Basra, 13th December 2006

Conscious of the fact that I'm prone to whinging on e-mails I'll start with a few thank yous. Despite the fact that a simple 3 digit BFPO number took me a very long time to master some of you have shown way more ingenuity than I ever gave you credit for and actually mastered the e-bluey system. So here goes this month’s roll of honour:

Beefcake thank you for the Hasselhoff download- again too large to download (must be a list of his number 1 hits)

Dan thanks for the more sober, and mature, downloads. A lot more informative, and fitting with my age

Everybody else for their e-mails, letters and updates. Truly appreciated and valued

Al, a whole load of thanks for sorting me out with Gmail- everybody else don't kid yourselves that I had the ability to do anything so complicated as change e-mail accounts

Right that’s the thanks over with, now for the complaints. If anybody is in contact with Saddam Hussein (e-mail, letter or phone) can you please ask him where he put the switch for the frickin heating in this palace? It's all very well building a 50 acre palace with more gold than on my Mum's fingers after a good year at the carpet factory but if nobody knows where the switch for the heating is we might as well be living in the dung heap with the rest of his erstwhile subjects. Not that these dung heaps come cheap out here. I was chatting to an Iraqi outside his spacious 1 roomed breezeblock built home that had obviously been built as a favour by day one of the beginners bricklaying course, with aromatic views over a drainage ditch and on-suite rubbish dump and he told me that it was worth $40 000 (US). Now $40 000 Iraqi, that would be a fair one. Iraq being such a stable country the Iraqi dollar being a such a credible currency, $40 000 Iraqi dollars would buy you a Wham Bar and five cola bottles. But $40 000 US- either he should change his estate agent or these Arabs are more gullible than Tony Blair.

So yes its a smidgeon cold- and it rains out here. And when it rains out here the whole country turns into one big mud wrestling pit- unfortunately nobody told the Iraqis the rules and they insist on bringing heavy machine guns to an event that should involve foxy ladies, overly tight bikinis and a couple of beers. I know when younger, before I discovered girls (so third year university- I thought I'd better get that gag in before any of early starters got in there first) i used to make model soldiers and make up scenery to put them on- and nobody try to be cool and claim they were too busy reading Sky magazine and listening to the Levellers to do such dweeb activity- if anybody feels like doing the same, here are some simple instructions to recreate your own Iraq War (Operation Enduring Ball Ache) diorama- buy a big roll of sandpaper use half of it to scrape out last nights pizza box, get an obliging donkey to piss on the other half and then put some severely pissed off plastic soldiers in the middle, turn the lights out and then start throwing fireworks at them.

In case anybody forgot, or chose to forget, it happens to be my birthday next week. I've hired out a bar in Chelsea be there by nine o'clock to get in on the guest list- just let me know how it all goes as I won't be able to make it. In fact, even though thirty, my birthday this time round will actually be remarkably similar to my 15th- remember those days when girls were seriously off limits and spirits were consumed from the bottle in the bogs- as alcohol is banned here and girls look like boys, me and a close knit circle of male friends will be sneaking off to the roof of the Palace to swig whiskey from the bottle- all we'll be missing is the pickled onion monster munch and my Dad playing his hit parade vinyl collection on a record player borrowed from the tennis club- I wonder if Chesney Hawkes will sound quite so cool on IPOD. As ever with teenage parties there will be the usual band of gatecrashers- although this lot will not be the chavs from down the round- and Dad will have trouble repelling them with his 1 Wood.

And after that 24 hour vomit and grunge rave it will be straight into Christmas festivities, apparently the Arabs aren't big on Christmas so we'll just be having a small in house family affair this year. We do have a massive portable megaphone that we attach to the side of vehicles and drive round telling the Iraqis not to worry we are only going to arrest half the town and we will deliver some plastic sheeting tomorrow to patch up the hole the tank made in their living room, so in the perfect ecumenical world of free love and idealism we would declare a Christmas truce and I would drive around Basra singing Christmas carols handing out brandy and pork sausages. Sadly the relationship is fragile enough with Old King Cole, Yuletide greetings, and Horrocks at 300 decibels. So it'll be the normal army Christmas of see-through turkey, armoured plated mince pies and a strictly timed 35 minutes of forced festivities. Joe Pasquale will be coming to perform for the troops at the airport- sods law the one flight the RAF don't fuck up will be his- surprisingly aren't many takers for the gig.

Hope that the Christmas Party season is in full swing. If any of you see a plump lad in a Gap shirt come looming out of the drunken haze by the photocopier don't go near him- it could be 5 times a night Edmondson.