Parents

with innocent children need to be warned of the imminent arrival in Phnom Penh of

a pack of smooth-talking journalists coming to participate in a Buck's Party for

Australia's own Evan Williams.

Williams, who used to cover Cambodia for ABC TV from Bangkok in the early 90s, is

about to get hitched and decided that the Kingdom was the right place to say bye-bye

to bachelorhood.

Compatriot scribes Mark Dodd, former Reuters Phnom Penh Bureau Chief, and Lindsay

Murdoch, former PPPost Jakarta Bureau Chief, will be arriving Nov 30 from Darwin;

Reuters' Terry Friel was given permission to escape from Baghdad; now defunct Far

Eastern Economic Review's Managing Editor David Lague will roll in from Hongkong;

and the Sydney Morning Herald's Craig Skehan is making the trek from Canberra.

The whispers on the street are: Hang on, this could get ugly.

** Headline in a Sri Lankan newspaper last week: "Arafat's death to be announced

soon"

** Asked what would be the best Khmer Rouge Trial news she would like to hear, a

barang lady in the cash-strapped KRT Secretariat responded by bursting into song

with a verse from an old Australian music hall ditty:

My uncle's a curate in Sydney/He's saving young girlies from sin / He'll sell you

a blonde for a dollar / My God, how the money rolls in!

So far, the money is NOT rolling in.

** Residents in the neighborhood say Hun Sen's father is paying for the new wall,

gate and sidewalk around Wat Botum Vadei.

** Don't miss Polish Film Week. A range of gems will be screened at the Russian Centre

of Science and Culture on Norodom Boulevard from Nov 29 to Dec 4. All shows start

at 6pm and admission is FREE. Check with the Polish Embassy for more details.

** "It's better to be dead and cool, than alive and uncool." A sticker

seen on the back window of a 4x4 car with military plates on Pochentong Blvd on November

5, 2004.

** An Asian traveler leaving the country at Phnom Penh International Airport reports

that when going through Immigration one of the officials there sticks out his hand

and says: "Give me money!" Several foreigners from countries with similar

cultural traditions are said to have readily coughed over a few bucks.

** If you get a chance to take in the Korean Traditional Dance performance tonight

at Chaktomok Hall, don't miss it. The Drum Dances will knock your socks off.