“Love Life in a Kabubble” – The Times Diary Feature Dispatches

Heidi Kingstone, a foreign correspondent, has written a book, Dispatches from the Kabul Cafe, about working in Afghanistan from 2007-11. At the launch she recalled the hedonistic lifestyle in the “Kabubble” of the capital, “where five-star hotels and bursts of artistic creativity flourished side by side with death and a sense of imminent doom”. For expats, the stress contributed to a live-for-today attitude. Commenting on the meat market of Kabul nightlife and the high proportion of men to women, Kingstone said: “The odds were good — but the goods were odd.”