I am proud of my wild back yard, a tangle of briar, vine like climbers and flowering plants.
Look at my roses!
Of all my plants the rose bush has proved the fastest grower and given the most extravagant flowers. Flowers only rivalled by the small hibiscus
that has been flowering continuously for weeks now on my bedroom windowsill.
Last night I watched a Cambodian thriller Vanished. The linked review is rather generous I think, but then as a very low budget, home grown, movie I think it deserves some generosity, and it would be unfair to compare it even with films from countries like Thailand and indonesia which have well established film studios.
I was pleased that I was able to pick out some of the very few Khmer words I have now learned. It was reassuring to find my pronunciation was not too bad and the language is more intelligible than it appears on first looking at a text book or hearing a tape.
It is hard to imagine that Cambodia will soon be my new home and already Britain feels a little lonely as i think of saying goodbye to old friends and family once again.
At the weekend I took the Morris Minor to Birmingham and picked up some friends of Viv's from the station. There was much reminiscence and gossip that I'd like to include, especially as a certain scientific celeb was mentioned, but I am sworn to secrecy, alas.
You will have to read the autobiography.
I have finished Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. It was very thought provoking and readable. Perhaps because it was not originally written as an academic text I found I could race through it after the laborious Cambridge histories.
One thing annoyed me however, and that was the fact that some lengthy quotes in foreign languages were not translated. It seems rather arrogant to assume all your readers have a knowledge of French, German and Spanish.
French I can get by in but I know more Cambodian than I do German.
But there were plenty of footnotes and it was far less frustrating to read than the Cambridge History of SEA.
My next book is Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, another book it is almost obligatory to quote at SOAS and that I did not have time to read fully.
After that I move on the classic Clifford Geetz, Religion in Java. When that's finished I will have completed the books I really wanted to read when I had enough time, though there are still a few histories I want to revisit later on.
By the way if you don't want your guilty secrets to be revealed, in great and intimate detail, in pages my autobiography please get in touch and we can arrange a waiver fee.
I am already in negotiations with the current Earl of Lonsdale and Ms. G MC. among others. So don't expect a speedy reply.... Madison.
And the rest of you.
But the young ones don't care, they put all their shame up on Facebook, as if it was something to be proud of.
Still there are some secrets that might embarrass even the Facebookettes.
Isn't that so?
My fee for exclusion is not unreasonable and I am always open to negotiation.