“Your parcel will be delivered today between 13:45 and 14:45, your driver, Jason, will call you with an update. Not in? Please arrange an alternative delivery date”.

This is an automatic message no doubt generated by software that knows everything about you, because it is listening to your innermost secrets, dreams and peccadilloes. The ruthless efficiency in which companies like Amazon (ok, just Amazon) get the stuffed elephant’s foot from Tanzania to Trewellard in a day, is a modern day wonder. It is frightening to think what would have happened if that gold medal winning logistical process was available to earlier civilisations.  

Giza would have been a glittering city of a dozen white marble pyramids, rather than the poxy pile of rubble that passes for a museum exhibit that it is. Jesus would have added pizza and tinnies to the bread and fishes, and at Waterloo, Napoleon would have been having an early lunch of foie gras and quail’s eggs washed down by a crisp Chablis in Brussels while pissing in Wellington’s boots.

Planning and executing complex processes takes time and energy…and thought. The Moon landings took rather more planning than that undertaken by a spotty teen-ager in his bedroom caught wanking by his mum because he forgot she always came upstairs to call him for dinner as predictably as the crushing disappointment of his exam results came to snuff out his future.  

The complex systems that get your parcels from all over the world, and Rotherham, rely on an interconnected and interdependent system of information and physical infrastructure. Snags and FUBARs are considered and planned for. Contingencies and back ups are built into the system. Amazon knows that a chain is only as good as its weakest link…which is probably Brian. 

An involuntary celibate, who failed to get into his local FE college to train as a hairdresser because he accidentally stabbed the interviewer with a scissors demonstrating his back combing ninja moves, and who is easily distracted by the latest edition of Grand Theft Auto, Brian still lives with his mum and the cat called Eric. He eats the same breakfast of salted porridge every morning, and a microwaved ready meal for dinner because it relieves him of tricky decision making. Brian is the sort you would put in the front line as cannon fodder to get the enemy to use up their excess bullets before sending in the elite. His knitted rainbow tank top under his khaki tunic would be no match for the multiple rounds of 7.62 mm ripping into him. He is not to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a toothbrush or given a task any more complicated than wearing underpants. 

Amazon knows all of this, and they know he could be placed anywhere in the long complicated logistical chain just waiting to go off and bring the whole of western civilisation crashing down into the depths of an apocalyptic nightmare. That is why they build in ‘fail safe’ systems. In the technical jargon this is known as ‘Error Wisdom’ and ‘Human Factors’. The human capacity for snatching a cartful of bollocks from the jaws of victory, is well documented: 

In all the fields of human endeavour,

When precision must all prevail,

When stakes are high and costly error, 

Perfection is the grail.

The grander projects aim to be,

Of time, of gold, of import vast

So proper preparation runs, 

With planning, never to be last

If man is to rely on man, know this, 

Sure as Sun do don his hat,

And moon, the hunters’ way he lights,

There will always be a twat.

(Lord Byron 1776, during his drinking phase).

This brings me to the logistics required to ensure a second PCR test is undertaken so that I can be released from the cell that passes for a Hotel room. Now let me be clear, Richard (my colleague upstairs in another cell) and I are experiencing a ‘first world problem’. If you are a child in the Yemen whose clothes are on fire as a result of an air strike, or if your belly is distended through lack of nourishment or if you are suffering from some tropical disease involving worms and a barely functioning lower orifice, feel free to scoff at our plight. Being in lockdown in a hotel in a scruffy urban district of Jeddah, with traffic for company and with the air quality of the inside of a unemptied hoover bag, is something children in war torn countries can only dream of. People in Redruth might be able to empathise; with me and Richard that is but not with the children in the Yemen. 

As many of us can testify, a PCR is not a complex process. It is uncomfortable, akin to having a stuffed toy rabbit pushed into your nose followed by a gagging only certain girls adept at certain practices willing to explore the full range of human interaction at close quarters would understand. Complex it is not. Getting a swab stuffed into your septum and around the bend into your sinus cavities is merely a matter of telling someone to come and do it. All they need is your name, address and passport number…and a swab. 

The supply chain between lab and swab insertion is short. In fact it is non existent as there is no need to stop off and pick up supplies. The lab was given our names, addresses and passport numbers before we left Bahrain. On the very first night we turned up, and within a couple of hours so did the swab. So the system works.  This is an early indication that they have this process down. They know what they are doing. They can read a list and turn up. That was day 1. All we have to do is wait for day 6 for the second test. 

Today is day 7. 

I wonder if Brian has been transferred to Jeddah? I call the hotel reception only to be told ‘Que?’ but in Arabic. Further the hotel informs us rather unhelpfully that PCR tests, as part of the quarantine package they supply, in their hotel, is nothing to do with them. 

“So who is to do with then? Do you have a list of guests who are in quarantine who require PCR? 

“No” 

I sense that further information is going to have to be dragged out of him like a one drags a child out of a sweetshop. 

“So, you have no idea who needs to be tested, whether they have been tested, and therefore whether they can leave your hotel?”

“No”

“So, who does?”

“Please wait, I’ll ask my colleague…” and with that I’m put on hold and some scary loud music blasts into my ears causing a trickle of blood to run down my cheek. 

“….sir?…..the booking agent deal with the PCR, you have to talk to them…” and I sense the phone is going to be put down because as far as they are concerned there is nothing more to be said. On a previous call a few days ago, the booking agent had already informed us that the PCR is nothing to do with them and the hotel should handle things. 

