Like many, I read ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini, and it gripped me.

The childhood descriptions of the “kite duels” in Afghanistan using kites with ropes that were dipped in glue and then in fine glass fragments – the goal being to slice your opponents’ kite-string in-flight and be the last one remaining – were especially evocative.

Survivor of glassed-string kite

Then Andrew Sullivan spoilt it for me with this post.

You mean the kites hurt hundreds of birds a year?