When there is an elephant in the room, it is probably best to acknowledge its presence before it decides to take a mini roundabout size dump on your Axminster, or stick its trunk between your granny’s legs hunting for a bun. It is often quite difficult to take afternoon tea with the vicar when Jumbo is blowing raspberries into your face. The other thing about an elephant is that it is often so big that you cannot see what is behind it. That could be a disadvantage if it is blocking the view of either the Martian invaders running amok on your lawn, or your ability to appreciate the first daffodils of Spring.

I have always thought that when it comes to pachyderms, it is probably best not to have them around in the first place and certainly not lurking around unsuccessfully hiding behind the lounge curtains. However, this is not always the case and therefore there is no choice but to get the metaphorical elephant gun out and shoot it. Ignoring it might be the English way and ‘not making a fuss’ is a gold medal winning trait in the hearts of suburban England, but that will not do.

The Elephant I have currently spotted has come charging into view as a result of my evening strolls along the Corniche. As I amble, and amble I must in this heat, I come across many families doing similar. I am met with the familiar scene, both here and in Bahrain, of women clad head to foot in the black burqa. If I was to put a % on it I would have to say it is about 90%. Another 9% wear a head covering and the long, flowing sometimes colourful ‘abiyah’. I have seen a few women in jeans and blouses but with their arms covered up. There are no short skirts, no cleavages, no shorts, no bare midriffs. Nothing.

In every other sense though, the women are doing what every wife, daughter, sister is doing…they stroll, eat picnics, and just relax in the sunshine. But in black. They do not walk a few paces behind the men, they walk alongside. The only variation I get to see is the shoes and sometimes the eyes. The latter is not easy because as it is anywhere, it would be rude to stare, but when I do catch the odd glimpse the phrase ‘window to the soul’ seems wholly appropriate. It might be something to do with the full body covering enhancing that which remains, or more likely it is to do with their ethnicity, but I have to note that they could stun any man into submission with just one flirtatious look if they wanted to. They wear eye make up which their large dark eyes hardly need, but that is it as far as I know, for underneath that black cloth is a total mystery.

I have it on decent enough authority that underneath it all the women wear whatever they like and are no different from any other women on the planet. In one of Bahrain’s many shopping malls, I came across ‘Victoria’s Secret’ which ironically was no secret at all given the shop front display. The wide entrance revealed an Aladdin’s cave of luxury lace of all colours. The full range of silky lingerie was on offer, including a dominatrix set complete with horse whip. My colleague, a woman from the UK, then told me that in her discussions with the local women, it was very clear that behind the veil ladies could be as drab or as vampish as the best of them in London, New York and St Austell. Well, of course they would be, they are normal women after all. They are not to sort to sell themselves to ISIS fanatics as baby factories in the desert of Syria.

Appearances often can be deceptive, wearing a Burqa does not a terrorist make. Nor does it make them religious fundamentalists by default. We only have to look across the Atlantic to see how ‘normal’ a religious fanatic can look, be it man or woman. Fascism wore Boss suits. Authoritarians are in Savile Row buying Gucci.

Which brings me to how I feel about all of this, and I make no apologies for bringing it back to me. I have no idea at all what Saudi women think or feel as I don’t have the opportunity or know if it is appropriate to discuss it with the women in the office (answer: no, it is not, I don’t know them well enough).

A few years ago in London, I came across a small group of women dressed in exactly the same way. It is not uncommon of course, but for a Camborne boy who considers the folk in Redruth to be a bit weird it was, if not unsettling, then definitely a novelty that sparked a minor emotional reaction. That emotion was fear, fleetingly, but it was there.

Fear of the unknown, the strange and the unsettling. At heart many racists are fearful. They see something they have never seen and fear it. It is easy to let go of the fear if you just stop and think. Better still, get to know what it is you fear. Tragically the UK press will not let us do that, and ever since 9/11 fear has been their stock in trade.

Jeddah forces one to confront the strange. The burqa is so ubiquitous it is no longer strange, and seeing women doing ordinary women things such as taking a picnic, shopping, eating in restaurants and choosing Victoria Secret’s underwear kind of undermines the terrorist narrative. Especially so when you learn that Saudi Arabia has its own IS problem. So which is it, do only terrorists wear Burqas or do ordinary Saudi women? If the answer is both which of course is both true and falsehood, what is our problem with a bit of black cloth? Who am I to tell women what they can and can’t wear? There is no doubt that cultural and religious norms still ‘mandate’ modesty for many, and women themselves are self policing.

One side of the brain (informed by the Sun, Express and the Daily Fascist) says the burqa is the dress of choice of the IS terrorist and yet ordinary Saudi women wear it. Granted I have no idea about the degree of choice they have. And nor do you. I have no idea if it is only a cultural choice, it is certainly not Islamic by default, for there are millions of Muslim women who do not wear it.

Thinking sociologically, this takes me into agency, culture and structural issues in an attempt to understand, but that is for another article on another platform.

I personally don’t like the burqa. So what? I don’t like a good deal of what goes for fashion in Bodmin either. Yesterday I hear Sri Lanka is banning it, the burqa that is, not Bodmin. That seems weird to me when in the West for decades we have argued that women should be able to wear what they like, even if it looks daft. But daft is in the eye of the beholder. Yes on one level it is symbolic of patriarchal oppression, but I’ve no idea if they feel oppressed wearing it? Meanwhile, Bristol is banning lap dancing causing some lap dancers to complain that their livelihood, their choice, is being taken away. So, it seems we are all at it…policing what women can wear and do. I think thats normal, it will always be the case.

Complicated ain’t it? In any case. This elephant in black will not go away.

What next for the spotlight? Men in beards?

It is all too easy to go through life thinking that things are exactly what they seem to be. The appearance matches the reality on most occasions. If they did not, every day decisions would be fraught with jeopardy and you would be either paralysed with fear or at the very least as suspicious as the Mother Superior upon spotting the novice nun nipping into her cloistered cell clutching what looks like a ‘buzzing’ white candle. As the door closes behind the novice, she wonders if the nun’s ‘devotional’ is more personal than spiritual.

We have barely evolved monkey brains which try to decide what is real and what is appearance. Some say the brain divides into three parts that work together as whole unit.

These poor little bags of organic matter sloshing about inside the hard casing of the skull have to deal with an awful lot of information and so it takes short cuts to do so. It likes to see patterns and when there is not enough information at hand to confirm what we think we are seeing, it fills in the gaps for us. It is why we see the face of Jesus in clouds, burned toast and in nocturnal emissions. It is why we get confused by black and white silhouettes of vases or faces, and why men need beer. In a confusing world, beer helps to clarify the mass of information directed at us every second of the day.

