THE TALK OF THE TOWN: TALEBAN COUP TODAY!

DUST STREET NEWS:
The Taleban have planned a coup for today, so the Americans have finally gotten permission to come out from Camp Cave whirling dust in the streets of Kabul with their Hummers and heavier gear, the helicopters whirring lower than ever before (Nielsen time!), and no one knows the End of the day, but from our plastic chairs on the roof terrace we have the most excellent view, the Parliament just three dust roads away, two freshly bought boxes of cold beer cans in the kitchen (1 Heineken, 1 Beck’s), alas, fully equipped with sunglasses and the first blushing springtime tan on the cheeks, we are now just waiting for the show to begin, hoping for maybe some fireworks at dusk or in the dark of the evening, my only worry right now being: how will I survive the last thirty, ten or fifty years of my life without music? will I be allowed to take a wife (and if yes, then: how many?) and, worst of all, how the hell will I be able to produce the compulsory beard, that I have never in my lifetime been able to grow?!

But except from that, just another overexposed day in the colonies:

CIVILISATION DEFINED
This morning we were a bit late off for the theatre and so our Norwegian allied had to bring his coffee on the half hours ride in the van through the city, but owing to the very bad state of the streets (being merely just holes in the dusty plain and here and there the reminiscent of asphalt) he wasn’t able to make his coffee stay calm in the cup, it kept sloshing around and out scolding his hand and staining his suit, and so we agreed on the necessity of improving the roads of Afghanistan. And alas, by the way we had come upon the universal definition of civilisation: In the morning one has to be able to drink ones coffee undisturbed!

CAMERA CREW NOW COMPLETE!
At noon my Afghan agent called and informed me he had found two young men probably willing to follow me with each one video camera on my long walk through Kabul. I had our driver take me to the remains of French Culture Centre and met them in there. Mahmud & Reza. They were not sure (“because of time, you know”) so I offered them 50 dollars a day. - You have permission from the authorities to do this? Mahmoud asked. - To do what? I said. - To film in the streets. - No, I said, - I never ask for permission, if you ask for permission from the authorities, no matter where, in Europe, in America, here, you just get into an endless bureaucracy and eventually you come out with a NO, cause, I said, they do not and they never will understand what we are doing, and so, I said, no matter where in the world, we just do it, we’ve done it in Denmark, Iraq, the US, Dubai and all the way up through Iran. - Yes, he said, - those are countries with normal situation, but here is different. - Let’s just do it, I said, - it is harmless, isn’t it? just a man walking into the city with a flag. - Exactly, Mahmud said, - it is a white man invading our city carrying this particular flag.
- We’ll do it! I said, - fifty dollars each and per day. - Okay, said Mahmud, - we’ll do it, but not for the money, for experience, it is interesting project. Good boys! I thought, - made of the right stuff! And they’ll survive, after all they are not the ones in the line of sight. I’m the one walking. They’ll just follow me in a car, filming through a window, one of them now and then jumping out in the street to get a closer up. - And if something like trouble, maybe someone come or military check points, what we do then? - You just duck, I said, - duck down for a moment, but please, I said, - don’t stay down the whole damned way!