Thursday night is wedding night in Baghdad, and the city is filled with wedding parties and cars full to the brim with revellers careering wildly through the streets. Many of the parties end up at the Al-Rashid Hotel, Baghdad's finest, but an institution which has seen better days.
Sitting around the lobby in outrageously ostentatious dresses and suits, the relatives of three newly married couples are preparing for their big family night.
Others huddle in the dreary suburbs that ring the city have other concerns. That concern is simply survival.
As the rumour mill has taken over from any concrete knowledge, fear has replaced complacency. The official Iraqi media have refrained from giving its citizens any sensible advice about the possibility of an imminent attack by US and British missiles and aircraft.
"We call on all Arabs to be ready for struggle and to direct all their resources to achieve unity in the national confrontation," the ruling Ba'ath socialist party said in a statement. The official newspaper al-Qadissiya said: "Iraq has considered all possibilities and is well prepared to confront the new aggressive challenge to restore balance to Arab political life."
But while the government was generating reams of rhetoric, elsewhere in the Arab world support for the stance of the Iraqi regime crumbled when eight Arab countries, including neighbouring Syria, called on the government of President Saddam Hussein to back down from its confrontation with the United Nations or face the consequences.
Those who had the privilege of access to such information immediately started a frantic round of telephone calls to relatives across the country. Sahdoun, a government official, spoke to his sister-in-law in urgent tones. "The Americans are going to bomb us again. Hide the children. Get ready," he said.
The tone of his voice changed with the reply. "I am telling you that it will happen, and it will happen soon. The Americans are again fighting with Saddam and they are planning to send warplanes."
His initial urgings were met with incredulity and he felt the need to reiterate his point. The same conversations are being relayed through Iraq's dilapidated telephone system, bombed into the 19th century during the Gulf War.
There is still no widespread panic-buying of food or medicines, but petrol stations are clogged with cars trying to fill up in anticipation of a shortage.
But the wedding parties go on unaffected. This is the biggest night in the life of thousands of Iraqis embarking on lifelong partnerships. The future must be bleak for them.