All heads heavily photoshopped obviously. Of note: the desire/ability to appear twice in the same image; the penchant towards military; gun size preferences - only a pussy would carry a handgun; the acceptability of physical contact by males; the lack of females; the lion at the feet.

The driver was miserably grumpy when he picked us up at the lodge mumbling that he was 32 hours into a 36 hour shift - not an ideal situation for yours truly plus fixer given the need hustle what was left of the time in Kabul. In this city you want the man to behind the wheel to be laid back-alert - able to get you into and out of situations with speed and occasional guile, rather than alternating between falling asleep at the wheel and being pissed off.

A plan hatched: drive close part way up this hill let the driver enjoy the vista doze for an hour or two, whilst finding a trail that took us to the remnants of the old city walls - a view that from most parts of Kabul looks as pixellated as the scrolling backdrop in a game of Defender. Trails scrambled, dirt kicked up all under the inquisitive gaze of gravity, local residents and stray dogs.

Two things we hadn't counted on that would eventually stand in the way of reaching our intended goal: the gradient and aggressiveness of the trail playing havoc with the fixer's poor choice of footwear (next time, eh) and the kindness of local residents. For all the change-the-world goodness we aspire to it's the little things: stepping into a sea of shoes just inside the doorway; the rituals of the host; introductions to the two families living in this space; an impromptu dining table laid out before us; tearing of pieces of flat bread and been fed a steady stream of freshly crushed walnuts washed down by sweet-sweet chai. With not a word of mother toungues shared - using body language to communicate who was married to whom and the number of children in each fold; snapshots of families taken; sharing photos of loved ones; a TV perched in the corner of the room on the whole time.

It's the little things, lest we forget.

And on returning to the car - a driver awakened, and left rather happy after a tip that was the equivalent of a couple of months salary. One good deed.

Two Kabuli gents review their passport photos, the universal societal need to prove that you are indeed, you.

The real reason for being in the studio posted later this week...

Concrete blast-walls a feature of the green zone in Kabul.

Short think-piece for an upcoming issue of the Asia Design Journal...

"As much as we might imagine our designs in the hands of our constituents and customers - ready to be touched and molded to the unique circumstances of their context, they arrive with a set of assumptions of use and acceptable boundaries of use.

The design landscape is rapidly changing: the speed at which the mainstream has adopted today's social networking tools; the connectivity of people and people and things and things - means that the question of whether to opt into using something is increasingly becoming one of whether to opt into or out of society. We often talk of technology amplifying existing behaviours - whether it's enabling us to remember more, shout further or run faster - but the designs that tap into the people and things we use and value are infused with social assumptions, including assumptions around adoption.

In a socially and anti-socially connected world how to innovate in such a way that keeps our constituents in control? Is it even possible? And how does this change the skills and role of a designer in bringing creations into the world?"

Photo? That be part of the design research in Handan that helped frame the Nokia netbook Booklet 3G.

Only slightly hyperbolic packaging extolling the virtues of miswak - that cure's pretty much everything "including death". Because the packaging is in English it will be safely ignored by many potential customers.

Given that it's sold next to these sticks to what extent are customers drawn, willing to pay a premium for the packaging? And if the results of this and this study are accurate does the introduction of toothbrushes in a community suggest poorer dental care?

Cultural equivalents - street tonic stall in Indonesia.

The extent to which social activities take place out on the streets, in the home or, as in Afghanistan - around the family compound and the different ways these activities spill over into the public space. How does it compare to your culture? And how does personally carried technology stretch or contort the line between public, private and something-in-between?

The practice flying kites on the roof-tops (above) - when a kite dips too low it's fair game for the kids with string-and-a-stone that prowl the alleyways below. Kabul's power lines are littered with failed attempts to capture kites - as seen in the stone+string combos in the middle picture. Kite flying is a bonding experience - it takes one person to hold the reel and feed out the twine, and the other to carve out shapes in the sky and bring down competitors. It's mostly for younger males - but as you can see from these compound guards - not exclusively.

Enamoured? Read this.

For every colour an association - orange hard boiled eggs in Kabul above, and display norms from Handan below.

From a wonderful day getting lost in Kabul's back streets. Too many offers of tea, and not a little name calling.

Medicinal sticks, that once chewed take on toothbrushinal properties. For context see the the toothbrush thread.

Who benefits more from the introduction of mobile money services - a white-collar worker in New York City or a migrant manual labourer living out of a dormitory in Xi'an? For many access to mobile money services is a game-changer.

The slides from last week's Dubai presentation on Designing Services for Financial Inclusion can be viewed above or:

• Download the presentation here (PowerPoint, 23MB)


• Download the paper here (PDF, 9MB)

For practitioners working in this space (hei hei) the most useful content is likely to be on mobile phone practices and behaviours: covering mediated use from the perspective of customers; agents and the service providers themselves; charging; and multiple-SIM card practices.

