Penguin Books Blog

64 DAYS TO LAUNCH!!!
 
Dear Spud fans, friends, Romans and people at the wrong website.
 
Greetings from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It’s a week into the trip and I have thankfully settled down after the flurry of finishing the book and then roaring off to bustling Kuala Lumpur. I have finally, after a number of torturous nights watching CNN until dawn, taken control of my jetlag. After attempting numerous techniques to combat this mysterious sleeping disease, i have settled on the cunning ploy of brushing my teeth with single malt whiskey before a bout of shadow wrestling with myself. Works a treat and the headrush is to die for.
 
So Phnom Penh is by far the largest city in Cambodia. It’s wild and intimidating when you first arrive, everything is loud and in-your-face and your’e not so sure this is the place for you at all. Within hours of your arrival it begins seducing you, after 3 days of exploring, it’s a love affair. Ramshackle slums and markets sit side by side with centuries old Pagodas and restored French colonial buildings. Beggars and tuk-tuk drivers accost you and small children sell books on genocide in the street cafes and sulk if you don’t make a purchase. Our hotel – The Hotel Castle lies on the riverside overlooking where an elephant strolls past every afternoon blocking up the rush hour traffic on his way home. He works at Wat Phnom, the city’s holiest site, where he offers rides to tourists for five dollars and eats their sticks of sugar cane in return for a posed pic. I kid you not.
 
Just cruising the streets or stopping off at a restaurant or bar can be an experienced, although Julia has a growing addiction to adopting mangy street cats so i have to be aware of small furry Rogers wherever i go. Saddened to report that i haven’t yet seen Brad and Angelina scouring the orphanages and backalleys looking for more children athough my recent avid CNN watching revealed Madonna’s hardship in childtrafficking closer to home. Ouch!
 
On a more serious tone, the weekend saw us  exploring the Killing Fields where Pol Pot’s murderous regime slaughtered thousands of Cambodian men, women, and children who were accused of being enemies of the state. Pol Pot’s Khymer Rouge which devastated the country from 1974-1979 was unimaginably cruel and bloodthirsty. We witnessed a three storey glass monument packed with human skulls and the shallow pits in which the bodies were buried. When you see evidence of so much sensless death, you realise it’s such a fine line between everything you assume that is in your control and the reality that often it isn’t.
 
Yesterday and today i have found myself musing about Spud and his incredible journey that began on his first day of boarding school. I think about Leearning To Fly more often now and chuckle at some of the moments that still amuse me. I think too about the new character that i have created and how the readers might react to him. His name is Garlic, and he could be the original Malawian village idiot. I wonder if readers will find him irritating or funny, ideally it will be both – funny how it’s always the newest chicks you feel most protective over.
 
I was hoping to share some movie news – but this may have to wait. I can, however, tell you that things are moving along at pace with a few exciting developments. For those of you that dream of movie stardom please DON’T panic. There have been no SA auditions as of yet and when there are, this will be the place you hear it first. I have asked the movie producer Ross Garland to write a movie update, but he seems to be ignoring me. Don’t worry i’ll keep nagging.
 
So from here, we’re heading Southwards on Thursday to the remote seaside village of Kep near the Vietnam border. It promises some rural R&R on a hillside above the Gulf of Thailand. I plan to read, walk the hills, and enjoy my sundowners. I’ll catch up with you there if i can find an internet cafe, and i’ll share a few more random tales from the orient.
 
In the meantime please consider the following question:
 
Should one pat a muzzled dog?
 
Spud love
Johnny

Related posts:

1. John van de Ruit – Journal Entry- April 16th
2. John van de Ruit- Journal Entry April 21st
3. John van de Ruit – Journal Entry – April 1
4. John van de Ruit- Journal Entry May 28th
5. John van de Ruit- Journal Entry May 13th

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