A 'routine' day in Baghdad

The violence in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday 1 November barely made the international news headlines. A BBC correspondent in Baghdad, Hugh Sykes, recorded what a "routine" day in the city felt like to him.

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Quiet morning so far.

Iraqi producers and researchers arrive smiling at the easy journey to work - "no Americans!"

Hugh Sykes at work in the BBC bureau

Yesterday the prime minister ordered the removal of US checkpoints searching for an American soldier missing now for more than a week.

Drilling and hammering in our kitchen, dust and rubble on the floor. Three builders are replacing the sink and its supports, and re-tiling the wall.

The old sink area had become a health hazard, and it leaked.

Engineers, producers, security men stand around staring at the new brick supports, grumbling that they're not vertical. The builder takes them down and starts again.

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10.30: Big, deep bang. The house shakes slightly. Nothing visible from the roof.

We wait 15 minutes before calling the police. An Iraqi colleague tells me the policeman's yawning as he answers the phone. He knows nothing about an explosion.

A mortar attack in west Baghdad killed a policeman.

Ten dead bodies have been found around the city already today.

Three men died in a small lorry which exploded as they were driving along. They were probably carrying a bomb.

One killed and two injured at about 11.25 in the busy Shorja wholesale market in Baghdad. A bomb left in a parked taxi exploded.

There's still no information about the big bang at 10:30. Maybe the information about the timing of the taxi bomb was wrong? Maybe the big bang was the taxi bomb. I can't go and check, it's not safe. We can only phone the police, and hospitals.

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12.40: Another low loud bang. It echoes down our street. It feels not far away - somewhere in our neighbourhood maybe.

Going out to lunch, five metres away, at the burger cafe

I hope it's nowhere near the friendly barber Essan I was chatting with yesterday afternoon, outside his empty salon.

He was bemoaning the disruption caused by American checkpoints all over town. Customers couldn't get to him because the traffic was so bad.

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Parliament is supposed to be sitting today. Not enough members have turned up.

Parliament was supposed to sit yesterday. Not enough members turned up. The session is now postponed until Sunday.

Why didn't MPs show up? The deputy speaker blames a combination of fear, traffic jams and - "sluggishness" after the Eid celebrations.

On TV, the speaker of the parliament gives a news conference. He says the government is talking to insurgents - in touch with people who were previously "beyond the red line". Who?

A lot of backchannel activity in the past few days. An Iraqi delegation making contact with former Baath Party officials and Iraqi army officers in exile in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and some of the Gulf states.

One newspaper today headlines: "Government talking to insurgents." But there was no hard substance, no quotes.

The speaker's news conference is getting animated. There's an MP in the audience now.

The speaker berates him for being late - for keeping the prime minister waiting. The MP shuffles out of the hall.

There's a lot of shouting and waving of hands. A hand briefly covers camera lens, to hide the embarrassing disorder. Too late - all of it was broadcast live.

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13.10: Police say bang at 12.40 was where we thought - in Karada, half a mile from the BBC office, near the National Theatre.

A car bomb, targeting police patrol - killed at least five people, including one policeman, and injured seven others. It was not close to Essan's salon.

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A colleague suggests going out for lunch. Out for lunch! For the first time in nearly two weeks. Freedom at last.

For their security, the guards outside the bureau cannot be identified

We go down the steps at the front of the BBC house, out through the gate, past the high concrete bomb-blast barrier.

We say hello to our armed guards, and sit down at green plastic tables in burger cafe all of five meters from our gate.

The cafe's sign looks a bit like Burger King. The owner and cook is a man whose father worked for a British oil company for 35 years.

I have a cheeseburger. It comes with onions and tomatoes in samnoun bread - which is like white pitta bread, with pointed ends. "Sahtein!" - bon appetit.

The street is relatively secure. There is a police checkpoint where it joins the main road, and barriers and tyre-spikes and steel gates and concrete chicanes. And guards with Kalashnikovs.

Local residents wander past Habibi Burger. Some stop and chat. I'm taught to say "Allah bakheir!", a greeting required when you join friends at a table.

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Back to work. No calls from the editors in London. John Kerry's put his foot in it, and George Bush is making hay. There are horrible floods in Turkey.

A roadside bomb explodes killing two Central Court employees in a car in central Baghdad.

Two Army officers - brothers - are shot dead in their car.

A police colonel is shot dead in north Baghdad.

Twenty-five more bodies have been found around the city - shot in the head. That's 35 altogether so far. Dogs often feed off bodies before they're found.

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4.30pm: A loud short sharp bang. The windows rattle. I wait 15 minutes before checking with the police.

A car bomb on Palestine Street, city centre. It missed its target, an Iraqi army patrol, and injured two civilians.

The bureau chief sends me a message, headed "More madness, sadness". A news agency reports that "unknown gunmen abducted the secretary general of Iraq's national basketball federation and another man who coached blind athletes, police said, the latest in a wave of kidnappings targeting national sports figures".

Chicken and shish kebab for dinner, with chick-pea salad.

Cool evening. Palm trees shifting in gusts of wind. Clear sky, stars, a quarter moon rising.

Today's known death toll in Baghdad: 50 people.