Dey Kraham slum cleared

In the early hours of the morning last Saturday, 24th January, 1500 families suddenly found themselves homeless.

Dey Kraham (literally: red earth) sits – or rather, sat – on the East side of Phnom Penh, near the National Assembly building and close to the mega casino owned by prime minister Hun Sen. At 2am on Saturday morning, all access routes into and out of the slum were blocked by the police, and heavy machinery was brought into place. At precisely 6am police and demolition workers entered Dey Kraham, using tear gas and flame throwers to disperse angry and frightened residents – many of whom had lived there for up to ten years.

Bulldozers were brought in, to crush the flimsy houses, while the residents scrambled to get clear. In some cases, people refused to leave their homes, and had to be persuaded to get out by NGO workers, moments before the buildings were flattened.

The process was completed by 8:00am.

Workers were paid $10 and were given breakfast and two litres of petrol.

Loss of Equity

At the risk of going all reachoutandtouchthescreen on you, I'm going to blog about shoes now.

Some time ago I realised I really really needed to replace the boring navy office shoes that I'd had re-heeled twice since I decided they needed replacing. I located a stockist of similar shoes in Didsbury - not the closest, but a small shop, which I preferred to support in this economic climate.

I can highly recommend Arnout's family shoes, both for the excellent customer service and their stock of quality shoes.

Much of their stock comes from Equity, who employ about 150 skilled people in Leicester. All their office shoes are manufactured in England, and I'm told by Mr and Mrs Arnout that it's a workers co-operative. Well, it was, but the reason the subject came up is that they say it's going to cease trading, not because it doesn't sell a million high quality british-made shoes a year, but because their pension deficit is increasing, partly because Flash Gordon: saviour of the world quietly removed the tax credit on pension dividends a few years ago, and partly because the credit crunch has made their investments shrink.

So there you have it, discover an excellent source of wide-fitting shoes, lose it all at the same time. 

During the course of the conversation, Mrs Arnout mentioned that another plus point to Equity was that their ladies boots were also built for real women. Now, I gave up even bothering to try on knee-high boots many years ago, after I worked out that all such boots were made for people with the legs of an anorexic twelve-year old. And, if the company's not going to be making them in the future, it would be daft not to even try them on, wouldn't it?

I have gorgeous boots. They make me happy. And they're doubly precious, since they will most likely be completely irreplaceable.

I heard there was a secret chord..?

For the final word on the whole Christmas number 1 controversy,

On Christmas morning we went to church, in Rob's aunt's village. During the sharing of the peace, the organist played a lovely, haunting instrumental version of the song that was then at number 1, 2 and 36 in the charts. 

Therefore presumably, what the organist was trying to say was not "Peace be with you" but rather "Maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."

Perhaps it's a new form of subversive undercover atheism.

Dinner in Dunster

We had a quiet meal out, while in Cornwall: the Saturday after Christmas is not a busy time for the restaurateurs of Dunster.

A fish restauruant, with a concentration on local ingredients, Myn was in her element.  She went for shelfish ravioli, and while I was trempted by the tuna steak, I eventually plumped for the pork chops with a honey mustard sauce.  This actually came with something reminiscant of melted Christmans pudding: very tasty, but incredibly filling.  This meant that I had no room for pudding, so Myn enjoyed a cheese platter, while I nibbled on a grape.

There was a good winelist, which was varied and evenly priced.  

While the place was pleasantly decorated on the inside, the cottagy style, with the nicnack-filled windows made it look a bit like one of the several "expensive tat" shops that fill the High Street, so you might not particularly identify it as a restaurant from the street, or that it is open.  Walking through the door, I was half expecting to find myself in somene's from room, rather than a restaurant.

While there's no way of knowing what this would be like in a busier time of year, it was a good meal with attentive service in a pleasant atmosphere. 

What I did on my holidays

The compulsory Christmas catchup post.

It was my family's turn this year, so we went down to Cornwall.  My aunt lives in the pretty village of Devoran, the far side of Truro.  It's quite a drive, so I was grateful to be able to leave the driving to my Chris and my mother.  Myn, on the other hand, came down by train on Christmas Eve.

Usual Christmassy stuff happened: food; wine; church; coastal walk; Dr Who; Wallace & Gromit.  On the way back, we were dropped of at Taunton, from where we went by steam train to Dunster, for a couple of nights at the Yarn Market Hotel.

It was a pleasant stay: the steam trains were fun; there are some nice pubs in Dunster; some interesting walks to be had; and this interesting sign:

"End of public road".