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Jeremy Hann profile »
Posted at 1:51pm Tuesday 2nd November 2010
Last posting from Afghanistan
Column Part 18 I was planning to write this last epistle from the turquoise shores of Cyprus, but due to ‘circumstances beyond our control’ it is not to be. There are two things certain in this life; that some poor sap is going to hand in their ticket if they are a guest at a country house-party in an Agatha Christie yarn and that those magnificent men and their (not so frequently) flying machines will throw the odd spanner in the works. These same spanners may have been better utilised on repairing the aircraft, and the upshot being we never reached Cyprus. On the plus side I was able to spend a day in an aircraft hangar in Muscat. And so it is with a Scotch within easy lifting distance and the welcoming Yorkshire drizzle outside, that this attempt at closure takes place.
Posted at 9:32am Friday 22nd October 2010
Dreaming of conkers and single malts
AS I sit down to write, we have exactly a week of our tour in Afghanistan left to complete. It would be foolish in the extreme to tempt dear old providence at this juncture, so I shall resist the urge.
Posted at 5:34pm Friday 1st October 2010
Pomegranates and power cuts as the Taliban pushed back
We now find ourselves at the halfway point of our ‘angry camping sojourn’ in the district of Panjwa’i. Life is getting busier as what was once our own little outpost is now co-habited with a variety of others, both Coalition forces and Afghans. Do not confuse this with an uplift in convenience and quality of life, although I do tell all that their tolerance for others will make for a culturally enriched life. Sometimes I mean it.
Posted at 10:49am Thursday 23rd September 2010
A moonlit shower with the locals
Luckily for the discerning reader, I have been unable to access any means of communicating with you for the last two weeks, but as they say; ‘every silver lining has a cloud…..’ My band of merry men and I are now to be found in a district called Panjwa’i, some fifteen miles south-west of Kandahar city. Our small camp is nestled between two mountain ridgelines of Pyrenean (not to be confused with perineum) aspect, and about three hundred metres from the green zone that sprouts around the nearby Arghandab River. There is a degree of notoriety afforded Panjwa’i as a result of being the place from which Mullah Omar fronted the Taleban in 1994, and as you would expect local sympathies are wildly divided between insurgents and both international and Afghan security forces. We are currently a very tiny cog in an operation to provide security and freedom for the locals by diminishing the insurgent hold on the area.
Posted at 11:09am Friday 27th August 2010
Needless purchases and lizards
IT was 33 summers ago that The Minstrel, underneath Mr. Piggott won the Derby, that Elvis left the building and that I arrived in the world to much celebration and ward-wide plaudits, except from my darling mother who complained to the doctor that ‘he cannot be mine, he is far too ugly’.
Posted at 11:28am Wednesday 18th August 2010
Back into the fold...
For those with refined literary tastes and a disposition towards the witty, insightful and well crafted, my last two weeks of being incommunicado will have been a welcome reprieve. Unfortunately for you, I, having just had two weeks rest and relaxation, am now back in the saddle, with a song in my heart, a pen in my hand and a grim determination to mix my metaphors.
Posted at 10:50am Saturday 17th July 2010
Enormous confidence in General Petraeus
When away from home, there are certain triggers that induce the longing to be in England in these summer months, and over the last few weeks these have been manifold; catching the sun-soaked snippets of Wimbledon, not losing money backing French raiders at Ascot, being sent photographs by friends at Henley CC.
Posted at 9:32am Monday 12th July 2010
"It is very easy to pass judgement from trendy Hoxton..."
A wonderful conversational reprieve arrived this week in the form of a flying visit from my Royal Dragoon Guards (RDG) brethren, Capt ‘Spike’ Lee.
Posted at 8:27am Friday 18th June 2010
Sky versus Scoop
Without wishing to erode the gossamer-thin veneer of machismo and testosterone afforded me by my current situation. I would like to thank my mother publicly for her recent aid-package, and specifically for the char-grilled artichoke hearts in extra virgin olive oil. Delish.
Posted at 5:00pm Saturday 12th June 2010
Speaking out for the Playstation generation
For those with an interest in such things, there is all manner of facial hair and beard-based goings-on in Kandahar Province.
Posted at 3:40pm Wednesday 9th June 2010
No shortage of equipment
There has been much media coverage in recent years over an alleged systemic failure of our military/government/whoever to provide the army with the ‘kit and equipment’ it requires in order to execute it's missions effectively and with minimum loss of life.
Posted at 2:40pm Monday 7th June 2010
The tour's less hairy moments
One of the most trivial hurdles to jump when on operations is that posed by the problem of getting a haircut.
Posted at 10:30am Saturday 5th June 2010
Glimpses of how it could have been
When moving around Kandahar either in our armoured vehicles or on foot, it is hard to travel more than a street without passing flowering oleanders, either long swathes or solitary plants.
Posted at 10:37am Thursday 3rd June 2010
Raising a glass to one of life's pleasures
Sometimes the most innocuous comments, in the most curious of environs, delivered by the most incongruous of people, triggers envious longings and bouts of home-sickness or frustration born of circumstance.
Posted at 6:50am Thursday 20th May 2010
Making the case for being in Afghanistan
One of the few noticeable differences between serving on operations and living in Basingstoke is indirect fire.
Posted at 1:50pm Wednesday 12th May 2010
Afghanistan’s local mules
If you think donkeys had it tough in Milne’s post-apocalyptic, anthropomorphical-tragedy masterpiece, ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’, when poor old Eeyore had lost his tail, that is nothing compared to the lot of some of Afghanistan’s local mules.
Posted at 1:56pm Saturday 8th May 2010
"I know few bishops but I expect they don't unwind of an evening with the Old Testament"
Working as I am in a multi-national combined service environment, there is all manner of nuance, nicety and niggle that one must observe, mediate and work around.
Posted at 11:43am Friday 30th April 2010
Afghanistan - first impressions
County Durham, Oxfordshire, the Gulf Region, Helmand and finally Kandahar constituted my rather circuitous commute to what is to be my home for the best part of the next seven months.
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