“Can you tell me if the PCR ‘doctor’ has been today”.

“Oh yes, and he came yesterday as well”. 

I want to shout “then why the flying fuck did he not come to see us yesterday or today” but I refrain because I am nice. 

“…I don’t have his number…I’ll ask a colleague…(scary loud music)…….no, he doesn’t know either”. 

The hotel is using no initiative or problem solving skills at all, despite having quite a number of people quarantined here. 

It is as if they are reading from script that tells them what answer they should give to certain enquiries. There is I think only a few responses available: 

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. I don’t know.
4. I’ll ask a colleague followed by a variant of answers 2 and 3.

It is becoming clear that delivering the second PCR is getting as complicated a logistical process as building the Space Shuttle, but without the explosions. The lines of communication are not broken, they just don’t exist. My life flashes before my eyes and I can see a news item on BBC Spotlight: ’Local man found dead in a Hotel in Saudi Arabia, there was no sign of a struggle and the hotel reports they had no idea he was there. Police are not treating the death as suspicious. It has been classified as a result of the ‘inshalla’ process. We know it as ‘drekly’. Over to our reporter, Brian, in Jeddah for the latest update……Brian. Brian?’

A Cornishman would no more refuse a pasty than pickle his penis in potassium. 

There is only one possible answer to the question “Pasty, ur no?” if asked of a Trevaskis, a Polglase or a Penberthy. We all know the ingrained antipathy of the Western Celts towards those who’s natural bent is to reach for the cream first. ‘Drekly’ is also an automatic response that bypasses conscious thought when we are confronted with a request to know when something might come to pass. It matters not if the request is immediate, urgent, merely pressing or ‘madder do ‘ee?’  It is taken for granted that we know what ‘Spingo’ is, no further explanation is required. To those unfortunates who happen to be permanently domiciled east of the Tamar, whose lives are blighted by having an indirect, at best, access to pastry encrusted meat and potato based products and having no knowledge of Camborne let alone its famous hill, to those is denied the knowledge that Spingo just happens to be one of the finest Ales on the planet. How happy is the man or, in this day and age of equal opportunity piss ups, woman who after 3 pints of Special finds themselves singing Trelawney in a bout of close harmony singing with the Rugby club in the back bar of the Blue Anchor. Trelawney is known to the heathen hordes up country only as a beer due to the successful marketing of St Austell ales. However, unless they are ardent students of history, the eponymous old squire remains a mystery even if twenty thousand Cornishmen know otherwise.

The Cornish just know that the ‘orses stood still, and the wheels went around’, and they know that Cap’n Dick applied his knowledge of Boyle’s law to a new form of locomotion. The importance of saffron is not lost on women of a certain age in Treskillard, Treswithian and Tregony, although it is possibly the case that old culinary knowledge is beginning to fade. It is common knowledge that Camborne, Redruth, Bodmin and St Austell formed the backbone of industrialisation which was then taken up later by the English around the world. 

We know who Denzil Penberthy is, we know that Mousehole had a cat and that Zennor’s mermaid lured a young man into the sea. We know that ‘Tuss, Zackly and Gisson’ is not a solicitors firm. 

If asked what nation has a black flag with a white cross on it, most of the English would not have a clue. We however, fly it everywhere. Unlike the red cross on a white background, which has been hijacked by the minority stupid in their quest to expel those who are of a slightly duskier hue, St Piran’s banner is not seen by some as symbol of fear, but of pride. Rugby is our game and the Black of the Zawn and Gold of our gorse is our colour. 

These are things we just know. We ‘kent membr’ how we learned it all. They’re just part of our hearts, our souls and our history. They are part of the air we breathe, the soil we tread and the sea of which we dream. They are woven into stories, jokes and poems. They are found in tin mines, china clay pits and fishing nets and they will evolve and change while remaining the same.

As you walk down a Cornish country lane in late spring, you can’t help but notice the riot of colour of campion, bluebell and wild garlic in the dense hedges that flank its edges providing an ecological sanctuary for all manner of birds and bugs. The trees are adorned with a newly budded and unfolded fresh green canopy that allows the sunlight to dance between its gaps to throw a mottled, dappled motif upon the lane. As you pass a gate you notice the rolling fields dappled with sheep or cattle and a church tower poking up from a far away valley. 

The lane then breaks out of its cover and onto the cliff tops upon which the dense carpet of variegated heather and low gorse lead the eye across to the blue horizon, across the blue sea under a blue white fluffy clouded sky. If you are lucky you will see an orange billed and red legged chough. But you will hear it first as you will the gulls, the jackdaws and the crows. Overhead a kestrel will patrol the cliff edges while the lark ascends, the blue tit quips and the robin stands his ground. In the far west, you will note granite sentinels of old mine stacks pointing skywards as reminders of the cost of human ingenuity and sheer bloody back breaking work.

The land is wind swept, often mizzled and rain soaked. The granite faces the western storms and symbolises the grit of the people who once had to eke out a living deep in the dark or out to sea in perilous conditions.

We know who Cousin Jack is and why Mexico has a ‘paste’ and why Australia has Cornish place names. 

All of this is culture. It feeds into and nurtures the matrix of unspoken social rules, ways of speaking and of dressing. It directs what we eat, where we eat and when. Culture never sleeps. It changes, it adopts and adapts, it shapes us in ways we are barely aware of. 

It is at the extremes of cultural boundaries that we begin to notice it. The differences are intuitively felt and can’t always be articulated or understood. The key is to listen and hope that through word, gesture and action you can begin to know the other. This takes putting one’s long standing assumptions to one side, not that you have to accept the other, but at least to understand.