Brains have what is called neuro-plasticity, in short the more we repeat a behaviour the stronger the nerve links become. The more you buy shoes, the more you want to buy shoes. The more pasties you eat, the more pasties you want to eat and the more sacred texts you read, the more disconnected from reality you become. So, be careful when choosing your candles.

Apparently we have a bit of the brain called the reptilian, or lizard, brain. This is the primitive bit of the basal ganglia which evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is responsible for instinctual behaviours such as aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritualistic displays. Sigmund Freud also referred to three parts of the psychological ‘brain’ and perhaps this lizard brain is where Freud’s ‘ID’ resides? This is the seething cauldron of unconscious desires that is always rattling the bars of its cage, eager to get out to satisfy its most basic urges. Alcohol is often the key that turns the lock that opens the cell door. Just ask any young man on a Saturday night out. Well, ask before he goes out. By eight thirty the lizard will be strutting it’s stuff in a ritual display of dominance, aggression and territoriality before the inhibitory effects of alcohol has completely dissolved control over one’s tongue, judgment, bladder and spatio-temporal reality. It is your inner child come out to play, a child who has not yet been taught or understands anything beyond the immediate gratification of sticking a finger in the jam and licking it off.

The novice nun clutching the ‘candle’ may be responding to her ‘ID’ in a manner she can barely recognise or control. The ‘ID’ did not mean to accidentally ‘switch on’ the candle but the lizard inside wanted a bit of freedom and so unconsciously directed her finger to the switch in over eager anticipation. The Mother Superior’s ID recognised the ‘candle’ and fought to get that recognition accepted by her higher morality that said it did not want to know… “talk to the hand”.

We also have a ‘limbic’ system responsible for emotions such as those required for reproduction, motivation and parental behaviour. Alcohol may play a part in releasing the flood of emotions required to turn the lizard’s, the ID’s, urges into behaviours that we all recognise, and sometimes bitterly regret, in a social situation. That warm fuzzy feeling, that sudden relaxation of strict moral constraints, that revaluation of the situation may be all down to the limbic system awash with dopamine and serotonin so that you start thinking warm thoughts towards a third party you otherwise would not touch even when wearing three layers of PPE and using breathing apparatus. This might be what Freud called the ‘Ego’, that bit of us that is consciously informing and guiding decision making that we are aware of. ID pushes the urge, Ego conciuosly thinks about whether it is a good idea or not. In a sober state it might be quite easy to consider whether drinking a full bottle of red wine after several large G and T’s in a beach bar could lead to consequences involving singing, dancing, unconsciousness, shame and a lengthy interaction with the emergency services of one sort or another. It is what chlamydia relies on. The voice inside your head clearly is saying ‘No’. It is your Adult trying to make a rational decision.

Then there is the third, unconscious moral compass desperately trying to get the attention of the Ego while ID cavorts and shouts in the other ear.

This voice talking to your conscious mind is the ‘Superego’ according to Freud. This is the memory of your real or imagined parent wagging their finger, its the disappointed look on the vicar’s face, its the headmaster’s cane, its the policeman’s knee on your neck, it is the threat of excommunication, its Noah’s flood and the lingering feeling of doubt and shame you inexplicably feel after being caught turning off Gary Glitter’s ventilator. This is the ethical code you have developed following years of study of moral philosophy, crude experience and completing all seven volumes of Harry Potter. ID wants to take your trousers down and run naked through a wheat field with a corn cob sticking out your arse, Superego asks you to contemplate just which bit of the Judaeo-Christian ethical code this would fulfil and Ego just says ‘No’.

This is precisely why we like beer.

You can see why in the face of John Mills at the end of the film ‘Ice Cold in Alex’.

There are fewer things in life that actually deliver on a promise, that provide instant gratification every single time, where the reality matches the appearance. There are fewer things in life that does all of this, than the first pint of beer after a hot hard day. The colour of an Ale is that warm comforting amber that reminds one of the teddy bear one snuggled up with as a child on Christmas morning. It is the evocation of warm sunny days, roses around the front door, summer lawns and summer lunches as swallows flit and fly around the thatched roof of the Fox and Hounds. It is the vicar cycling by, waving his hand as he passes the Foxgloved hedgerows, the baker delivering hot bread to the kitchen behind the pub, it is the ‘free from toil’ for a few hours and the contemplation of a life well lived, where sorrow is nowt but an erased memory. The dimpled pint on an old oak table reflects the rays of a late afternoon sun through the glass into a diamond sparkling invitation to sit and sup a while. Let the world turn, measured only by the vintage village clock whose ancient hands imperceptibly measure the dawdling slow march of time towards eternity. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone even the dog’s not barking as he chews a bone.

The Lizard is asleep, The Superego does not mind, and you can think clearly about the simplicity of a bag of crisps, an English Ale and a late summer afternoon.

I think of this as I open a can of beer in my hotel room. It looks like a can of beer, it sound like a can of beer, it feels like a can of beer, pours into the glass like beer and it sparkles like beer. But the brain will not be fooled this time. It will not fill in the gaps, it recognises this pattern and it gives it a name: ‘disappointment’. It is probably not the best beer in the world. The novice nun disappointingly finds that it is actually a candle she is holding and not some electronic organ of delight. Never mind, the candle has its uses but you can’t beat the real thing.

So much for 0% beer.

Way back in the 19th century when it was just fine to shoot and bayonet anyone in a hot country not wearing a red jacket and pith helmet, Walter Bagehot wrote some stuff down about the English Constitution, perhaps peeved that the Americans and the French had already done so years before. We had not bothered to put pen to paper because the English class system made it unnecessary for the lower orders to think about such things. They were busy dying in their droves in the Mills, Mines and Factories of the smoke filled blackened North. Either that or they were dying of tropical diseases in places they couldn’t spell while singing ‘All things bright and beautiful’ as their innards dissolved into a putrefying morass of over excited gut bacteria. The Aristocracy just assumed they had the right to rule while stuffing foxes full of gin and lead and pouring pheasant blood onto their babies heads. They had no need therefore of a written book of instructions on who and how to rule a country.

But. The new rich, the expanding bourgeois merchant class and factory owners, thought they needed something to support their own claim to be a ruling class. Cutting off the heads of the nobility was a bit too ‘French’ and in any case would get in the way of making money through stealing diamonds, selling opium and telling huge woppers on the stock market about how much money they could make from building railways.

