Kampot
Since arriving in Phnom Penh, I’ve already managed two short trips down to Kampot, a somnolent town 150km south of the capital. Although both were work trips, I was struck by the charm of the town’s riverine setting and have planned a dedicated weekend of reading and indolence at the French-run Les Manguiers guesthouse, whose...
The Cephalopods of Syntax
In my downtime at work, I’ve been reading some amusing material about bad academic writing, my arch-nemesis while at university and, it appears, something of a sub-genre of humour on teh web. The primus inter pares of this genre is undoubtedly Postmodern Pooh by literary critic Frederick Crews, a riotous satire of the state of...
The Invoice
Last week I received via email a mysterious invoice from the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) instructing me to pay (via cheque or direct bank transfer) the sum of $226.00, purportedly for the quantity of 1 (one) ‘Bound Farrago Editions’. Remembering the miscommunication and bureaucratic tomfoolery that resulted in said purchase, I was unexpectedly...
Lon Rith
The nights now are cool and humid, alive with the whisper of insects and the chk-chk of tiny geckos. I am sitting on my balcony after a long spell of wine-induced sloth, staring down at the pin-pricks of moto headlights and the tumult of the fountains in Hun Sen Park. After just sixty days, fragments...
Pisah Khmer
After two months, my Khmer is coming along like a dry-season slum fire. I now have a tutor named Sokha, a former journalist, who comes to my apartment on Sundays to guide me through a fairly solid textbook course. Speaking Khmer is not too difficult in comparative terms — I’ve met a lot of people...
