A quiet night in your tent

Still in Camp Bastion - or should that be Kamp Bastion. I've never actually been in a pirosn camp, though no doubt deserve to be, but this place is pretty much the deal in some respects.

High walls, watchtowers, enough razor wire to go from here to the Thargian Constellation and back. That is, assuming the Thargians would want to come back.

Still, life does have its diversions here. Now let me think of one. Long silence ... tumbleweeds ... sound of desert winds ... I know: why the jingly market of course!

Once a week or so - every Tesday (I'm reliably informed by my military minder here who claims to know nothing but clearly knows much) - a convoy of traders snakes into the sheer, unmeasurable vastness that is Bastion.

They set up shop.

It is utter, unmitigated tat. Or so Mr Minder told me. I went to check.

It is utter, unmitigated tat. You too can be the proud owner of a knocked-off DVD complete with bloke in the row in front getting up to pee halfway through because it was all shot in some Karachi flea-pit picture house.

And that's just the start. Lots of dodgy rugs and carpets retyailing for ludicrous prices. Because the traders know that if you won't pay the asking, then some other lone loser will cough up the dollars.

And the poor folks who are incarcerated here really have no choice.

Such is the fine state of security which NATO has brought to Helmand Province, if you left here and walked out through the front doors you would almost certainly be shot/knifed/blown up/asked in for chai/ kidnapped/ ransomed/offered high-grade opium to smoke/beheaded - although but not necessarily in that order.

Best advice then? Have a quiet night in your tent with a dodgy DVD.

Salaams all round.

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