Walter duly provided. On Monarchy he wrote:

“Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it…Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic”.

Let daylight in upon the ‘magic’. Yes, let that sink in.

Daylight has not only been let in, the curtains have been removed and burned, all of the lights in the house turned on, spotlights hired and trained on the front door and the bare shiny arse of monarchy stands on the threshold mooning at passers by. Not only can we see that there is a hairy wart on the left buttock, we have also been shown a fleeting glimpse of a part of the body that even one’s mother has not seen since we were in nappies.

Mexit, or whatever it is called, has shown the magic to be, well rather tawdry. ‘The Family’ is just another family. Philip does not shit rainbows, the Queen is yer granny working very hard at keeping up appearances, Charles has forgotten where the phone is, Wills is muttering “fuck, fuck, fuck, please let me be king” while Andrew lurks in a dark corner thanking his lucky stars that his nephew’s choice of wife has rather overshadowed his misdemeanours with the barely pubescent (allegedly). Ann is in the shed kicking a corgi to death. Edward does not exist.

Speculating on which tinge of the ethnic rainbow a future royal sproglet will be, seems to me to be but a minor infringement given Monarchy’s role in such far away places such as the Americas, the Caribbean and India. “There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack” was amply demonstrated in the Amritsar massacre, the Mau Mau uprising and the Herculean efforts at starving the Indians through not lifting a blood soaked finger in famine relief. Lets face it, the Monarchy has not got a great track record in fostering Equality and Diversity throughout history, with a few exceptions. Having a white skin did not stop the Irish being royally shafted as the last potato they had was sent to Croydon, and neither did being of white Dutch descent prevent the Boers being herded into concentration camps. An Equal Opportunities massacre.

Contemporary shenanigans have followed more recent uproar over a TV programme. It is as if the professional stokers of hate in the British press have nothing better to do than sell papers using the tried and tested methods of, er…stoking hate. They went a bit nuts over depictions of the Windors on the telly.

The Crown – the monarchical orgy fest produced by Netflix – is a work of fiction! What!? Are they actually telling me that a story about Monarchy, which is a fictional concept based on a fictional divine right justifying itself through myth and legend with as much truth value as Noah’s Ark, is a made up farrago of lies? Walter Bagehot already knew it was a magic trick, designed to fool the public into not asking questions about how they got their wealth and privileges in the first place (hint: it has something to do with sex, money and murder).

Are they really suggesting on Netflix that Prince Charles is not a waxwork effigy of emotion crying for a Camilla shaped comfort blanket, Philip is not an imperial throwback with a penchant for shooting ‘slope eyed, fuzzy wuzzies’ or anything furry scuttling around the woodlands like a ketamine fuelled wood louse? Princess Ann is actually the glamour puss ooozing sexuality out of every fetlock while Margaret sits morosely chewing cigars and draining hope out of a gin bottle? The Queen herself does not actually exist. What we see is a facsimile of a person, and an abstract in hats as a metaphor for duty and a commonwealth so devoid of importance it ranks alongside the applications of leeches as a cure for syphilis. 

What next? They’ll be telling me others things are not true! 

What, Humpty Dumpty wasn’t an egg? Noddy was actually a permanently drunk closet racist who hated bearded men with over large auricles? Grizzlies prefer bidets?

I think we must be told (but not at speed in a Paris underpass*). 

*too soon….or did that not happen as well?

Camborne is many things.

To some, it is the cultural capital of their lives. A hub of dazzling creativity and sparkling innovation that shines as a beacon in the darkness illuminating its close neighbour, Redruth, showing it up to be the shoddy, rat infested, crust wiping cultural hell hole it is. The best thing to happen to Redruth was when the Twilight Zone burned down taking with it into history the bendy eyed lager swilling pond life that passes itself for manhood. Camborne’s cultural centre is the ‘Spoons’ which on a hot day is host to lively singing and friendly beer fuelled banter that only results in a visit the local cells if the men outnumber the women or if they run out of pasties or something amusing to say.

Camborne has its rugby, several pasty shops and a statue to one of the greatest engineers this country has ever produced. Its railway station is world famous, especially on Wednesday, and was once home to the Girls Grammar school, an institution of such repute that girls as far away as St Day would attend to avoid impregnation and an early grave that otherwise awaited them.

The population of Camborne is on the whole civil due in no small part to the relatively flat nature of its high street. From the church to the town clock, around the bend of Tyacks hotel and then up through Trelowarren street to Tesco. There is no need to struggle for breath like they do in Redruth whose hill is known around the county as the Cornish Everest. Why there was a need to build Redruth there on the side of hill is lost in history. Camborne was good enough, and there was no need to imitate perfection. Camborne needs Redruth like whisky needs custard. 

The nineteenth century bard of Cornish history, Gustavus Innuendo ‘Denzil’ Penberthy wrote in his book ‘A Most Invigorating and Intellectually Demanding History of the Mining Towns of Carn Brea and Surrounding Areas’ (1896): 

“Wasson with this bleddy ‘ill in Redruth? T’was well known that Camborne already had a ‘ill that was famous enough to ‘ave a song, so it can only be down to Redruth folk being so bleddy teazy that they continued what was Redruth, wot we know as West End, right on up the ‘hillside in th’ope that they’d get a song too.” 

Well, twenty thousand Cornishmen know the reason why they didn’t. Because people don’t sing songs about a shoddy, rat infested, crust wiping cultural hell hole no matter how many hills they have. Rome was built on seven hills but who sings songs today about “Going up Roman hills coming down?” For all their aqueducts, peace and public health, the Romans never got a song about their hills. If Nero couldn’t get a ditty penned about what fun it is in a wine soaked orgy fest, where vestal virgins are ‘buy one get three free’, what chance Redruth? It was ill situated from the off and it is easier to catch syphilis than it is a bus from outside the railway station. 

Camborne is many things, but mainly it is not Redruth.

Jeddah reminds me of Redruth, apart from the lack of hills. It has that same pointlessness in its location. One difference is of course the glaring lack of half naked young ladies lying in pools of their own vomit at two in the morning clutching half empty bottles of vodka WKD while a dog sniffs hopefully at the cold kebab between her knees. What the two share is the inhospitable geography. In both places you can’t help but think what is the point? What is the point of building a city in a desert? There are no gambling dens and strip joints as there are in Las Vegas. Neither are there any bars and therefore cabaret acts by washed up has beens from the 1970s.

