Keeping my head down

I'm sure you've all been wondering where I've been these last 3/4 weeks.

Well the answer is keeping my head down - Sapa's gone fighting mad.

The Turkmen armed forces have been conducting Exercise Formidable Motherland.

Doesn't mean much - well let's put it in simple terms:

A bunch of Turkmen dressed up in the sort of stuff you buy in army surplus stores have been going around firing off all sorts of guns and bigger things that go bang.

So it's not been safe to go out - particularly if you are a camel or a kangaroo and could provide good moving target practice.

Apparently Georgia and Ukraine are helping out with all this. Makes no sense to your earnest blogger - who wants a bunch of sweaty, heavily armed, gung-ho, "if it moves shoot first and forget about the question" (whatever it is that you are supposed to ask after you done the shooting) types living next door?

Anyway, Sapa says "Turkmenistan intends to go on outfitting its Armed Forces with sophisticated military hardware". So now the flights into Ashgabat will be full of besuited arms salesmen armed with DVDs of things that go bang with enthusiatic commentries in US accents on kill ratios and leathality co-efficients for some time to come.

Let's get Turkmenistan off the the arms salesman's favorite customers map!

By the way - the picture above is of an SU-25 - otherwise known as the "Frogfoot" - boy is that a scarey name for an aeroplane or what? - I bet the Ukrainians and the Georgians are having second thoughts now.