What would a Saudi make of Redruth?

Being served a pasty without a skip sized portion of rice to go with it? Wondering why the churches do not call their congregations to prayer five times a day? Wondering why young people fall about in the street at weekends? They might think we are rude and aggressive for not taking time to enquire about one’s family before getting down to business, or in the preliminary  sentences in an email, or expecting action straight after the meeting. Time appears very short in the west, when it needs to be drawn out, decisions thought about after tea and dates. Why the rush? I have little insight into the Saudi culture, all I can see are some of the outer differences. It would take quite some time to begin to work it out. 

I know about the sharia punishments but I don’t feel at threat of an imminent flogging or stoning. I am aware of watching what I say about the prophet and Islam in part due to fears for personal safety but also about trying to understand. I cannot go about comedic offending until I know the culture. I can see how migrant workers are the backbone of the service economy and yet appear to be treated as second class citizens. What would a Saudi say about our care of older people, or of family relations in Camborne? 

This country is on the brink of a cultural revolution, radical islamism is feared and hunted out, women are slowly gaining wealth and influence if not formal power. Cornwall over the past 250 years has changed radically….bringing the pasty with it. Old religion has died, the consumerist individualised ‘new religion’ is still evolving. Young Saudi’s are the driving force here in a way that the over 60s in Cornwall are. According to one source, two thirds of the Saudi population is under 35, while half of its workers are also under 35. That is a cultural and demographic time bomb. In Cornwall currently 25% are over 65 but by 2036 this will be 33%. 

We know who Jethro is. We have no idea who Mohamed Bin Salman is. 

Would a Saudi refuse a Spingo, preferring to pickle his penis in potassium? Apart from its strangeness, there is no reason to think he would not. The alcohol ban in public spaces is under threat, and I am reliably informed that many a Saudi household has a well stocked booze cupboard. Visitors to Bahrain and Dubai will notice the bars and brothels have their Saudi clientele enjoying the fruits of Haram as if Satan himself is merrily fellating the imams who cannot stop themselves enjoying it. Hypocrisy? Since when was that a sin we have ever worried about in the West. 

When you get stuck into a ‘large steak’ and wash it down with sugary tea, you are merely continuing ancient Cornish custom, over which you have as much control as a Saudi has over his racing camel on heat. 

“That’ll do”.

This is a fine maxim to live your life by, if the ‘that’ in question is a fine single malt whisky and the ‘do’ is an extra large Islay being poured freehand in the hotel bar after a long day roaming the heather strewn glens and the high misty tops of the rain flecked Munroes of West Scotland. It is a ‘go to’ phrase when it comes to my wallpapering, cleaning out the cupboard under the sink or a delicate neurosurgical operation which is going on longer than expected and the golf course is near to being closed for the evening. As a young air mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm, I remember it being printed on a poster in the hangar, followed by the words “…will never do”. The sophisticated electronics and hydraulic systems of a Sea King helicopter required more than a bit of duct tape and a nail to fix a rotor blade, even if it was getting near to closing time in the Blue Anchor. Just because your ‘oppo’ is on his third pint of Spingo and going for the rum chasers while singing ‘Wild Rover’, it’s no excuse for quickly patching up a cracked fuel hose with a bit of spit and a promise.

Throughout history, it has been a phrase heard often just before some impending disaster. 

“I thought a night at the theatre, Abe, so you can have the night off and get back to that rewrite of that stupid speech you gave at Gettysburg…will that do?”

“Aye, Mrs Lincoln, that’ll do…”

Or…

“Shall I send the light brigade sir, its only a couple of cannon, and the heavy cavalry are a bit tired, Colonel Flagging of the Horse Guards not having had his gin?” 

“Aye…that’ll do”.

And…

“…just a couple of degrees to port, we don’t want to scratch the new paint on the hull on her maiden voyage now do we?”

“…just a couple of degrees, sir?”

“Aye…that’ll do”.  

‘That’ll do’ is related to ‘shoddy’ in an unholy alliance of poor quality craftsmanship, inattention to detail and carelessness. It is invoked by the useless, the cowboy and the slapdash. You really don’t want to hear it from a midwife holding a forceps, the pilot of your long haul flight tapping the fuel gauge or the rabbi about to undertake your circumsicion. Beethoven never uttered it, Einstein ignored it when he ran out of chalk at ‘E = M’, and while President Truman after Hiroshima might have thought about it, he pressed on. Although, in his case, perhaps the citizens of Nagasaki rather wished he hadn’t.   

Some members of the construction industry, let’s not call them builders for that would be a calumny upon the good name of many a fine craftsman, must be devotees of the phrase if the quality of their finished projects are anything to go by. We have all seen it: render streaked with who knows what red stained chemical leakage, cracked render, render that has fallen off revealing the concrete block underneath; flaking paint, cracked tiles, kerb edges crumbling, spills of concrete that were never cleaned up and which now provide hazards for pedestrians, cyclists and badgers; telephone and electricity cables swinging in the wind held together with a lone plastic cable tie; displaced gutter and manhole covers, broken bricks, leaking water pipes, puddles and skips left for years after the job was completed; cheap paint that would not outlast the life of the cigarette the painter was smoking; rusty stanchions, rusty reinforced steel cable sticking out of a concrete base; add litter, cats piss and dead pigeons and you have a delightful urban vista. As I look out my hotel window at the neighbouring flat roofed square buildings, I can see all of the above. 