Deserts are hot places and thus inhabited by sand ants, who only emerge for an hour at a time, a few dung beetles and the wind. It is coming to the end of winter, and the temperature if replicated in England would have the redtops printing “Phew, What A Scorcher” headlines, giving them justification to find the most revealing bikini clad young ladies cavorting on Brighton beach to put on the front page. It has not rained here since Noah parked his boat on a nearby mountain. It is not likely to rain for another 40 days and 40 nights either. 

In 1930, the spot where this hotel is, was just sand and a few scattered rocks, a characteristic it shares with the surrounding thousand square miles. Old Jeddah was a fishing hamlet way back in 522 bc. Some bloke and a boat sailed up the coast from Yemen, found a cave and some comfort in the shade of a date palm. With only a monkey for company in the ‘winter’, he slept most of the summer venturing out only for a piss and a date in the early morning. He never did think about building a city, rightly guessing that the infrastructure required would be beyond his intellectual and engineering capability and had yet to be invented in any case. 

In 1920, a British New Zealander Major Frank Holmes set up a Syndicate in London to explore for oil in the Middle East. His Arab name later was ‘Abu Naft’ – the Father of Petroleum. He was some boy, negotiating with the Saudi king in 1922 for access. So, next to nothing in development terms for centuries and then in the space of 100 years we get Jeddah. And Kuwait and Bahrain…all built on the proceeds of back gold. This is the complete and utter triumph of engineering ingenuity over nature. The temperature here will soon be an ‘average’ of 36 degrees during the day. Yes, That’s ‘average’. I can look forward to temperatures in the high 40s in July. That is physiological death. Standing in the main street will insure a sense of impending doom and an overwhelming feeling of suicide. Redruth can be like that and I’m sure thats what it will be like in Jeddah too if I go outside for too long. 

The Yemeni fisherman and his monkey of 522bc would be astonished to see what now exists. He’d spit out a date and crush a grape in wonder.

In 1976, the summer was so hot that Camborne ran out of ice cream and children played in the fountain in the square. People greeted each other and agreed that at least they had no hill to climb in the high street. Camborne is many things, and as hot as it can get for a day or too, it is not physiologically inhospitable. The rain soon returns to a chorus of moaning about the ‘bleddy weather’. It has now rained relentlessly from 1976 to this very day, so that now we crave a heat wave.

Well, stand outside here for 10 minutes in July and see how long your ice cream lasts. 

The sun has but a couple of hours left to share its warming light while the sea breeze accompanies its setting glow. Ripples along the sea shore are gently caressed into wavelets that break gently upon the rocky shoreline singing the soothing song that we all know. One is bathed in light, life and love from the elements. It is truly life affirming. Palm leaves rustle overhead. The black headed, sharp winged Terns dance just above the sea’s silvan surface looking for the tiny fish that the elegant long legged white egrets may have missed. Every fifty metres or so along the waters edge, the long stiletto billed kings of fishers stand deadly still on duty ever watchful for the foolish to come close to the surface. The only thing that moves is their crest as the wind catches. Mynah birds hop and search for everything that might resemble food. They are as common as jackdaws and seem to gather in small flocks of five or six. They are distinctively coloured with a black head, a vivid yellow eye stripe, a light brown back, black wings with a striking white bar on each. They chatter and cackle and forage, and seems to care not for the scrawny cats that lounge about. There are no blackbirds, blue tits or magpies. The herring gulls are replaced by a different browner species of gull that behave in a similar way but with a lesser harsh call and not quite so much cheeky bared faced aggression for your food. It is probably the lack of pasties and the tourist chips on offer that force them to act more naturally like the sea scouring fish eating birds they are.

The Corniche paved walk is perhaps a foot higher than the water, and the tide’s reach measures in inches rather than metres. All along a stainless steel railing provides perches for gulls and the resting ice cream holding arms of the families that come out after work.

After about thirty minutes inhaling the Red Sea breezes I turn inland back towards the hotel. This part of the walk takes me through the city’s blocks of residential homes in the now classic grid pattern of modern cities. What strikes me about this part of the city is of course that it is modern Jeddah, even the mosques are no more than 70 years old. There are no 16th or 17th century street patterns or buildings anywhere near that age. There are numerous plots of land within the blocks that by the looks of them had been buildings, but now have been completely demolished leaving rubble and brown dust blown squares, some the size of football pitches. They are of course litter strewn. The cats do not come down this way, they stay at the Corniche. There are no dogs either. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have seen or heard a dog since I arrived. Even when passing the houses, there are no dogs barking as you pass the gates. I think they have all been eaten or died in the summer sun.

Cars. There are three colours. Mostly white, some grey and a few black. They all look the same, and appear to come with mandatory damage. Rare is the car without a tell tale scratch or dent. The reason is very clear to see.

Whatever else the Jedi are, they are not good drivers. I’ve no idea why, but they just seem to take the attitude that when driving, everyone else should do the looking out. They drive in a bubble of imagined impunity, an impunity which the evidence all around clearly demonstrates is a complete chimera. They drive fast, they drive close and they seem to think that looking at a mobile phone is just fine because everyone else will take evasive action should they stray into another lane. This attitude towards other road users even seems to apply to those in front of you, and especially when you are also driving in their blind spot. A quick toot on the horn is all that is seemingly required to announce one’s presence before moving forward and across in any case.

The gap between theory and practice could not be more stark. Everyone thinks everyone else will take evasive action. They don’t. They just don’t. If you drove like this in London, you would be dragged from your car, beaten senseless and sent to France in a veal crate. Perhaps because a prang is so common they don’t think much about it?

Hence the scratches, dints and dents. As I stopped to cross the road I heard a scrape and mild thump that you just know means metal upon metal. A driver wants to join traffic from the side of road, and of course adopting the Jedi attitude that others had better watch out for the pull out, backwards into oncoming traffic, and after a cursory glance (if a glance there had been), front offside wing meets front drivers side wing. It is not a proper bang, not one big enough to result in the call for an ambulance. The two drivers just stop and sit as with no more passion used than if they had just farted. It seems all such a common experience to rank alongside breathing in.

A colleague at work, who just happens to be English, earlier in the day told me about his driving test in Jeddah a short while ago. This was in order to get a Saudi driving licence. Mind, I’d no sooner wish to drive here than I would risk clipping my pubic hair with an old rusty chain saw. The ‘test’ took place in one of those dusty rubble strewn squares right next to the Saudi Aramco oil installation. The tester armed with a clipboard and an over casual insouciance towards road safety, bid the testee to drive around in a circle. This he did without getting out of first gear, because the car did not like second. After a round or two of swirling up the dust he was told to stop and was presented with the fact that he qualified for a licence.

