Bitter at missing last night's weekly Bingo session on the base, chat today has turned to other entertainment possibilities: namely the potential for various Reality TV formats in Lashkar Gar.

(Keep in mind we've now been on a military base for a week.)

Mayor Swap was suggested. It would involve swapping Ken Livingstone with the mayor here - and watching.  It's not particularly complex, but it does raise interesting possibilities. For example, consider a congestion charge for anyone hauling more than a hundred kilos of opium through the town.

I fear though Ken might get so into the notion of a shura - tribal elders with beards sitting about on carpets for hours - that he might never leave. I'm not sure what the mayor of Lash (as it's fondly known here) would make of London.

Lieutenant Colonel Andy Price, who is chief media minder here, is worryingly keen on a particularly punitive version of 'I'm a Correspondent, Get Me Out of Here.' 
He suggests pitting a media minder against a correspondent, where each tries to sabotage the others' professional efforts. Viewers could then phone in, and nominate who wins (i.e gets voted off the base) and who has to stay. 

I think this is the colonel's gentle marine way of saying he would like us to leave as quickly as possible. I think it was when Julian swung the camera around on Tuesday, and Andy looked down the barrel of the camera and said, 'Please send the BBC back' that we understood how much he'd grown to love Channel Four News, and all our work.

Ah, embeds. You can't live with them, and you can't live without them.      

Depending on flights and weather, we may be leaving tomorrow.

I now feel guilty at not having written more about Lashkar Gar, and our time here.
So will try to make up for it now.

I've written about the late night chats, and controversial masculinity of the marines, but not about the showers (hot AND cold running water), the camp D and V outbreak (diarrhoea and vomiting to you and I, and thankfully now over), the food (I was a meatloaf virgin), the electricity outages (head torches all round), the beds (sprung or stretched), the tragic Australian fatigues (no wonder they're called the potato and onion men), or the marines wearing towels as skirts (see controversial masculinity).

So many magical moments.