THE ambassador could not make it and I cannot say I blame him. Paul Redicliffe is Her Brittanic Majesty's ambassador to Cambodia. We were to have lunch in an exquisite French restaurant called La Pacha where all ambassadorial, political and royal types eat in Phnom Penh. The problem was that His Excellency was poorly.
He had a tummy bug and was at home ruing it. I know why. Last week in Phnom Penh, it was approximately 45 degrees Celsius at the height of the day. All manner of little bacilli live in that and they are no respecters of the insides of persons.
So Mr Redicliffe could not make it which left me, soaked in vodka and pickled against all disease, at something of a loose end. I was not alone though. I had with me a fellow British writer and a Hong Kong Chinese schoolmaster who was on his Easter holiday in Bangkok and said, with admirable courage: 'Cambodia? Never been there. Probably never will if I don't go with you two.' My friend got his reward for his courage in going to that lovely but dubious land. At breakfast time, in blistering heat, he wandered out of the hotel, which was opposite the royal palace, and King Sihanouk passed by. His Majesty's car was surrounded by even more police on motor bikes than the ones who hung around doing sod all in Central. In utter defiance of usual security principles, the king had the window of his curtained Mercedes-Benz down and was waving out of it at any urchin taken by surprise on the pavement.
But that afternoon, there were no kings to play with and my mind, exercised by some wonderful chilled red wine, settled like a bluebottle on the fact that it was the 20th anniversary of the day the Khmer Rouge walked into Phnom Penh, declared it to be year zero, and emptied the city.
At the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Cambodia the night before, there had been much talk of this - even a discussion panel containing the last surviving member of the Lon Nol regime and an American journalist who wittered on in a monotone about what the last few days in 1975 had been like.
The problem with the Americans was that they reminisced about the drama while conveniently forgetting they were the cause of it. Had it not been for the evils of Nixon and Kissinger, there might not have had to be any 'last days' in Cambodia to maunder on about.