I have to admit I have been out of the loop for nearly a week. I copped a bad prawn or something late last week which dropped me for a couple of days. I thought I was coming good, went out to dinner on Saturday night, but de-generated again next day.

I have given the toilet bowl and basin a good old pounding and on Thursday when it first hit, barely got away without making a public disgrace of myself.

I only started coming good again on Wednesday and went out to dinner last night. Things have changed. At 6:30pm, our car met an OZ police checkpoint and we were strongly advised to turn around and go home. When the rock rolled past the front of the car, I could see what was going on. Yet another rock fight.

We went home and our eating partner elected to come to our place. We had another crack at 8:30pm and the rock fight had vanished and the streets were totally deserted. The restaurant owner was ecstatic to see customers and he told us that business had dropped sharply after Major Alfredo’s prison escape and plummeted to almost nothing after the shootings last Friday.

There have been a couple of other signs that now lead me to conclude that the security situation is definitely a lot worse than a month ago. But why ? In the absence of any analysis from any foreign press at the moment, I will have a go in my next post.