A few decades ago there was a patch of sandy rock strewn desert. It was home to a few ants, an unadventurous dung beetle called Colin, and some forlorn looking cacti waiting for a careless passing mammal to prick.  The desert would be regularly, and by that I mean daily, blasted by a hot wind originating from the innermost bowels of hell; a wind so hot it would shrivel a camel’s unguarded nipple quicker than you can say ‘inshalla, my arse’. All sensible life had long since migrated north to more temperate climes where a cold beer can be purchased. The only sound at night would be the cracking of dried out seed husks, scorpion farts and the wailing of hope drifting away towards the star lit horizon. The moon would cast its rays upon the ground in forlorn hope of illuminating the path to sanctuary. Even the sand couldn’t bear the thought of another day under the midday sun and slowly turned, instead, into little shiny quartz crystals. 

Then came oil.

Or rather, then came the discovery of oil. It had lain underground for…millennia in all probability, doing no one any harm and contributing no carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This it did for the best part of what some clever clogs, with nothing much better to do than throw around names for geological time spans, called the ‘holocene’. 

The little patch of desert was about to become transformed into a mighty glittering citadel built of marble, gold and frankincense. Diamond encrusted minarets would shine out across the shimmering heat as the sun caught each one in turn and bounced its spectrum of light out into the firmament. Grand palaces, of grandiose design, flaunted colonnades, towers and castellated walls. The beauty of the city’s architecture would draw gasps of wonderment and disbelief from crowds who had sailed the seven seas to marvel at this eighth wonder of the world. Artists, city planners, and designers would kill themselves at the belief that they had now seen perfection against which their own paltry efforts were worth less than a dried out camel turd. Providers of ‘Sewage Solutions’ threw themselves into their own cess pits, turned mad by the majesty of the toilets they had never dreamed of creating. Fountains danced, sang and played with complete abandon in the city squares, showering onlookers with welcome and refreshing relief from the midday heat. Children laughed merrily, cats slept safely and dates festooned the palms along the avenues which led towards the glittering sea.

All because of oil, and the wealth it created to build such a shining beacon of enlightened  progress. Egyptian Pharaohs would have cursed in envy and would have sacrificed even more slaves in their attempt at immortality which now was in danger of being overshadowed. The Golden Palace of Versailles, the marbled Taj Mahal and the Alhambra of Grenada paled into insignificance, put to shame, tarnished in reputation as if their builders had said “that’ll do”. 

Well, of course even with oil none of that actually happened. Oil did indeed create the wealth but it was spent by a posse of cowboy builders who had no more sense of the aesthetic than a baboon with a crayon whose only inspiration was his neighbours red arse. 

What actually happened was that the ants were crushed, Colin was made homeless and the cacti pulled up and thrown onto a fire. A few hundred square miles of sand and rock were poured over by a million tons of bland grey concrete.  The cities actual street pattern was designed not in a pleasing melange of bends, curves and indiscriminate but pleasing blind alleys but in a frankly boring, if efficient, series of block grids. The intricate patterns of Islam decorating old mosques could have provided inspiration, but instead the planners went for straight lines showing a lack of imagination only rivalled by an anteater’s daily choice of dinner. Despite the wealth, planners called in the cowboys, the slapdash and the incompetent to throw up blocks of concrete monstrosities in the 1950s and 1960s. Thus in just a few years was the city built. Since the ‘completion’ and I use that word more to convey the builders’ sense of direction rather than their ability to achieve, nothing much in the way of maintenance has been carried out. And so they squat in their blocks, those horrid little hutches of crumbling shoddiness, as a daily visual offence to sensibility, beauty and human flourishing.  Nothing has been updated since they were built. Now, to the smorgasbord of shit has been added neon signs, cheap faded shop fronts and traffic. 

Why and how billions of people live in cities such as this can only be the result of desperation and the poverty of thought, spirit, and imagination. Those overseeing the rash of global urban development over the past decades do not live here. Instead they live in the leafy suburbs with concierge architects who send their million pound plans for gold leaf and marble approval to be greeted with “That’ll do…nicely”. 

“Is your mother in?”

“er…why?”

“You know why”

The voice emanated from deep within the silhouetted shape standing in the doorway, the sunlight behind him momentarily blinding me to both the owner of the voice as well the realisation that I might be what is colloquially known as ‘being in the shit’. I had answered the knocking on the front door on a summer’s afternoon in the early 1970s as normal, only to realise that it would have been better if I had instead locked myself in the toilet with an old dog eared copy of the previous month’s Mayfair. 

This was my first contact with the police, at age 12 or 13. The Constable had come to inform my mum and dad that I had been seen running up a country lane with a bottle of milk taken from the front step of a terraced house in the village of Penponds. I had been out on another sunny afternoon with a miscreant called Brian and we had become thirsty. Brian spotted the milk still out on the doorstep and thinking it was fair game, we grabbed two bottles and began to amble up the road, full of misplaced bravado and confidence. We reasoned that if the milk had not been taken in by now, then it was not wanted. 

“Oi..that’s my mum’s milk!”. At this, we decided to run. Brian was recognised and it did not take a Poirot to figure out where he lived. He was collared first and squealed like a baby pig. Hence the visitation to my doorstep. 

My ‘sentence’ was having to apologise in person to the desk sergeant at Camborne police station promising never to flout the law of the land in such a cavalier fashion ever again. Thus was a nascent criminal career nipped in the bud. 

