A blog about the life of an RAF airman now on debate in Afghanistan has notched up 80,000 hits, interjection to its merge of humour and dirty realism. So what is the appeal in describing war?
Afghanistan. The name conjures images of infantry beneath fire, roadside bombs, helicopters and - when headlines is at its worst - wake corteges.
But it is really tough to obtain a clarity from headlines reports of what actual life there is like.
Followers of the RAF Airman blog , however, have a deeper insight.
The disturb of a initial can of fizzy cocktail for months and the heedfulness of sitting cross-legged whilst discussion genealogical elders are amid the odder realities of fight brought to life by its author, Sgt Alex Ford.
The 41-year-old mines a abounding artery of anecdotes by his work as an surrogate between British forces and the Afghan people.
The results are frequently comical, such as his outline of a rancher ripping in to his office to protest that UK forces had "stolen mud" from a margin they were leasing as a place to erupt off waste.
But the blog moreover explains the mental pressures of fight with a heartless truthfulness that is hard to advance by elsewhere.
"On my initial unit we was bricking it," he admits in a entry. .
"I was filled with the thoughts of IEDs [hidden bombs] everywhere and that the bad guys were going to be examination us... fibbing in a embankment with their fingers on the trigger of a order handle ready to blow us - me - to dominion come."
His reason of how his "spidey-sense" - an instinct for intuiting when something was astray - calmed him, gives readers perception to how infantry handle these pressures.
Born and lifted in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, Sgt Ford says he had the selection of "staying in locale and office building JCBs" at the within reach assembly lines or subsequent to his parent and hermit in to the RAF.
An avionics technician by trade, he changed from regulating radio detector on Tornado warrior jets to an office purpose at RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, assisting squadrons to ceaselessly improve.
Sgt Ford was an early modify to Twitter and found that - in reserve from updates about every day life - tweets about his job captivated flourishing interest.
When the Ministry of Defence began enlivening people to talk their army experiences, he launched a dedicated RAFairman Twitter account - and after that created the blog.
"I didn't regard that the RAF was quite great at cheering about itself," he recalls.
And being posted to a unit bottom in Helmand province, where his purpose involves assisting the Afghan race redeem from years of war, gave the blog an updated dimension.
Much of his determination comes from the fact headlines reports frequently uncover usually the "bad side" of Afghanistan.
"That is not the entire story," he says.
"This fight is more than just people forthcoming home deceased and injured. It's about how people bring on living and working in frequently really severe conditions.
"People at home wish to know how their infantry are living, what they do on a day to day basis. The headlines media frequently doesn't have the time to discuss it the great stories - so someone has to."
Judging from his blog, there is lots of room for delight in bland life.
"To obtain by a few of this out here you have to giggle at it," admits Sgt Ford.
"When you drop in to an irrigation embankment - and are shower is to generation of the next four-hour unit - that's funny. No matter which way you look at it."
The blog moreover puts in to difference how tough it is to be so far from home for months on end.
Sgt Ford describes Afghanistan's many pleasing and pacific time of day - nightfall - as a bittersweet time when he many misses his fiancee, two-year-old daughter and two teenage young kids from a formerly marriage.
He becomes hostile of the who can suffer the paltry aspects of normal life - emptying bins, carrying out washing - or the washing up.
"You wish to mount at the kitchen window and watch your daughter run around in the grassed area chasing butterflies," he writes in a post.
Unlike journal and TV reports, the blog moreover gives a more close impression of the Afghan people.
"The people we have met out here have flattering sufficient all been a few of the many kind and kind people we have ever met in the world," he writes.
"They share what small they have with us.
"A minority do not wish us here and wish to harm us... the majority just wish to obtain on with their lives."
He describes a part where a arguable engineer, used regularly by the International force, is shot at by a Taliban warrior dejected at him working for foreigners.
Sgt Ford describes his abhorrence on conference that the human he sent to do the work, Gul, had been put in danger.
However, Gul's reply to the oppression was simple: "This was Afghanistan. Things similar to this happened. Next time he would bring a bit of safety with him."
As the usually airman on the bottom - his stream post is a staffed from all 3 services - Sgt Ford admits there is a "fair bit of banter" with the soldiers stationed there.
But his low apply oneself is to Army shines by in posts, similar to when he talks of his "guardian angel" receiving the form of an Apache helicopter whilst on patrol.
The irony is that he need not find himself in the banishment line at all. Sgt Ford volunteered to go since he felt "a bit of a fraud" for not having not long ago been deployed.
His fiancee, who sees fight injuries up close in her job as an Army medic at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital, was unimpressed, he says.
But he says he wants to leave the forces with his "head hold high" - and that means confronting danger.
"The indicate about volunteering to advance out here... was to obviously go out on the ground.
"My purpose out here means that we have to obtain out and be amongst the people. You simply have to go on patrols with the guys."
Through his blog and tweets, he takes thousands of people back home with him.
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