I've been reading a lot about the foreign press corps based in Kuwait (the Westerners anyway)... and while I understand their frustration over not being in the middle of the "action", it seems that they're passing away their idle time filing bitchy dispatches about bureaucracy in Kuwait, the weather, and the lack of booze and/or sex - although many Kuwaitis would beg to differ with that last one... The only excitement they've had so far were the sirens - that's when they're not "enjoying themselves" in their hotel rooms watching Fashion TV. Many of them are holed up in the Hilton resort, 25 minutes outside the city. It's a nice enough place, but bland in a way I haven't yet determined. And being outside the city means they're a bit cut off.

I've deliberately avoided all contact with the foreign press simply because very few of them seem like people I'd want to hang out with. I get the impression that most of them are condescending, ill-tempered, impatient and completely uninterested in anything that doesn't qualify as a "story". I'm sure they're not all that bad; some could be very nice people. It's just that I feel it's not worth going out of my way to be nice and hospitable to them only to be snubbed later. They're not worth that risk. I realize this now even after I just posted an open invitation to Christopher Hitchens, surely the crankiest of all journalists.

Granted they're here to do a job without much time for pleasantries, and I don't think of myself as particularly newsworthy - Daily Telegraph interview notwithstanding - but it wouldn't kill them to use their spare time more productively and go out and about and talk to the locals, get a sense of what life has been like living under the constant threat of the tyrant next door for 12 years, learn about our lives, hopes and dreams. Even enjoy our hospitality....

Having said all that, if any "nice" press people in Kuwait happen to read this, and would like to get a local "non-official" perspective on things.. then I'm your man!