Diary from Kabul

22-10-2011, entry two!

I want to write another diary entry but I am too tired and aching and beat. My plans for a detox of prodigious standing have faltered, early doors I must admit. I wouldn’t say quite at hurdle one, but in fact some time before hurdle one, quite close to the starting blocks, in the starting blocks actually, goddamit I failed. ‘Bolt like’ I have stumbled and false started. My performance here has been risible, I have been seduced by the charms of Turkmen’s offering free Tuborg and Bulgarian’s bearing Burger King. Yep you heard me correctly, Burger King, authentic Whoppers with Cheese. From where it came I dare not ask, but it was very cold so I am thinking Missouri. I chide myself that this imbibing is all part of my effective networking plans, but if I am truthful it’s mostly because you can’t beat a good party and junk food can you?

Chin music: Well the chin is mended. I have to commend my immune system for such a sumptuous effort, brilliant, I really take my hat off to it. Like a million barrelling soldiers that organised themselves for a mass attack, they targetted the enemy and crushed it dead! This whole happy occurrence coincided with me staying up very late, getting drunk and listening to achingly loud dance music. I woke the next morning and the Necrotising Fasciitis had been neutralised. My head did hurt in other ways, but I can only assume that a diet of mung beans and Acid Rave Garage House music (to be known from this moment on as ARGH music, as in ‘argh’ my head hurts) is the correct prescription if your head is going to drop off. Amoxicillin - paahh. Chin music I tell you!

Weather: Ignore my previous philippic on the dreamy light here, I got ahead of myself. It’s raining, endlessly, murky dreary gloomy. The dust has turned to mud and the streets are stained brown. According to the Met Office there will be plague and pestilence in the UK on Monday, accompanied by high winds and much wet stuff, so at least we share the same weather. It makes me feel at home.

Networking: The word implies, and correct me if I am wrong, a net that works. What they don’t tell you is that nets have holes in them, which often prevents the net from working as planned. It should be called something like ‘very big plastic bag without holes in it working’, which whilst not as catchy and lacking in brevity, would provide a little more hope. I meet people daily who seem keen to speak with me, we laugh and smile as if we have known each other forever, my we are good friends, business cards are exchanged and we promise marriage and children. And then you never hear from them again. I have spoken with correspondents from The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent and The Washington Post and we all agree that we could not have met each other a moment sooner, we are on the brink, a Pulitzer is a ‘shoe in’ – I have arrived I think! And then emails bounce back, the phone just rings and rings until defeated, I hang up, they never write, they don’t send me flowers anymore. Methinks that they love another photographer. My life is a litany of unrequited professional relationships, but I will show the infidels, they will regret the day they crossed ‘Martin No Work Middlebrook’.

Helmand: When I first heard that I was going to Helmand, well I was thrilled pretty. Mayonnaise is my favourite condiment by a country mile, and to be spending two weeks at the home of Mayonnaise was a career high. And then I realised that I was going to Helmand, not Hellman as I had thought and I was crestfallen. But it’s not without it’s compensation I can assure you. The MOD are organising my Press Pass, a very useful piece of plastic, I will have my ISAF and IJC Accreditation, I have to attend a one day Media Training Course, they will provide me with body armour and a helmet, and doubtless complimentary ‘I am shit scared pants’. “Bring a sleeping bag,” they said, and in the manner of Ray Meers I feign experience in such things, but if they don’t give me a bed I will shoot them all dead. They have sofas and Hazelnut Coffee, I have read their missives, it’s all in place, luxury is guaranteed. Oh and 3 hot meals a day!

So I don’t want anyone worrying about me OK, is that agreed, because each night I shall bathe in a jar of creamy eggy vinegary sauce. Delicious!

Names: I have met Cedric and Eric and Amandine and Tina and Don and Jaymo and Joshua and Yayha and Fared and Raees and Oliver and Sippi. Sippi is my favourite of all the names I have met. Her full name is Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam. She sounds like a sleeping tablet from a former Russian state. You can’t make this stuff up!

Last night I shared red wine with a gay Croatian, whose name slips me, which is exactly what he wanted to do. He said if I needed anything at all he would bend over backwards to help me. I was grateful as you can imagine. Funnily enough I don’t remember his name but his smile will live with me forever.

What does my week have in store for me?

Tonight I am having dinner with a film producer, and the coach of the Afghan Cricket Team. I intend to arrange becoming an honorary member so that I may train with them through the winter; for purposes of fitness and to hone my Ninja Mosquito reflexes. Sunday night, dinner with a photojournalist to ruthlessly extract as much germane information as I can. Monday evening I am having dinner with my former Sister-in-Law who is in Kabul for a couple of days. I have not seen her for years and it will be great to catch up. Tuesday night I will be practicing sleeping in a sleeping bag and filing copies of my last will and testament. Wednesday is Mayo day. Thursday, the army will complain about my snoring and for security reasons relocate me to the SWAT Valley.

And finally, it is 2pm here and so dark is the sky that I can’t see the end of my nose. Yesterday we had thunder and lighting, and as I write these final words the horizon looks like the surface of Jupiter, the windows shake with tempest thunder and the sky is alive with spritely electricity. My kind of weather. The wonder of it all is that our horizons may be different but the stars we the same!