Several years later, I found myself sitting in the interview room at RNAS Culdrose being interrogated by two Royal Navy ‘policemen’ who wished to know the extent to which I had knowledge of a drug supply cartel in Helston. Who was Mister Big? Had I ever been to Amsterdam? Did I I know what a ‘joint’ was? Had I ever smoked marijuana? I was about 17 at the time, having just joined the Navy the year before. I could see my career ending before you could say “aye aye skipper”.  This interrogation was the result of a friend of mine being picked up by the police in the main street. His crime was to be in possession of a ‘Camberwell Carrot’, a spliff, a reefer. The amount of cannabis he had on his person could stun a pygmy for a few seconds but that was it. Yet this was enough to put into action an operation stretching from Helston to Plymouth to Portsmouth and even to the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. In the absence of any evidence, the strategy employed by the Royal Navy’s police was to pick up everyone who was an acquaintance of my unfortunate shipmate. They also then picked up the friends of the acquaintances to ask the same questions. The competence of the ‘drugs squad’ was in proportion to their knowledge of the 1970s drug ‘scene’, i.e. not much. They had learned everything about drugs from the ‘Ladybird book of Weed’ and from watching films like ‘Easy Rider’. What they lacked in violence, they made up with enthusiasm and not a little reliance on luck. 

I am prompted to think of these experiences with the law upon seeing the fortress that is the police ‘station’ in Bahrain. 

My daily stroll in the unrelenting heat of the day took me through the narrow and winding streets of the old souk in central Manama. These ancient streets are of course only a car wide in most places, even less in others, and flanked on either side by two or three story ramshackle constructions. There are no pavements as such, as the pedestrian is given a narrow strip of tiles and cracked raised tarmac upon which to walk on either side of the street. It doesn’t really matter because the traffic is so light that everyone walks in the middle of the narrow road in any case. Telegraph wires and electric cables are very loosely bound to bits of the walls they supply. They wave above my head in the breeze in a tangled weave of cables and the odd knot for which, in my Naval days, the given name was a BoB knot (a Bunch of Bastards). Overhead, the narrow strip of sky blue nonetheless allows the hot stream of sunlight to penetrate every dark nook below. There is a noticeable lack of litter unlike the streets of Jeddah, the paradox being that I see more street cleaners in Jeddah than in Bahrain. It was from this maze of encroachment overhead and on both sides that I emerged from the old souk district to discover the fortress. 

A castellated wall of about 10 metres in height, with a sand coloured render, imposed itself across the street from which I had emerged.  Every few metres the wall was punctuated with a strip of a ‘window’ about a metre tall by about six inches, the sort our castles would have to allow archers within to kill the approaching enemy. The wall stretched for about 500 metres into the distance. Guard towers completed the fortress look. At the main entrance several big shiny new police cars were parked, next to a big sign which clearly indicated that photography would not be tolerated. In both Arabic and English the signs shouted “Go away from here, do not look, don’t linger…yes you there…render yourself distant or we will cut your balls off”.  The exterior was intimating, so who knows what the interior looked like. The message was very clear: “We are in charge here, don’t even think about human rights”. 

In the UK we have a concept of policing by consent, of service, which in the leafy villages of the Cotswolds is possibly true. The crime sprees experienced by your local bobbies in sleepy villages like ‘Much Sodding’ are no more than a couple of spotty youths having it way with someone’s mum’s milk. Therefore, the police have no need for body armour, tazers or nipple clamps. Even in the cities, the police are embarrassed if they have to draw blood. Kneeling on people’s airways or shooting at random is rare. 

This police station however is not about consent. It is about compliance. Justice will be meted out quietly, in the dark, at length, and will involve the judicious use of forceps, scrotal stretching and a subjective interpretation of the law. Accountability to civil society can be found in a bin around the back, and disappearance from official records that one was arrested is always an option. Justice might be blind, but here she is on holiday and not taking calls. 

I walk on the street opposite the wall, as I do not want to risk being picked up and charged with ‘walking too close to a wall’ or ‘looking suspiciously foreign’. The fact that I am white with a British passport is not comforting as the police look like equal opportunity racists. As walk on the far side, I can hear finger nails being pulled, confessions being screamed out and tears of bitterness and regret. One way to eradicate crime is to kill criminals. If that is a bit extreme, then perhaps ask them to assist with your enquiries at length, in dark cockroach infested cells decorated with the blood stained cries for help written by previous occupiers. 

There are several types of copper. 

There is the Dixon of Dock Green type who was happy to slowly meander around cobbled streets, clipping the ears of schoolboys while gathering gossip about local villains. He would be armed with a bicycle and wit. He would have been a career copper whose only ambition was to rid the community of human detritus in time for Songs of Praise. In return, he’d only ask for a bit of respect, to hear “its a fair cop guv’nor…you got me bang to rights and no mistake”.  His mum would be proud of him and his wife aspired to be a housewife. His main excitement would be on match day when he would have to ask the visiting supporters to “keep it down a bit lads, there’s ladies present”. He could see his own face in the polished toe caps of his boots, a skill learned in national service while keeping the fuzzy wuzzies in their place. Police Ethics was discussed only by the Chief Constable who might have discussed it with an Archbishop at their University reunion.