The next day a missile hit the oil dump, severely damaging the storage tank. It matters not a jot because worrying about being hit by a missile while sitting in Jeddah’s traffic is akin to worrying about your haircut while parading your scrawny scrotum in a nudist colony. It is misplaced worry to say the least. The missile actually enhanced the driving test centre, providing a new layer of dirt.

Anyway, it is getting late and dinner calls.

The dust settled after the coming together of metal against metal. A mynah bird quipped ‘Kahlil Gibran’ and a prayer was said for the sons and daughters of the road. I carried on through the streets back to the hotel and caught the orange ball of the sun just as it lowered towards the horizon.

Time for a 0% beer methinks.

There are two types of people in the world.

There are those who have read Fifty Shades of Grey and those who wish the protagonist had been bound, gagged, and thrown to the fishes while still wearing his gimp mask, a very long time before he thought of picking up a pen or indeed opening the sticky lid of his laptop. There are those for whom blue cheese is one of life’s delicious post prandial treats and for others it reminds them of the smell of the headmaster’s armpits seconds before the cane rips a new welt into the buttocks. Some people believe in the wonders of scientific medicine and are content that their children are not scabrous, flaky skinned pox infested malodorous vectors of infection while others live in Totnes laying their children to rest to the sound of whale songs, wishful thinking and regret.

What seems to unite everyone on the planet is their love of animals.

The difference is how they express that love. In Scotland for instance the grouse is tenderly nurtured and protected from their natural predators. Food is abundant and their habitat is kept pristine to ensure they can breed and proliferate. There are oil paintings on the walls of ancient castles as pictorial odes to their status as most favoured bird. There is even a whisky named after the famous ground nesting featherling. Love knows no bounds right up until the moment when a dog is set loose to scare it into flight, and just when it feels it has got away, it feels half a pound of hot lead up its arse. We then express our love for the bird by roasting it, smothering it with red wine gravy, and slurping copious amounts of Bordeaux before belching and falling asleep in front of a roaring log fire as the mist rolls across the moors outside.

In Spain, the black bull is a symbol of virility and strength, often let loose in the streets to frolic and gambol willy nilly. They always miss the china shops as they run, but with unerring accuracy always seem to find the most pissed local to ram a horn into. A buttock is the preferred option, but failing that a bull will take anything on offer, be that belly or neck. The Spanish love them, and seem to get great enjoyment from putting themselves into the path of rampaging death before retiring to quaff a barrel of Rioja and singing songs about the old days of grape crushing and maiden courting. The bull seems to enjoy it too. It probably does not know that it will later suffer a bolt between the eyes and end up as myriad cuts of meat for the barbecue. Oh, how we love beef. Apart from vegetarians that is, they are the yin to a carnivore’s yang.

We love puppies, baby rabbits, little yellow fluffy chicks and spring lambs jumping with pleasure among the daisies in the fresh Spring air while their mothers chew lush grass, clover and clumps of mint totally unaware of the portent it signifies. We love those lambs so much we devote a whole cuisine to them: marinade, roasted, barbecued, curried… Little baby calves are loved in a different way depending on which sort of person you are. There are at least two types of calf killers. Those who eat the calves that are born as part of milk production, and those who pretend the calves don’t exist and are content to let them be put in dog food as surplus to requirements. The third group are French.

We all love animals but in two different ways. We either anthropomorphise them by giving them names and pretending they have human characteristics such as love, loyalty and intelligence. Or, we eat them.

Even then there are two ways of eating them. You are either in the group that carefully selects which bit is for the roasting tin, spit or frying pan. This decision is based on how close to muscle tissue it looks, and which bit gets, ironically, thrown to the dogs. Or you are one of those for whom no bit of an animal is off limits. The divide between these groups is usually the English Channel. There are a few funny folk, usually up north or the poor, who relish a bit of exotica as long as it’s cooked slowly with bacon, onions and served with beer. An important aspect of this is that it should not look like the bit of animal it actually is. That ringlike piece of chewy tissue could be a section of intestine or it could be something related anatomically to gut, but located at the distal end of whichever animal it provided a service for. Offal is a minority sport in England, south of Watford. The further north and west you go, the more it appears to be the staple diet. They do like a pie in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Have you ever wonder why the meat is hidden in pastry? Don’t look too closely, just enjoy the taste. That meat in a Cornish pasty you think is beef? Since when were impoverished tin miners able to afford prime chuck steak? The Squire would have scoffed that, leaving entrails for bal maidens and scurvy ridden urchins to mix with the village turnip as an Easter treat.

Cats.

Can’t eat them, can’t run them over (easily). The Egyptians loved the little buggers ascribing spiritual significance to them. They even gave one a name, “Bastet, the daughter of Re”. Egypt is not that far from Jeddah and perhaps this long association with deity accounts for why there are – what’s the collective noun for cats, a ‘chinese restaurant of’? – hundreds of them lazing and strolling along the park. You either love them or you don’t.

This lot are a curious bunch. Almost universally scrawny, flea bitten, hairy rags on legs. They must be feral. They are definitely not someone’s fat pampered well groomed pet with a name and a bell. At about 6 at night when the sun is going down, the families of Jeddah stroll up and down what we would call a promenade, but they call it the Corniche. Then, you get to see why there are so many cats. They are the community’s pets that live on the Corniche but are fed by the community. The other reason why there is a plethora of pussies, is of course that being wild, as soon as a female is of kitten bearing age they are fertilised. Ruthlessly. It is not uncommon to witness a coupling in full view of childen eating their ice creams.

“What’s that big cat doing on the back of the little cat mummy?”

“Ah…that is Allah’s will being made manifest as a glorious reminder of the eternal wheel of creation.”

“Oh, I thought they were fucking…”

There are two types of people in the world, the sacred and the profane… and you can tell which is which by how they look at cats.

Being a fully paid up member of the master race can be embarrassing.

I don’t mean riding at full speed in a panzer tank across the Northern plains of Europe is a cause for blushing. I don’t think Rommel in North Africa cared much about the effects on his ‘social media likes’ as he crushed the nearest Arab and his flea bitten camel under the steel heel of his jackboots. The Stuka pilot probably never uttered “oh, sorry” as he rammed a bomb into the mouths of Polish children. Eichmann’s cheeks never reddened when ordering the extra cans of Zyklon B. These and other peccadilloes never cost Hitler a single nights sleep nor sent him scurrying to a New York based PR firm to cover his discomfiture after being found out waving his dick in the faces of 6 million jews while shouting “whose ze daddy now?”. Having only one testicle never held him back in the embarrassment stakes. It should have. If I woke up and found out I had only one ball, embarrassment would be the least of it. I’d have given up hope of a proper ‘tea bagging’ then and there and scurried off to hide under a bush in Northampton.

