing glue and comes to stab me in my kidney with a dirty piece of metal.

Anyway.