There is the ‘fire up the Quattro’ type who’s long since ditched the uniform so that he could better blend in with the criminals. His appetite for sexism was matched by his appetite for alcohol, and both appetites could be indulged in while on duty.  There would always be a mattress back at the station to assist in the enquires he was making by allowing his suspect (who he already knows was guilty) to accidentally slip on the stairs down to the cells in the basement. Thinly veiled violence was an interview technique accompanied by chain smoking and bad breath. Confessions could be encouraged and justice assisted by the fortuitous discovery of evidence even the suspect had no idea he had. Police ethics was of the ‘Ends Justify the Means’ type, as long as you got the result, it matters not how. 

Then there is the middle class type from a nice middle class family, who went to a nice middle class school, ate nice middle class food (he knows what falafel is) and then perhaps to a nice university to study criminology which he thinks gives him an insight into the criminal mind. He wants to ‘help’, to make a difference. The thing is he has no experience whatsoever of the lifestyles, values and networks of those who commit crime…the working class and the upper class. His experience of acquisitive crime is third hand deriving from stories about his classmates who nicked a sixpence from their mum’s purse to spend at the tuck shop at break. Police ethics is rooted in ‘deontological assumptions about Kantian moral imperatives’ which to him are inexplicably ignored by both the smack head high on a cocktail of drugs following a lifetime of abuse and by the covert financial shenanigans in board rooms and on golf courses across the globe. 

Then there are the psychopaths, sociopaths, sexually inadequate, involuntary celibates and machismo types drawn to wearing uniforms, guns and wielding big sticks indiscriminately among crowds gathered in cramped streets out for a good time. They are often drawn from the deprived neighbourhoods they police as one of the few options open to them. Its either the blue uniform or military khaki, the priesthood or prison. They are open to inducements and will produce results according to the highest bidder. They love big flashy cars, big fortress types of prison and police station. You will make their day if you fail to speak their language, fail to have the necessary identification upon you, or are simply deaf, disabled or distracted. This gives them carte blanch to administer swift justice using a stick. It is said about the police in certain countries not too far away that if a stick is being withdrawn from the belt, then you have already lost the argument and further rational debate or cooperation will prove counterproductive. Police ethics is based on the maxim ‘Might is Right’. 

The afternoon is getting hot, I am very thirsty but thankfully they do not leave milk bottles on shop doorways out here. 

“…can I see the original..?”

The whole world is living in interesting times. 

For millions that ‘interest’ has led to sickness, misery and death. It has resulted in running out of oxygen, pressure on critical care beds and nurses in tears after a long hard shift helping people merely to breathe. Doctors and nurses in direct contact with patients have fallen ill, many have died. Never in my own clinical experience and in health care did I ever foresee that asking staff to care for patients could put themselves at high risk. Bear in mind we have had infectious diseases ever since Eve offered Adam a dodgy apple, resulting in catching the disease of knowledge, which in God’s infinite wisdom was also a sin. A tragic consequence of that story is that women have taken the blame for men’s fuckwittery ever since. 

Families have been separated and even old married couples have had to die alone. Who knows how many people are still experiencing the long term symptoms of fatigue and brain fog, making a return to their normality a long and arduous journey. Others are angry and nearly riotous as their freedoms have been curtailed. Some of those freedoms include being able to carry on with their business, others are about being able to party in large groups and get totally pissed. My freedom to sit upon the ground and think of many things has not been affected. I am still able to take 15 minutes to make a coffee while I check to see if my investments have taken a nose dive on the international money markets. If anything, I have  become enormously richer because I own shares in companies making PPE, vaccines and Conspiracy theories. I’ve personally no need to text the Prime Minister to facilitate access to cash breaks. 

Things could be worse. 

I could be in Redruth without access to baby wipes. I could be in charge of ensuring the conduct of certain politicians, whose dirty hands are matched only by their dirty minds, is deemed to be ethical and above board. I could be polishing turds. I could be in charge of Michael Gove’s Public Relations Department with the remit of making him seem charming, kind and warm, you know, the sort you’d be happy to see your daughter engaged to. 

Instead, I’m up at a six in the morning, to get to King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, to catch a flight to London. 

At the hotel, a member of staff asks if I’ve booked a taxi. My plan was to book an Uber straight after checkout. 

The more perspicacious of you might have an inkling of what is about to happen.

I am reliably informed that as it is Ramadan, so getting an Uber might be tricky. You see, Ramadan involves daytime fasting and night time feasting. Many Saudis are up until the wee small hours and thus still asleep until midday. This includes many Uber drivers. So my chances of getting to the airport quickly, began to diminish. After the fourth attempt, my helpful hotel staff member called Imranaa, gets a taxi for me. Marvellous. I ask if the taxi driver takes card or cash….

A prize to to those who can correctly guess the answer, bear in mind you have a 50/50 chance of success boosted by any foreknowledge you may have of Middle Eastern taxi driver competencies. As a clue, in  Jeddah you also have a 50/50 chance of being driven by a Louis Hamilton with anger issues.

My usual morning Uber to the office costs about 21-24 Riyals depending upon which way the camel farts. The airport is just a few miles further and I have paid 50 Riyals before when catching a flight to Medina. That price included a generous tip. Today, I part with 100 Riyals. Why? Ramadan? Because I look like a stupid white man in need of assistance with the parting of cash? Has Allah requested that all infidels get charged double? 

