Tim, our much appreciated correspondent in Baghdad

, has sent us several updates recently:

January 9th, 2007:

Have been busy since the end of Eid, so little time for blogging.

I will get a decent post in later, so you can all hear the true perspective of what’s happening here in Baghdad. Not just the Beeb’s left wing propaganda.

Oh by the way, there may be a few new bloggers from here soon, as I’ve told all the expats here about this blogsite – BBC 24 is only really put on in this villa so we can all have a really good shout at the TV.

January 17th, 2007:

Very bloody day yesterday, dozens killed at Baghdad University by murdering Al-Qaeda bastards.

There is a girls school close to us here, and daily, well dressed, smiling and giggling school girls with loose headscarfs, smart uniforms and trendy footwear head there clutching their books, chatting like teenage girls anywhere in the world.

We stay well clear of the school area itself, as the same scumbags are targeting this place and sadly it’s only a matter of time before we might be clearing their body parts off our vehicles one morning.

Second point: A mortar round landed in close vicinity to our villas yesterday (not necessarily targetted at us). My friend an ex Brit SF mate, picked up a piece of the shrapnel – the mortar shrapnel was Iranian and still had (new) green paint on it.

Unlike other parts of the world where the BBC is quick to show locals holding what they say are US missile parts in front of the usual wedding that is being held in the local baby milk factory, the Beeb are not rushing to point out that a lot of the ordnance and technology doing all the killing over here is Iranian.

The BBC showing you only what we want to, it’s what we do…

January 19th, 2007:

I’ve been seeing some [cobblers] on the BBC, about how the US military are not arming the Iraqis to fight the insurgency.

Well, I can’t currently speak for other areas of Iraq, but I do drive around Baghdad (covertly) on a daily basis and the Iraqi Police and Army have all AKs and PKMs or Dushkas and are well armoured, Baghdad being where the worst insurgancy activity is taking place.

Also, schrapnel from the mortar that landed near to our villa the other day was Iranian and new (Still had it’s green paint on it – had not been weathered, or old war stock, very new).

Sorry not been on for a while, more soon from your myth busting reporter in Mesopatamia.

Thank you for your updates Tim – interesting and welcome as ever – and more relevant to the real world than the BBC’s reports, stuck in the Green Zone as they usually are.

The idea of you rufty-tufty types shouting at al-Beeb on your telly is most amusing – just like what goes on in my house, but without the guns. Probably just as well, otherwise my telly would have been blasted to kingdom come a long time ago!

Stay safe all of you who are out there, including the Beeboids.