Only a few days of the study left and a still a need to cover a lot a ground in different parts of the city – in Tehran if you want to beat the traffic you either take a motorbike or the metro and since I need to document above ground it’s a bike + driver. Lunch is spent sipping a decent coffee – Raees Cafe on Jam St. trying to making calls whilst admiring the advertisement for the Jeff Koons Illy collection. Its too much to hope to see any Koons + Cicciolina products on the shelves here.

For one call the automated operator voice kicks in – Bismillah hir hahram ibrahim… which is then followed by a literal translation in English “In the name of god. This is the International Iranian Switching Center. The number you have dialed does not exist on this network.”