Prince Harry passes a donkey

I'm not sure whether they reflect the tragic, the comic, or the tragicomic side of British society, but hell I've been thoroughly fascinated by all these stories about Prince Harry's (aka "Widow Six Seven") mission to Afghanistan. See, no matter how much they seem to verge on satire, they are obviously meant to be taken at face value. And that's exactly the part what exceeds my capacity of understanding different cultures and their ways of communication, prompting me to condensate my deep frustration into one single sentence: "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" The British can sometimes get pretty, pretty pompous and mawkish with their lingo.

Whilst that narration itself is of course relatively entertaining - just for the sake of it, join a verbal excursion from Daily Mail, via The Sun, to Daily Star, and experience how harmonically the language and its nuances evolve through the journey - I've actually become more enchanted by the pictures. Don't ask me who has taken them and whose PR agency has coordinated their distribution, but both actors have done a fairly nice job.

There is one that is particularly good. It's so good that it will be terribly wrong if the photographer won't be nominated for a war photography award of any sort, or at least be invited in to a related exhibition. (Such as this - it's continuous and I heartily recommend it, should you ever be in Dubrovnik. Incidentally, the pictures on Afghanistan were my personal favourites, maybe be because they are so versatile and manage to go beyond all the shock and sorrow. I especially liked this shot.)

Yes, I feel obliged to post it on here - the caption is by Daily Mail:

On patrol: Prince Harry passes a donkey in the deserted town of Garmisir

See, people, that's goddamn art. You have a stranger in a strange land, weary yet armed and brave, encountering an initially distrustful but eventually friendly and grateful local civilian on his cute and loyal working animal; they are in some deserted town which is known by a mysterious-sounding, even sinister, name and during their brief encounter they maybe greet each other, maybe not. We shall never for know certain, but are allowed to empathise, thanks to a war photographer who happened to be around.