The British Casualty Monitor project have updated their graphs with the latest data from the MOD on the war in Iraq. They have also now added the same analysis for Afghanistan. In both situations, and especially in the Aghan war, the upward trend is striking.
Rather a nice reader reaction to Murder in Samarkand this morning:
I am not one who has that innate ability to plough through endless books but a casual accquintance recommended your book so I bought it to read on holiday. I couldn’t put the thing down and believe me, that is a first. Most books take me weeks to read but I finished yours in four days. I knew this government was corrupt and devoid of any moral fibre, but the extent to which you have shed light on it, stuns me. I knew Blair was lying the moment he said in a televised debate prior to invasion of Iraq that the war wasn’t about oil. I have read a few other books about 9/11, the War on ‘Terror’ and the Iraq War and most of it needed to be taken with a pinch of salt, but your book struck a chord from the off and I had no reason to doubt or disbelieve the validity of your account. Anyone who doesn’t smell a rat with this government’s foreign policy (and domestic policies for that matter) needs their head examining.
Meantime, A Mighty Heart continues to garner stellar reviews in the States prior to its opening on Friday. A fun spat in the US when Fox News were banned from the premiere. Michael Winterbottom is now filming Genova in Italy with Colin Firth, and plans to start shooting Murder in Samarkand with Steve Coogan in February. Shooting will run from February to June to capture the range of extreme continental Central Asian weather conditions experienced in the book.