Is it possible to experience the core benefits of mobile phone ownership without having a mobile phone?

In contexts where income is highly variable people living on the poverty line are more likely to be forced to sell off assets in order to buy essentials such as food. The mobile phone is such an asset. The net result is that there are people with a sufficient technological literacy to understand what a phone can do, a nuanced understanding of the communication norms, own an active SIM card but no mobile phone and most likely live in a community where people understand the variability of income and ownership. In these contexts it can be socially acceptable to ask peers, even strangers to borrow their phone, take out their SIM, insert their own and send off text messages or make calls - since the monetary costs are passed on the SIM card owner.

The increasing prevalence of dual-SIM card supporting mobile phones and the tools to manage current calls costs make this an interesting space to watch since it lowers the barriers to sharing, whether for personal or profitable reasons.

More in this research paper.

Middle of the day, proprietor allows a nose around the cinema, all to the background soundtrack of a 1970's Bollywood blockbuster. Downstairs also includes family areas - half a dozen seats set apart from the rest of the cinema.

These days however it's strictly for males. Q: apart from watching the fine selection of fleshy-action movies during the middle of the day what other activities does the darkness, noise and relative emptiness offer a young, privacy deprived Kabuli lad?

Go figure. Now wash your hands.

Definitely take time out to see these movie theatres in rural Uganda; and the micro-plexes in Chengdu and in Dharavi.

See the thread on charging.

It was another one of those sorties into the city, trying to explain to the driver that we needed to go to the local KFC - Kabul Fried Chicken. Not for the food I hasten to add, but to reshoot some of these photos - which have served well to explain the street hack culture prevalent around the world. Except that the three local branches of Kabul Fried Chicken are no more, shut down and now replaced by AFC - Afghan Fried Chicken, which actually does a decent job of serving up fast food - in the fast, air-conditioned, calorific sense of the word, itself no mean feat for Kabul.

How does Afghan fried chicken differ from the fast food joints of your 'hood? For a start - a guard with a submachine gun loitering outside, fast food being an obvious 'foreign' target.

What is more precious? Water or paper?

Green flag denoting either a martyr or the deceased has completed the hajj.

See also: gravestone orientation.

Always interesting to see how Photoshop is applied to create and mold identity. In Kabul these wedding singers use: multiple selves, dreamy backgrounds and transparent layers. That Photoshop skills are available, used in this context is no longer an issue of debate.

The wedding singer district: the extent to which and reasons why particular businesses cluster around one physical location.

Getting married in Kabul? Insist on a demonstration.

At the beginning of every journey the driver touches the prayer, blesses the ride.

Tangible memories from the '68 summer Olympics in Mexico - note the black and white photos retouched with colour.

Reflect for a moment on your own experiences captured - photos, video, audio, the music you've listened to, what you've bought, who you've been hanging out with. Multiple sources of data - some that you control, others that you don't. How will you be sharing your experiences from today in 2029? What happens when you combine the capture of rich experiences with a life-times worth of data; sufficiently good 3D printing and the ability to recycle and rebuild prints from the latter. Temporary tangibles.

A turba (clay prayer stone) available for purchase close to the mosque in Murad Khane, Kabul's old city.

The district has been transformed in the past few years due to the diligence work of Turquoise Mountain in conjunction with the local community - it's difficult to see from the photo below - but that ~2 meter pile of rubbish in the center-top marked the top of the garbage that had built up over the years - the rest has been cleared away. Click on photo to enlarge The New York Times has a write up here.

With thanks to local guide extraordinaire.

And ending today on a faith thread, quote of the day from the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion conference: "There is no need for collateral on the loan, because obviously defaulting to a diety would result in death" in a presentation titled - Borrowing from the Gods: Oracular Deities as Traditional Sources of Credit Among the Igbo of Nigeria. Lovely stuff.

786 is considered auspicious for some Muslims - used as a psychological battering ram on the front of this Pakistani commodities truck.

Four heaters serving up boiling water to the traders around Kabul's Pul-e Khishti Mosque, with a box of tea-pots, fresh tea leaves, and a container for tea dregs. It sits as a stark reminder of continued privatisation of life that you can find from Tokyo to London. There's now so much money wrapped up in offering us liquid sustenance that in my culture, and probably also yours - providing fresh tap water to the high street public and something clean to drink it out of could be considered a subversive act.

Packaging for the local stimulant Nasvai, widely available downtown Kabul.

Compare and contrast the packaging to Tajikistan here and enjoy this write-up of side-effects from the ever dependable Khazakstan Pravda. For once didn't feel compelled to taste.

Looking for more delights from Tajikistan's capital city? Oh Dushanbe how I've missed your wily charms.

Heading this week to the 1st annual conference of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion - full program here.