But, we are not all the same. Shame and embarrassment come in all sizes, and of course are both dissolvable in alcohol. Who among us has not got our tits out after a sherry and not only boasted about it, but took pictures to upload to our social media accounts only to be reminded the next day that the Whats App group was not the ‘Helen’s Horny Hen Night in Newquay’ but your firm’s internal HR group which includes the CEO who just happens to be a teetotal born again Christian who never “sups satan’s syrup”.

I’ve done embarrassment. Once in the back of a taxi in Cyprus, and a couple of times at a student nurse party involving a bottle of Rioja, a card game, over confidence and a degree of willy waving nudity. At no time did I think I might be shot, taken behind a skip and beaten to death with a dead cat or deported to a Premier Inn at Heathrow. However.

As I walk the streets of Jeddah in the hot sun, I observe the local populace at close quarters. This divides into two groups. The Saudis and the Non Saudis. The latter group outnumber the Saudis by about 10 to 1. There is a third group: Me. The Saudis are conspicuous by the almost uniform adoption of their culture’s dress. The non Saudi’s appear to be mainly from the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. They also have a similar form of dress. You might have seen them in films like ‘Carry On up the Khyber’, the ‘Best Marigold Hotel’ or in the ‘The Ganges’ curry house in Bethnal Green.

What they don’t look like is me. I kind of stand out in white shirt and shorts. The hat and sunglasses give me that ‘windswept and interesting’ look, a bit like a lost Micheal Palin whose film crew has disappeared into a bar leaving him wandering the streets talking to a non existent camera. As I pass little children, they can’t help themselves. They are too polite, or shocked, to point at me but I can feel the incredulity boring into the back of my skull. In St Ives, I’m just another local blending into the background. Here, my white face and hat stand out like the newly delivered sperm stain on an intern’s black dress in the Oval Office.

I’m thinking this as I stand in the queue at the local mobile phone shop.

I’m here to buy a Saudi SIM card. I have one already ready, issued by a firm called STC. I think that stands for ‘Shitty Telecommunications Company’ as the coverage is, well…shitty. We take for granted our phone coverage in a city, especially when you are trying to book an Uber or when using Google Maps to find out which pub you have just been thrown out of after showing your mates your half empty Adolphian scrotum. Mobile roaming, being what it is, does not ensure you can use the phone when you might need it the most. This does not matter in Camborne. I can find my way from the White Hart to the Kebab shop at midnight without using google maps or a compass. There do not seem to be many wifi hotspots in Jeddah either. So, if you should find yourself upside down in a dumpster without your trousers and a falafel sticking out of your arse, you need a decent signal to extract yourself from this minor inconvenience.

So. I’m outside the ‘Mobily’ shop to buy a ‘Mobily’ SIM card. Now, there’s a ‘Friday afternoon’ name if ever I saw one. Correction, over here its a ‘Thursday Afternoon’ as this is when the weekend starts. If I started a new phone company I’d search the thesaurus or Greek mythology for a suitably classic name. I’d avoid ‘Cornwall’s Unlimited New Telecoms’ though. Might cause embarrassment. Don’t think of the logo.

It is a pleasant 26 degrees in the direct sun. I am nearly in the middle of a small crowd outside the shop. Two security guards are busy herding everyone into a two metre distanced queue. This is a concept familiar at home, but to this lot is obviously a very difficult thing to work out. They mill about doing an impression of a swarm of termites high on the fermented juices of fallen fruit. There is shouting and a line kind of forms but then drifts into a free form dance routine. They all seem to come from India, or the Khyber Pass. I am the only white man in the city. It feels that way. Eventually after much waving of hands, sticks and Arabic shouting at men who speak Hindi and Urdu…and one Englishman, a line does start to hold. I am number 12 in a queue outside the shop.

It is not moving quickly. Tectonic plates shift faster. The evolution of the mammalian eye was quicker than this, so I resign myself to standing in the sun slowly beginning to fry. There is commotion and talking and a general buzz but as to actual action, sweet Fanny Adams. Occasionally the shop door would open and a man falls out clutching his precious SIM card. The bastard.

I have time to watch the birds and count the leaves on a nearby tree. I’m using so much time, I discover I’m slowly learning the language. I think I know Saudi for “whose that twat in the hat?”, for a security guard starts pointing at me to a Saudi Mobily shop assistant. I sense something is up. They both walk over to me. What have I done? I’ve not uttered ‘come on you bastards’ even if I have thought it. There is a long snaking queue of malodorous ingratitude in front of me. I’m not going anywhere soon.

Except I am. The Saudi chap comes over, points and says ‘Come this way’. I am being bumped up the queue and go straight into the shop to be served ahead of the whole of Calcutta* waiting behind me.

This is the embarrassing bit. Obviously the only white chap in the crowd, it’s as if my Imperial privilege still has some clout among the fuzzy wuzzies and spear carriers. I might as well have a red coat, a pith helmet and a Union Jack. I am escorted past the great unwashed and ushered into the air conditioned interior. Surely, the natives will revolt when I step back outside. I wish I knew what the Hindi word for ‘cunt’ is, for I swear that is what will be muttered. We British may have colonised many countries, nicked their wealth and fettled their women but say what you like, we have manners, we are not queue jumpers. Imagine pushing to the front in your local chippie or the post office. We even queued going over the top in 1914! I felt like apologising to the mass of humanity gathered outside for queue jumping for no good reason.

Thing is, I didn’t get a SIM card after all that. Apparently as a foreign visitor I’m only allowed one at a time, and as I had a valid STC card that was it, shitty as it is. The Germans wouldn’t have stood for it.

*Yes, I know its Kolkata know…

Over twenty years ago, in a city far away, people got out of bed to start their day. They did ordinary things such as shaving bits of the body that sprouted stubble overnight. Some don’t mind this growth, while for others it must be got rid of. Men shaved as well. Coffee was made, perhaps a breakfast of eggs and toast. Suits chosen, shirts and blouses ironed, kids sent off to school. Another ordinary day starting with a commute on public transport or battling the cars on the highway. Familiar sights and sounds greeted them, taken for granted. Police sirens, traffic noise and in the odd patch of quiet, sparrows chirping. Newspapers bought, cell phones ringing, coffee wafting down the street in the myriad throw away coffee cups bought at Starbuck’s or some other outlet promising to start your day with the proof that you are living the dream. So many people, so little connection, as offices get filled in yet another daily round of accounting, development, marketing, banking, planning, selling. 

