Just got off the plane in Kabul. Not quite the resort I was expecting! For one, there's no swimming pool, except when it rains and the stormwater backs up and fills the artillery crater in the hotel's lobby.

Anyway, trying to put a brave face on it, Julia and I bought tickets to a circus. Alas our guide took us the very long way round - apparently his cousin was sick, although Julia says a simple bribe would have speeded things up - and we arrived too late. The last act on was a pair of small monkeys, obviously drunk or drugged or both, each holding a switchblade. It was ghastly, as they circled each other. The littler one got a couple of stabs in, but then the bigger monkey stabbed him hard in the cheek, and once more in between the little monkey shoulder blades.