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I don’t usually observe Lent, but this year it crept up on me. The penances just happened. I’m not even a good Christian. But, let me tell you, this is way, way beyond giving up the Mars Bars for a few weeks. First, the hair: the weekend after Ash Wednesday I went shooting pigeons in Suffolk with my friend Sam Kiley. At the time I had long locks (not through vanity, I promise, but rather neglect of what GQ magazine calls ‘grooming’). When I told Sam I was off to Afghanistan in April, he urged me to have a short back and sides. Otherwise, he said, if the Taliban kidnapped me they’d find me pretty and bugger me senseless. He doesn’t mince his words, old Sam. And he doesn’t have a hair on his head. We found some clippers and he gave me a severe ‘jarhead’ buzz cut.
I had gone to Britain in February hoping to wangle some money out of my publishers — or, as I said rather grandly, ‘do some business’.
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