it's been another hot and sunny afternoon in Phnom Penh, and a good few days since my last post, but there are many, many reasons for that... it's now early evening, and near the Wat at the end of our road, about 100 metres away, a birthday party is in full swing. A small-scale event, but like any good Cambodian celebration it is soundtracked by a band playing through a massive bass-heavy sound system that rattles our windows and rumbles low frequencies through our ribcages, but seems to have worked wonders in helping little Otis drift off to sleep. We've just heard a frenetic jungle version of 'happy birthday' with Ray Manzarek on keyboards and before that there was a love song which pitched slow, traditional female vocals against a scratchy rock-steady ska rhythm guitar, cajun-style accordion and a huge dub bass sound... I dont know what it's called, but it's delicious hot, and I'm sure it's disgusting cold...

We've had a few heavy days (weeks!) one way or another, and these last few days have been trying to help some young friends through some pretty tough times, and it's taking it's toll on us quite a bit. We're fairly exhausted by everything and looking forward to holidays so much. I didn't get around to doing anything creatively exciting with Otis on Saturday last, so no 'Hatboy' style surprises this time...maybe this coming weekend. We're planning his naming ceremony at the moment, and we have a really amazing musician lined up to perform (which I will keep all in suspense about for the time being until he's confirmed with us) so that's something exciting to look forward to. I'm going off now to wrap some end of term presents for A's staff and then I too will hit the sack and break on through to the other side to the accompaniment of 5,000 watts of Khmer traditional-world-music-hip-hop-power-pop-reggae-ska-garage-r'n'b-psychedelic-punk-disco music...
g'night
sleep tight 
J