And what do I get in return? The chance not to catch an airborne infectious disease that results in willy rot? Who knows. I’m being churlish, because I’m on my way home. I’ve not been involved in one of Jeddah’s infamous road accidents and the driver appeared to want to stay alive as much as I did. I did not have to sit next to a crying baby named Damian. As things stand currently, parting with 100 Riyals to get to an airport is a first world luxury not open to the myriad migrant workers earning a sheep’s testicle per hour to keep the lights on, the floors cleaned and the sewers flowing. You are probably wondering what 100 Riyals looks like in money you’d recognise…so, that would be about £20.  In the grand scheme of the Universe hurtling towards its ultimate implosion, in a shower of black holes and quantum singularities resulting in the annihilation of everything, including the conscious thoughts of all of the world’s geniuses who have ever lived, and Brian, £20 is not going to make much difference. I have spent more than that on a night out in Camborne between the hours of six and Kebab. 

Interesting times means complying with regulations which have been added to all the other airport security measures we all know and love. I have had to get a PCR test in Jeddah which has to be done within 72 hours of flying, then pre book two PCR tests upon return in the U.K., fill out a Passenger Location Form which can only be filled in within 48 hours of take off, before self isolating for 10 days. I have printed copies of the Jeddah pre flight PCR test and the PLF which records that I’ve booked PCRs in the U.K.

Proper job. Sorted. Easy. Relax. I can present all relevant papers upon request. 

Currently, as I sit upon the plane waiting for take off, I’m listening to two male middle aged, middle class Brits loudly sounding off on Covid tests and ethnic minorities. You’ve met the sort. Done well for themselves, used to bossing the little people, “don’t like darkies” Home Counties types. In fact they are suspicious of any ethnic group who failed to build an empire. They share the persecution complex of many older, white wealthy men who run countries, corporations and car shows who think women, gays and brown people are taking over the world. In the US they’d be calling Biden a communist. Back home, they’d be texting tame politicians offering to refurbish their flats in return for access to cock sucking special advisors who’ll recommend policies to facilitate the turning of blind eyes towards stealing the futures of gig economy workers while offering them the opportunity to die before they receive the state pension age.

Oh,  and so I’m now playing PC bingo. 

And there it is…. “…everything is so politically correct now….and minorities are running things…”

Boom. 

These two are health, security, and social policy ‘experts’ but their knowledge of public health, epidemiology, medicine and virology is in inverse proportion to their sense of self importance. They no doubt get their information from authoritative sources of medical and public health knowledge such as that offered by Jeremy Clarkson, the Patron saint of Bombast. They have worked in senior positions here in Saudi Arabia, paid off their mortgages, bought boats and now are geopolitical, sociological and cultural experts as well. They are confidently stating that planes ‘never leave on time’, said in that confident tone of voice reserved for those who know just enough to instil a measure of gobshitery unmerited by actual knowledge, so as to inform anyone unable not to listen that they are airline operating experts as well. 

This is another first world problem, having to listen to c*nts in Business class. 

I’m surprised they’ve not been banged up in a small room at the airport for demanding to be fed dates as they show their passports and PCR documentation.

Back at check in, I await my turn patiently. There are several check in desks open and several queues formed. I ask a passing smartly uniformed official in a grey suit if I’m in the right line, as some are marked ‘Saudi Priority’ and others are not. My pre printed boarding pass says I’m ‘Saudi Priority’ which does not mean much to me as we all seem to waiting in similar length queues. He of course informs me that indeed I am, inshallah, with that air of obsequious confidence that I have experienced before. It’s that sort of confidence you feel just before a minor operation only to wake up three weeks later in intensive care minus a body part, bladder control and the ability to reason. He also asks to where I’m flying. “London” I answer more in hope than expectation as I wonder if the pilot is an ex taxi driver. 

In the queue next to me is another male, middle aged, hefty middle class Brit, with four very big, very heavy, suitcases to the good, being told by the charming check in Assistant that he is ‘in the wrong queue’ after telling her he is flying to London. I’m spotting a pattern.  He begins to remonstrate with all the authority of a toppled dictator being shown the door by the leader of the Coup D’Etat, not realising that non compliance with the check in assistant’s request could result in an uncalled for (by him) meeting of his bollocks and an electrical power source. I’m not sure if his status as ‘priority’ counts for much. I learn he is Business class, like me, flying to London, like me, and “was told this was the correct check in desk”, like me.

 I look at my own queue. I’m next in line to a family of four. Mrs is dressed in colourful abiya and head scarf and is in charge of two trolleys, umpteen heavy cases and bags, and two glued to the screen teenagers, a boy and a girl. Mrs humps the bags onto the conveyor belt while teenagers helpfully assist by getting in the way while watching some scum bag influencer making a YouTube video selling hope in Dubai. Sir, dressed in Primark quality polo shirt and jeans,  stands to one side also engaged in something interesting on his screen. It might be a horse race, his bank account or an interesting situation on Porn Hub*.

I’m in a dilemma because I’ve been told this is the “right queue” when next door things look set to escalate to full on red faced entitled vein popping. A supervisor intervenes and smooths things over so that he indeed can check in where he is. Meanwhile my family have eventually checked in the bags, but proceed to linger around the check in desk oblivious to the fact that other people (me) might want to do the same. As I stand patiently, I am aware that on my left has arrived two uniformed bag handlers and a trolley stacked to the roof with suitcases. They are non Saudi migrant workers resplendent in baggy grey fleece tops and jogging bottoms, yellow baseball hat and ‘Baggage Team’ emblazoned on their backs. I think of offering them two sheep’s testicles as a tip to “f*ck off to another queue” as they appear to be pushing in front. My British hackles nearly rise, as you all understand our attitudes to queuing. 

As the Red Sea of the screen absorbed family finally parted, I take my opportunity to nip to the desk and present my credentials. This is going to be fine.

