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Years ago, backpacking in Cambodia I read a battered old copy of the Killing Fields (the book version of the film).
When I finished it I passed it on to a friend, eventually it went all around all our little group.
Later we all admitted to shedding tears while reading it. It is the single most moving novel I have ever read.
From then on in – every beer sunk under Cambodian skies was accompanied with a toast to the book’s hero Dith Pran.
Years later when my parents visited me in Vietnam on their way to Cambodia I made sure that they too had a copy.
I have just read of Dith Pran’s death aged 65 in New York. Considering his life story, the fact that he reached such an age is incredible in itself.
It’s not often I feel genuinely saddened at the death of someone I never met. But Dith and his strength and loyalty to his friend Sydney Schanberg really touched me. He inspired me and I am sure many thousands of others too.
Cheers Dith.
“Geordies, Geordies – what do you call them? Nowhere except for Africa have I been received like that” Muhammad Ali
And check out this fabulous new film too of Ali on Tyneside. Fabulous stuff.
Anybody know where I can find some decent sized stills of his trip? They’d make a great t-shirt.
Another cringingly classic love note in print from Louise Taylor in today’s Guardian. But does big tough Roy Keane even know she exists?
It’s the love affairs that’s gripped football.
She writes:
Not the type to rely on notes or props, Sunderland’s manager invariably ad libs his team talks. By all accounts they are frequently transfixing and sometimes quirky but the Irishman’s speech during Saturday’s interval was his most powerful yet. “The gaffer was as passionate as I’ve ever seen him,” said Kieran Richardson, a one-time Manchester United team-mate of Keane’s. “He gave us a history lesson at half-time. He’s a great manager.”
Seeing as Louise’s love notes are the most frequently Googled pages on here I thought it was time I put them in one place where I can regularly update them. They are now sighted here and linked above.
From Tottenham website The Proud Cockerel (published before today’s game) referring to perceived changes since the last time Newcastle beat Spurs:
…in the space of four months everything has turned full circle and the balance of power between one truly big club and one wannabe who is really nothing more than a clown academy for supporters and players alike has been restored. Spurs go into this game brimming with confidence and playing with a touch of the old swagger, topped up with a glistening trophy safe on the mantelpiece with a head coach who is proving to be even better than the brochure suggested.
Newcastle are the Premier League’s laughing stock once again. Bereft of any belief despite a scrappy win against an awful Fulham side, seemingly unable to create anything in the new era under a manager who promised so much free-flowing entertaining football but has instead been unmasked as a soundbyte-tossing has-been with as about as much clue of modern football as the black and white sheep that follow their ridiculous club.
The final score Spurs 1 – Newcastle 4. Just beautiful.
Is anyone really surprised? Does anyone who has ever used British Airways actually have anything good to say about them?
Last year when I flew back from Nicaragua, British Airways lost my bag. I was left with a phone number to call to try and trace it.
I called it. It was so busy that I couldn’t even go into a queue. My God, how many bags had they lost?
They recorded message simply told me to ring back another time. I tried and tried and tried and I never got through to one human being on that phone line. I didn’t even get to join the queue – not even the luxury of being exasperated by hold music.
I started ringing all numbers. I no longer cared that I was ringing the wrong hotline. I just wanted to speak to a person. Nothing, nothing and nothing.
Some weeks later I came home and wandered what that was in the backyard. It was my bags. I hadn’t been in so they just chucked them round the back.
No letter of apology or anything. No follow up phone call or email. Can you imagine any other organisation behaving like this?
Traveling by air is not fun. It’s almost as if the airlines know they are the bad guys. Like they’ve decided to cut back on every customer comfort and maximise their profits before the green lobby catches up with them.
If their customers hate them in the meantime then what do they care? If it’s all going to come crashing down then they might as well be architects of their own downfall. Better that, they must reason, than letting the Greenies do it.
I liked this from author Anthony Horowitz who was caught up in the debacle with his family:
The one thing I didn’t see at Heathrow was the expected demonstration by environmental groups such as Greenpeace or Plane Stupid. But perhaps they weren’t needed. There were, after all, thousands of people protesting for them, albeit in a rather lacklustre and disorganised way. They were called passengers.
And at the end of the day, it is their voice that may put an end to the vexed question of airport expansion. The bigger it gets the worse it gets, and I’d guess that modern air travel carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. There will have to come a time when everyone decides that anything is better than seat 27K behind the lavatory… even staying at home.
The environmentalists only have to wait, because in the end they’ve simply got to win.