The most challenging things faced were perhaps a deadline closing in, a difficult boss or colleague, a project losing its focus. Perhaps head office had sent another memo wanting information on some obscure issue by yesterday. For others the work is dull, easy and routine. Just another day. Just another dollar. 

Until the ear piercing scream of jet engines far far too close inserted itself into consciousness, then swiftly followed by white heat engulfing blackness. The kids will not be picked up, that memo will not be sent, the report will go unwritten. 

Ordinary people, ordinary lives. Extraordinary event. 

Whether you believe it was a conspiracy, or whether you believe it was an attack by Jihadi fanatics, matter not one jot. The effect was the same. 

The sky fell in and war was declared, not on a country (at first), nor upon a people but upon an ideology. Stupidity sided with mendacity and raw naked power, for it conflated a particular ideology with the lifestyle and belief of over 1.6 billion people. That is nearly 1 in 5 of us. It sought out an enemy, found one and then bombed the shit out of it. 

September 11th was a turning point in history. It reignited age old suspicions and poured napalm on to an already festering conflict. There was indeed an enemy wishing the destruction of Western globalised capitalism, but since that day millions have suffered because of the discriminate actions of powerful nations who could get popular support because in the end, we are woefully ignorant of people we don’t mix with, and who ‘dress funny’. 

As I sit in the office in Jeddah, I can see across the city to the Red Sea. My vantage point is four floors up providing me with a broad expanse to look down upon. The houses around me are only one or two stories high. There are clumps of high rise gleaming towers sparsely dotted around the skyline, but most of the city is street level for miles around. It is flat, very flat. Minarets point their fingers into the sky indicating where the numerous mosques are. Far away to the east, a line of blue hills in the haze rise up, otherwise this is a vast flat desert plain now built upon by one of the three largest cities in the country. 

In the afternoon, the blue ribbon of the Red Sea between the city and the sky, becomes a white wave, flecked topped flow, as the current and the wind picks up. Tankers queue up on the horizon. Many are on their way to the Suez Canal to feed our ravenous taste for oil. It is peaceful. At lunch time the nearby muezzin call the faithful to prayer, one of five a day. A colleague in the office takes his mat and goes through his prayers. 

You know of course that Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious country and that it was Saudis who flew the planes on that September day. You know that a Washington Post journalist was lured to the office in Istanbul and was killed by Saudi secret services. Perhaps you have heard that Saudi women are now allowed to drive! And, as Boris Johnson reminded us…Saudi women look like ‘letterboxes’. These things have truth to them, but they don’t tell the whole story. 

I have often thought that we like to generalise from the particular. I often do so deliberately for comic effect. In fact, stereotyping is useful because it allows us to make sense, quickly, of a complex world. And there is often a grain of truth in stereotypes. That’s why we like them and see them as funny as well as prejudicial. 

Racist stereotypes are the stock in trade, not just of some comedians, but of anyone travelling to foreign parts.  Mix race with religion and we have a very potent brew. 

”Muslims are terrorists’. 9/11 taught us that. Beards and backpacks are to be feared, and ideally shot on sight, even if you are from Brazil. 

The crazy, stupid thing is that Islam and Muslims are not one huge monolithic bloc who all think, act, or believe the same thing. They can’t agree on the dates for Eid nor what passes for morality. Some of us know there is the Sunni-Shia divide for example, but that’s about as far as our knowledge goes. I know sod all about it. My feeling is that it is one of of the three Abrahamic religions, which along with Judaism and Christianity, has created vast swathes of the modern world.

As an Atheist, I have little faith in their pronouncements or belief systems. Their sacred books to me are the scribblings of pre scientific poets, pedagogues, patriarchs, piss takers and psychopaths. The Bible, the Torah and the Qu’ran are as sensible as guides for life as a telephone directory is for navigation, only twice as dull. Ok, there are some good bits hidden in the bible, some would say Solomon’s Song is a bit rude, but the fixation with blood sacrifices, virgins and genocide is a bit far fetched.  Each of the big three is riven with internal contradictions, schisms and internecine strife. There is no such thing as a Muslim, or a Christian or a Jew. These are big words which, within the context of real life, are meaningless.  

But do all muslims want to kill me? If I listen to the British Press and the foamy flecked rantings of some American right wing nut job commentator, I might as well be walking down the street with a target on my chest. According to some surveys, nearly 40% of Conservative voters think Islam is a threat to the ‘British Way of life’, and within the Tory party itself, Islamophobia runs deep in its DNA. Don’t take my word for it, read what a Tory Peer thinks. Notwithstanding what a ‘British Way of Life’ actually is, this anti Muslim feeling is pure ignorance and prejudice stoked by years of front page rantings by the Sun, Mail and Express in particular. 

I confess that my lack of experience and lack of exposure to Islam, and more importantly to people who call themselves Muslim, leads me to feel uneasy and discomfited. It is natural when we become surrounded by things we don’t recognise.

As I take an evening stroll along the Red Sea, I am surrounded by families and couples. The majority of the men wear the long white gown called a thawb, and the traditional Saudi headdress, known as the ghutra. Some may think that it is worn to keep away the heat from the scorching desert sun, while others argue that it is an age-old tradition that is very popular among Saudis. One important component of wearing the ghutra is securing it on the head. It is often seen that even when a Saudi man walks fast his ghutra never falls off. It is the igal, the black rope-like cord, that holds the ghutra in place. Not many people are aware that the present day favourite in the Kingdom — the red and white-checkered ghutra — has its roots in far away Europe. It is believed that it was introduced in ancient Arabia, while others say it arrived in Saudi Arabia only a few decades ago.

Many, perhaps most, of the women are of course wearing the full black burqa. The term burqa is sometimes conflated with niqab. In more precise terms, niqab is a face veil that leaves the eyes uncovered, while a burqa covers the entire body from the top of the head to the ground, with only a mesh screen allowing the wearer to see in front of her. The burqa is also not to be confused with the hijab, a garment which covers the hair, neck and all or part of the chest, but not the face.

And boy have we got our knickers in a twist about all of it. For years women argued that they should be allowed to wear what they like. But not when it comes to the burqa. It is not strictly true of course, even in the liberal West. There are are times and places for getting your tits out in public. There are social strictures and consequences wherever you go in the world. Some are enforced by the police, others by shame and alcohol. In Jeddah, women can wear almost what they like, but just as you would at home, you choose more or less modesty depending on the context, your values and culture. A skimpy bikini is fine on a hot summer’s beach, but not for evening cocktails in the bar at the Carbis Bay Hotel. Your team’s football shirt is fine fixing the car or at the match, but you would would be foolish to wear it in more formal situations. 