My passport is perfect. All correct. In date and bearing my likeness and as passports go it is the gold standard. I could not find fault with it and neither could the check in assistant. I suggest that passports such as mine would have no trouble in gaining access to the fabled stables of Hercules, should the need arise. 

I spent several hours in the previous few days checking and rechecking regulations for entry back into the U.K. I am more familiar with the covid and travel gov.uk website than most civil servants and Dominic Cummings. I know how officialdom can work. It is no use trying to refer to policy as written by head office if the official in front of you takes a different view. A female Saudi journalist was turned away from a shopping mall by a male security guard because she was not dressed in the full black abiya, despite having printed a copy of the Crown Prince’s statement on the acceptability of female dress.

“…but, but the Crown Prince said…”

“…I don’t care if Allah himself said, you’re not coming in here dressed like the whore of Babylon and that’s my final word…now fuck off and take your obscenely arousing, if off limits, tits with you…” 

That’s how it works. 

So, when I was asked for my Jeddah PCR test certificate I proudly handed over my printed version which has all the details one could possibly want and more so. Everything was in order. Date, test result, laboratory, doctors signature, contact details. 

“This doesn’t have a stamp”.

I instantly recognise officialdom rearing its authoritarian head resting upon its ‘no discretion’ shoulders. Many front line staff are given strict orders about rules with absolutely no authority to make on the spot rationally assessed decisions. It makes no difference if a terrorist never ever shows up wearing a chicken costume with a back pack with ‘Bomb’ written in pink fluffy letters on it, but if you do that then be prepared for a intimate bout of fisting from Security. 

“What?” 

A cold chill runs down my spine. I instantly try to calculate how long it would take me to get a taxi…bastards….to the PCR test lab, get it stamped and then return. I can’t make that calculation because the adrenaline begins to flow in the flight or fight response. Fighting is not an option at an airport and there is nowhere to run to. A supervisor is called over when she asks,

“Have you got the original certificate as this is just a printed version” said to  someone who actually did the printing and should know. 

The U.K. gov.uk site clearly stated that a PCR test certificate should be presented, and could be translated into Spanish or French and written with the blood of the lamb, it could be a copy printed or email. Nowhere does it say the original has to be presented. Yesterday my colleague flew from this very terminal with a printed certificate such as mine and did so without let or hindrance.

“No, I don’t have the original”. 

The supervisor checks my copy and something in Arabic, which contains the words “PCR” and “Twat”, was said. Meanwhile my innards are turning to jelly. The clock is ticking. In another queue, some people are being turned away for not having a PCR certificate. 

“Did they send you an email?” 

Yes, they did send me an email, that’s how I got the copy printed off! I frantically search my phone’s email inbox for the lab’s message, praying that while I did so that the phone retained enough power. That was irrational because I had charged it overnight, and I had a power bank. But then, being confronted with official authoritarianism, which has the power to make your life as miserable as a Cornishman who has dropped his pasty into the red river, makes one irrational. 

I brandished the email aloft as much as the lady of the lake held up Excalibur to anoint Arthur as King. She stared at the screen. He stared at the screen, they both stared at the paper certificate. Time stood still. The testicles of destiny were being held in the steely grip of the hands of fate. Would I be boarding or would I cut my wrists and bleed out right there and then at the check in desk.

“Ok”

May Allah be praised. Passport checked, PCR test certificate accepted…hurrah, I’m off.

“Have you booked PCR in the U.K.?” 

“Yes”

May I see your PCR booking in the U.K.?” 

Suffice to say, I have to again check my phone’s email in box for the invoice that was sent to me. The printed passenger location form which states I have booked PCR and has the invoice number to prove it, was not good enough evidence. The email on the phone thankfully was. 

I wondered what other unknown hoop I was going to have to jump through. 

Did I have to prove I had eaten breakfast, was wearing clean underwear, that although I had once seen a reefer I was not now a drug addict and that listening to Gary Glitter in the 1970s does not make me a kiddy fiddler?

Bags checked, adrenaline levels returning to normal, I made my way towards the security checks. I passed several more check in desks which had a sign saying “U.K. and US passengers check in here”. Now they tell me. 

Sitting on .the plane, nursing a coffee, I reflected upon just how many staff and checks I had just passed through . After the initial check in micro trauma, I had to show the PCR test certificate another three times and waited for the “have you got the original….” which thankfully never came. At the security scanner I stood alone, shoe and belt less as my carry on bags were scanned. I counted eight dark blue uniformed, gold badged, security guards hanging around my one scanner. At the departure gate itself was another scanner with another eight dark blue uniformed, gold badged, security guards. 

“…careful with that bag” I said to one of them, “I don’t want the cocaine bag breaking open all over my ipad”.

The downside of all of this security is the panic one feels if breaches of the rules have been seen to have occurred resulting in one’s sorry arse being frogmarched to the nearest rat infested dungeon while the Crown Prince decides in which decade you might be considered for parole.The upside is that I hope that those who actually should be caught being twats have been caught being twats thus leaving the rest of us  sure in the knowledge that we are existing in a low twat zone while at 40,000 feet. 

Meanwhile, migrant workers in Jeddah are street cleaning in 37 degrees of  humidity, disinfecting a thousand curry stained hotel toilets and being unseen by rich Westerners. They do so for a sheep’s testicle an hour, while they worry about their families back home in India dying for the lack of a vaccine or oxygen. 

* This is an offering on the internet for those who take a lively interest in the amazing capacity of human beings to prostrate themselves in unusual positions and locations.