In Ethiopia

The 'Guardian' informs that British military losses have reached 201 and that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, says "we must fight on." However, it really has all been said, hasn't it? "This is a war that is causing thousands of deaths, that cannot be won and that is being fought for reasons very different from those that the young men from the United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere are supposedly dying for."

No, I am in Ethiopia and there should enough distraction here, at least some of the time, to keep me distracted from the Hindikush and the shennanigans elsewhere. Not noticing very many shennanigans at the moment though and I am too conscerned about some of the idioscyncracies that one finds from British ex-pats when they are bounding about foreign fields. On returning from Bole yesterday, a good piece of pizza, a good cup of coffee and the live premiership football were put into that kindo of perspective that only middle class, received pronunciation speaking, middle English ladies are capable of putting "modern man's" perspective into. There we were rambling along on the bus and there they were saying things like, "oh look, there is a nice little cafe, we could go down there and talk to some of the locals."

The "nice" little cafe was, of course, in a field of mud and I was left thinking and what are you going to talk to the locals about and have you decided on which language you might want to use. Yes, these experiences are wonderful for putting you in touch with that "Withnail and I" generation, that "stop the planet I want to get off" generation and in touch with that part of that generation who would represent Withnail and not I.

Oh, I almost forgot; the shennigans are beginning to appear and if any of you have clicked on the link to my blog above, you will have noticed that I am having to access my blog through a proxy.