Tim Blair

JOY NOTICED

Le Monde interviewed a group of regulars at Baghdad’s Café Shahbandar as coalition troops entered Iraq. One year on, Le Monde returns to check the mood:

A year after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the American victory, they still gather there every Friday to be in good company. It's there, at the end of Mutanabi Street, "the street of the book market," that Iraqi writers, artists and journalists discuss the events of the week, drinking tea and smoking from narghilehs.

"Yes, something has changed," murmurs Najid Hamid, a photographer who has documented life in Baghdad's oldest café for over a decade.

"When I look at all these faces in my photographs after I've got home, I realize that something has changed ..." He looks around the room, all the men sitting on benches, discussing, complaining, laughing.

"The difference is joy," says Nahid.

Read the whole piece (translated by Douglas at Last of the Famous International Playboys). It isn’t entirely positive, but seems to reflect an overall sense of hope -- much as you’d expect.

And more good news abroad: Holly Valance’s Kiss Kiss is 32 on Kabul’s Top 40! (Previous Afghanistan governments listed Holly at 11 among the Top 5,000 Shameless Infidel Women To Be Killed). Got crazy radio production skillz? Holly-friendly ARMAN FM is soon going national, and requires a bunch of talented radio people. Send resumes here.

(Via reader Garth G. and contributor J.F. Beck)