Two Left Feet:

I would like to register a complaint. This is going to be a moan I warn you, I am sorry about that. I don't know who to send this complaint to mind you. I don't think just one business unit is responsible for this screw up....

Doctor Doctor:

I speak English, you may have noticed, not expert, not Stephen Fry, but better than Stephen somebody else who I am struggling to think of. I am frequently asked for the definition of this and the spelling of that in Afghanistan, but it's not life or death...

Being English: The other evening some ex-pat Fijians who provide security here threw a traditional leaving party. This entailed 15 or so of us, sitting cross-legged on the floor drinking bowls of 'Kava' a traditional South Sea paralytic, whilst the Fijians sang songs, vocal harmonies that were like medicine that...

Move Along, Nothing to See Here:

I think I may have been living in a war zone for too long, and it is taking its toll. Before Christmas I was talking with a friend who had been working in regions of conflict exclusively for 10 years and he described...

One in the Chamber: I joined with 14 others on New Year's Eve for dinner at Le Jardin, a new restaurant that has opened here, two years in the building, the ambition of a wonderful and fascinating French man called Dan. There were amongst us 10 nationalities, a convention of...

The Cost: Everything has a price in this world, and each society places its value on different items. In the West it's cars and houses, TVs and eating out. Agrarian Africans will place the greatest value on their livestock, the Japanese choose sushi and whaling. Recently a tuna fish...

The Secret War: If you were to take a look at my legs at the moment, you would think that I had been picking shrapnel from my wounds for weeks. You would probably lie me down and feed me soup through a straw, invite family and friends over for bedside...

I live in a house just off the Darul Aman in the western outskirts of Kabul. I had just finished lunch and was about to head out and do some errands in the nearby shops. A stream of emails pinged my way and held me back. As I sat replying...

It's not British You Know: On my final night in Beirut, we went out to dinner at a restaurant that specialises in Chocolate dishes. If your sole intake of chocolate for three months has been Ferrero Rocher, then you are to endorphins what insomnia is to sleep - utterly deprived....

A Message to David Cameron:War pays I can tell you. Kabul is a building site and the construction industry is booming off the back of reconstruction. Lebanon the same. What happens is this. Some foreign power, uninvited normally, bombs the hell out of your infrastructure until it resembles an archaeological...

Come Fly Me: So those of you who know and care, which excluding my mum is no telephone directory, will be aware that last week was to 'close' what Gillette are to shaving - a whisker away! I had always intended to bail out of Kabul this weekend and...

Ashura - too close to death!

In December 2011, 58 innocents were blown apart by a suicide bomber in Kabul. This is my story.

When they began to dress Kabul in a decorous display of religious festooning, my interest grew as rapidly as the silk and cotton...

X Marks the Spot:

I did a shoot today on the New Bagram Road on the eastern margins of Kabul. There is no such thing as an address in Kabul, not in the sense that most of us know anyway. The site for the shoot was recced last week....

Eye Spy:

Everyone here plays a game of I spy when they are out and about. The idea is that you are trying to work out which of the 200,000 Toyota Corollas in front of you is loaded with fertilizer and ball bearings. It's not quite like the version...

Babe:
One of the curious things about 'upping sticks' and leaving it all behind, is that a part of your life continues without you, and yet somehow you are still living it. After all you carry the thought of it with you, it's not as though you just...

Next to my tent in Camp Bastion is the Vigil Ceremony Parade Ground, where those killed in action are remembered. Inscribed on the monument are the names of all the soldiers that have given their lives in Helmand. Carved into stone are these words:

"When you go home tell...

Starry Night

We patrolled for six hours, a wearing journey I can assure you, and whilst never blasé, you can also become a little un-attentive after a while. The heat saps you, your body armour cuts into all those fleshy parts, dust fills nature's holes and vulnerable parts and...

Shitting in a Bag: Well, I want to give you the impression that shitting in a bag is a messy and undignified business, that somehow on first attempt I got it wrong, and sheepishly headed for the laundry.

But it was annoyingly easy and hygienic. I do love this...

Release Techniques:

I will not say too much about this, but I have been trained in how to accept your release from capture, if the worst happens and nasty 'Jonny Talib' fancies a slice of me. I had imagined naively, like a sickly Hollywood movie, running into the arms...

Helmand: When I first heard that I was going to Helmand, well I was thrilled. 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...