Baghdad can be a surprising place even in the best of times. Not to mention amusing. Grumbles and gasps could be heard among the expatriates here during the weekend when word spread that the only remaining restaurant in the Green Zone had begun enforcing a dress code.

The idea sounded ridiculous, but everyone understood when they learned that, because of daily attacks on the Zone, the jacket they were being forced to wear into the Blue Star Café simply to eat a sweet-and-sour chicken or smoke from a shisha pipe had to be lined with Kevlar or steel plates. OK, wearing body armor and a combat helmet to dinner can’t be classified as normal, though I have to admit the khaki-colored flak jacket my dinner companion brought did match the dust in the air and camouflage paint on the Iraqi Army helicopters buzzing overhead.