As the deconstruction of Kathmandu moves into high gear, parts of the city look like the aftermath of an eight Richter earthquake. Demolition along Lazimpart was delayed for a month because powerful people who live there got a stay order to stay on. But one has to hand it to the Babu government for going where no government dared go before in its pursuit of a Flat Earth Policy. The latest walls to be brought down are at Nirmal Niwas and the message has gone out that no one is more equal than the ex-Kingji. But now even BRB's bulldozer juggernauts have been brought to a grinding halt by the Japanese, French, American, and Russian embassies which have refused to move their Great Walls citing diplomatic impunity under the Vienna Conventions and Amendments Thereof in which nations agree to guarantee and protect the property of diplomatic missions in each other's countries. Which means the only solution to the bottlenecks along the new Lazimpart-Maharajgrunge Boulevard is for the municipality to tunnel under the embassies. Don't think the Vienna Convention says anything about embassies also having underground diplomatic rights.

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So tourists to Nepal have also joined the relay hunger strike to demand a new airport in Pokhara. They must be on a tight budget and skipping meals. But thanks, anyway.

The Maobaddies are so confident that the $305 million project will go ahead that the Financial Minister signed an MoU with the Chinese contractor even before the bidding documents were opened, and now ex Baddie CA member from Kaski, Raj Kazi, has publicly admitted that he received a 50 lack palm grease from three construction companies to get the project going. "I took it for the party, what's wrong with that?" he told a public hearing. The Baddies may be thoroughly corrupt, but at least they are honest.

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The Brave Lion is on an African Safari this week, but before leaving he extended an open invitation to all the top leaders for a weekend of fun and frolic at Chapali Heights. An insider tells Donkey, SBD's plan is simple: get Jhusil-Da and Puka-Da high on single malt and agree to reinstate the CA, so that Ram Babu will have to resign before the NY General Assembly trip. But what is making this donkey scratch his backside is: how is the Loin King going to reconcile his ambition to be PM for the fifth time with PKD's ambition to be PM for the second? Another sign that Chairman Ferocious is itching to get back into Balu Water is that he has now shed his flowery Hawaiian shirt for an embroidered Dhaka east-a-coat.

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And still on the subject of loins, Awesome Junior seems to have got bored in his honeymoon and is missing all the action in Lazimpat Durbar. Either that or he has finished off what Daddy sent him out to do. The Sunny boy has been active on FB writing to friends, giving online interviews to journos. And now he has gone on public 'emotional terrorism against Com Daddy. Translation of a heart-wrenching FB status: "Is politics greater than the family? Where is the love? After all, I am still your little baby." For some reason that post was hastily removed, probably on orders from HQ.

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Now that the CA looks like it may be revived, the UML is on the verge of splitting into the Janai Jati Party and a Jana Jati Party. Puzzling that the UML should be called a Bahunbaddie party because most Unfed Marxist-Leninist leaders have Newari wives. Legend has it that during their long years living underground during the Panchayat the revolutionary comrades all eloped with their landlords' daughters. Which is why Kathmandu Valley has always been a UML stronghold because just about everyone is an in-law.

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If the UML is a Bahun-Newar party, then the Maobaddies are a Bahun-Magar party. Awesome Jr has just carried on that tradition with his third liaison with Comrade Bina. The cabinet doesn't seem to have much to do these days but ban things left and right, so why don't they just announce a blanket ban on Nepalis marrying within their own caste and ethnic group? That will probably do more to integrate this country than the impeyan pheasant and Mt Everest.

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On the first anniv of Lal Dhoj's prime ministership it would be useful to recap how he has made the uneasy transition from ruling by ordnance to ruling by ordinance. One proof that the Maoist ideologue-in-chief has arrived is him accusing detractors in the NC and UML of being 'anti-democratic'. Other undoctored prime ministerial nuggets from the past year:

"This country's keys are elsewhere."
"I gambled in New Delhi."
"This country could be merged."

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In order to salvage her otherwise disastrous media chaperoning trip to China (during which Nepali hacks burped loudly during a banquet and demonstrated how civilised we Neps are) Comrade Yummy dashed off an op-ed on return in which she called herself an 'Executive First Lady'. Could be a tongue of the slip for two reasons: a) She just can't let go of the word 'execution', and b) She really has executive powers in the PMO.