At work I listen to the radio over the internet. In the mornings it's mostly the local NPR affiliate and in the afternoons I listen to the BBC World Service. Occasionally I branch out (I'm fond of a South African Hip Hop station even though their simulcast is in mono since the music is excellent and their Wacky DJs are fascinating) but this afternoon it's been World Service.

Anyway, there was a story about Momaar Gadaffi (oh, for those of you who are wondering why so many different spellings of his name-since it comes from not only another language but another alphabet, it's all phonetic renderings. I don't have my AP stylebook in front of me to determine whether it's Gadaffi, Khadaffi, etc.) who is visiting Brussels and the reporter mentioned that he was flanked by his customary female bodyguards.

His customary female bodyguards?

Indeed, like some missing character from KILL BILL, it seems that he does indeed have female bodyguards, customarily. You can see a picture of them here and here is a 2002 article about the Gadaffi entourage arriving in a South African port intending to drive back to Libya. From the article:

An Antonov cargo plane arrived first, carrying 60 armoured cars, $6m in cash and 27 submachine guns. Then a container ship sailed into harbour packed with goat carcasses and buses.