Wash, shave...and date

The girls of Phnom Penh are getting bolder by the minute. One minute they were daring to sit on park benches holding hands with their boyfriends or hold on tightly whilst they whirled around the city on their mopeds. Now, as they have you at their mercy with a cut-throat razor hovering above your face they ask you out on a date. Well, that's what happened to me tonight when I popped into my usual beauty parlour for a hair-wash, shave... and a dinner date. And how could I refuse the adorable dark-haired beauty holding a very sharp razor an inch from my throat. I just hope she doesn't bring the razor on the date. With the proliferation of beauty shops across the city, I wonder if this is becoming a popular way for the stylists and assistants to select their next prey. I'll find out and let you know.

Time for a medical update. At 7am this morning I appeared at my doctor's surgery so he could take a blood sample. He needed to know the state of play before we tried a new course of treatment for my annoying skin problem (discoid dermatitis). By 5pm he had the results and whilst everything looked pretty normal, there was an exception. High fat levels in my blood and heart sent my triglycerides count sky-high and I've been told in no uncertain terms to avoid the following: absolutely no chicken skin, no beef or bacon, no eggs and only tiny amounts of butter and cheese, and alcohol. He also told me to down two litres of water each day, drink the juice from a large coconut daily and undertake more exercise. That, alongwith a dozen tablets each day that'll make me rattle, will aggressively attack the problem before we can adopt a more considered approach in two weeks from now. Fingers crossed this will do the trick as I want to exhaust every avenue before committing to the last resort, a trip back to England.