Originally sent: 10 October 2005 About this series Pchum Ben, a holiday to appease the spirits of the dead, happened last week. Most Cambodians leave Phnom Penh to give offerings of food at their local pagoda to ensure that their deceased relatives don’t return from the grave to stalk the earth as a hungry legion… Continue reading Faux Pho
Category: meta
Finding posts near the user using Geo Mashup
If you’re not someone using WordPress, this post is not going to be of any interest. Brian over at Fitzroyalty asks whether it’s possible to order content on a blog relative to reader’s location. It is. Here’s how, or at least here’s how to add a button to the sidebar/menu on a WordPress blog that:… Continue reading Finding posts near the user using Geo Mashup
Keeping it Riel
Originally sent: 23 August 2005 About this series M and I recently has four day weekend in Bangkok which was great for all the wrong reasons: my personal highlights were going to the movies; eating Mexican food, smallgoods, and two and half pork-fuelled hours of yum-cha; and staying in a carpeted room. M picked the… Continue reading Keeping it Riel
“At worst, it’s an ugly manifestation of foodies’ deep-seated disdain for the poor.”
“However good the illusion, would anyone really mistake Moto’s BURGER with cheese for the fast-food familiar? No more than one would confuse an Andy Warhol silk screen of Campbell’s soup cans with Campbell’s soup.” But it is not 1962, a petit four is not a silk screen, and McDonald’s burgers are not merely a symbol… Continue reading “At worst, it’s an ugly manifestation of foodies’ deep-seated disdain for the poor.”
Ratspotting
Originally sent: 12 May 2005. About this series. I spotted my first rat on the way to work this morning which was the size of a small pony. It was headed in the direction of my house. Things bode ill. I’ve just finished my first few weeks of work and it has been incredibly hard… Continue reading Ratspotting
Phnomenon
Sent: 10 April 2005 It’s day seven of CNN becoming Pope Channel, and M and I are rapidly settling in the expat Cambodian lifestyle. Fairly unsurprisingly, Phnom Penh is absolutely different to what I thought – I was expecting everything that we need to do to be much harder. Quite embarrassingly, practically everyone that you… Continue reading Phnomenon
I like your old stuff better than your new stuff.
I get this, often. Writing was more of a priority when I was virtually unemployed in Cambodia with no responsibility whatsoever rather than holding down a full time job that I enjoy and being a somewhat responsible parent. Circumstances have changed a little. Like anyone who writes, I’ve got a whole lot more unpublished old… Continue reading I like your old stuff better than your new stuff.
Two links on the cult of authenticity
The quest for authenticity is an ugly thing. Will there never be an end to the spectacle of (usually white, middle-class) people draping themselves in exotic tribal fabrics, bribing sherpas to haul them up mountains, spending $15 for turkey-burgers in urban hunting lodges, throwing out perfectly good kitchen tables for expensive new tables made out… Continue reading Two links on the cult of authenticity