The menu at the Arbil Tower Hotel is a total mystery. If menus were buildings it would have been condemned and bulldozed long ago. What, for example, is “tornado clamar”? Equally mystifying are “chicken creem chap,” “Poloniz spakity,” and “lamp ship.” Missing from the photo but also on offer is the tantalising “fatti meat,” which I presume is a plate of fatty meat. Yum!

In reality, the contents of the menu are largely irrelevant. A request for anything deviating from lamb or chicken kebab is met with a blank stare and a recommendation from the waiter that “maybeeee sirrrr he would like cheeken kabab. Is very good.” Our translator insists there’s an Italian restaurant somewhere in Arbil. I’m convinced it’s just a rumour.

And while I’m at it, why is the couple on the sign above the lift holding hands with a chimpanzee?