Disguises are Jolly Effective!

Back in the first year of the current millennium, old John Simpson of the BBC crept carefully into Afghanistan, disguised in a burqa. A decade and a bit later sees that nice Mr Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed (I presume his parents got bored, hence their inability to spell Mohammed the same way twice in a short span of syllables) disappear in the UK in just such a fashion. I recall that back in '01 there was a certain amount of amusement that Afghanistan was so cowed by the concept that a man might not see a woman. While I certainly wouldn't be a Kilroy-Silk of a man in suggesting that every woman must be stripped nude and photographed for pornographic consumption (N.B. Kilroy-Silk surely didn't suggest this, no matter how bloody awful that massive twazzock is), it seems a bit weird that twelve years is all it takes to angle an element of Britain sufficiently as to provide a facsimile of Afghanistan, which is widely-regarded not to be quite up-to-date in . . . one or two ways.

Damnfool nonsense, eh? I shall be back in a few days with something less risible and acid. My Irish travels have been lovely, and I was very happy to see my friends wed!