Superfically, the Saudis are different. Their clothes say so. However, in just one conversation in the office overlooking the Red Sea, my colleague and I quickly agree that the most important thing we all want, is to be born, grow, live, work and age in peace. Food, Family and Friends are what matter. There are always a few psychopaths willing to kill for their version, but they can be found in all religions and in none. 

Over twenty tears ago, in a city far away, the day started with a call to prayer. The song wafted over the rooftops mesmerising in its ritual. Strong sweet coffee was being brewed and breakfast of flat bread, eggs, falafel and hummus shared around the family table. Children prepared for school, women put on their make up, taxi drivers nearly killed each other and other drivers during the morning commute. Thawbs chosen, shirts and blouses ironed, burqas cleaned, kids sent off to school. Another ordinary day starting with a commute battling the cars on the highway. Familiar sights and sounds greeted them, taken for granted, the squawks of the myna birds and calls of the swifts. Dogs roamed the streets looking for tit bits and skinny cats sat in any shade they could find. 

The most challenging things faced were perhaps a deadline closing in, a difficult boss or colleague, a project losing its focus. Perhaps head office had sent another memo wanting information on some obscure issue by yesterday. For others the work is dull, easy and routine. Just another day. Just another Dinar. 

Until the ear piercing scream of a cruise missile far far too close inserted itself into consciousness, then swiftly followed by white heat engulfing blackness. The kids will not be picked up, that memo will not be sent, the report will go unwritten. 

Ordinary people, ordinary lives. Extraordinary event. 

Trains, planes and automobiles provide you with any number of opportunities to reflect upon the vicissitudes, banalities and embuggerancies of everyday existence. Waiting at check in, security, in departure lounges and in platform tea rooms on a cold foggy night in Crewe affords time to observe ordinary and extraordinary folk, if one can be arsed to lift one’s gaze up from the screen for a moment. The rich variety of individuals on display nonetheless morphs into patterns of attitudes and behaviours, and extreme levels of fuckwittery last heard when “It’ll be all over by Christmas” was exclaimed by a squiffy Field Marshall over sherry before dinner at Number 10 in 1914.

Travel takes us mentally into zones of discomfort, of disquiet and of stress. You have given over control over your whole life to strangers who hold your destiny in the palms of their hands. The pilot, the train driver…and yes the taxi bastards of Dubai who deserve a special place in hell, one in which the demon’s trident is particularly pointy and the scrotum clamps are spectacularly efficient ‘on the press’. The pilot and the train driver may well share your fate should they stray into misjudgment. The taxi driver however thinks they are immortal. They’ll find out they are not, when I stick the end of my nail file into their jugular from the back seat the next time they decide lane discipline is for losers.

Security Staff, Border Guards, and policemen should be given the respect they demand, even if they do not deserve it. It is amazing how the possession of a gun provides one with a certain ‘authority’, especially if that is backed up by the State. There is of course a proportional relationship between the possession of a gun, a uniformed testosterone fuelled machismo and the likelihood of a ‘mishap’ should one be ill informed enough to question the patrilineal lineage of a peak capped, shiny booted, ill educated but eager officer of the law. You must remember that they are armed with batons, boots and lubricant.

Airline officials also have the power to make or break your day simply with one wink or phone call to the assembled cohorts of law and order lurking in the background. A smart suited airline official may be pretty and helpful, but say the wrong thing and you’ll find yourself naked, with bag over your head, chained to the wall in a cold room, being shouted at in a language you don’t want to understand while an Alsatian takes a hungry sniff of your testicles (if you have them). This scenario only seems to apply to men. Women seem to get let off with histrionics at a security gate with a “Calm down dear, its only an internal examination” before being led away to a quiet room in a nearby psychiatric institution specialising in psychotropic medications as a first line treatment.

Don’t mention the war. Any war. They are not funny and you have no idea whose side they were on. Sod’s law dictates they were on the other side. Even in the UK, I think you’ll find officials tend to be recruited from those with an ‘Authoritarian Personality’ whose childhoods were spent picking the legs off spiders, using a magnifying glass to burn a wood louse and keeping a collection dead birds in a box in the attic. You can tell them by the unblinking eyes, a barely perceptible tic and lack of an ability to put more than two words together without the veiled threat of bodily harm. Innocuous phrases such as “May I help you?”, “Please stand there” and “Bend Over” all have sinister undertones.

We all know this, and I think this is partly why we carry a subconscious fear or sense of unease when travelling. We have all heard the stories about over exuberant, pissed or arrogant relatives detained in foreign airports. Shouting at officials at Passport control, in an attempt to get your point of view across in a language they don’t understand, with an attitude of imperial arrogance and unfounded entitlement rooted in a complete ignorance of history and then expecting respect, attention and understanding, is a folly of such enormous size as to equal the opening of a children’s home during the reign of King Herod. You’d be better off standing in front of a tank in China, founding a Gay Atheist Society in Alabama or expecting the French to make you a decent cup of tea.

“What did happen to Uncle Jimmy, Mum?”

“Sush, darling, some things are best left to God”.

At Bahrain check in, I dutifully turned up with the relevant documentation which in all good faith should see me safely across the border. “Das Paperien, Bitte!” purred the dark brown eyes behind the mask at the desk. Gulf Air, as it seems all airlines, seems to hire only beautifully uniformed women to do the first dirty work of sorting out who has the right to cross the frontier. I handed over my passport, my check in details, my negative PCR test certificate, return flight details to Dubai, my bank card, RAC membership and my Gold Card Membership for the “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue Appreciation Society”. Ironically, she did not see the funny side of the last one.

Another airline official was called for. This time a beautifully besuited young chap whose smile belied the power he had to make your day an absolute fucking nightmare with just one phone call. “How long have you been in Bahrain, Sir?” The use of ‘Sir’ in a five star hotel is mandatory and is often said with seeming sincerity. The use of ‘sir’ by anyone whose services you have not asked or paid for can be a precursor to “walk this way” “may I have your passport” and “I vill ask ze questions”. In the same way that you just know that the wonderful, hedonistic, reckless, short but erotic experience you are currently enjoying will be followed by years of regret, servitude, a large mortgage and a slow descent into decrepitude spent alone in your own hovel, then you just know ‘sir’ can be the gateway to sorrow, pain and repentance.

Anyway,

Turns out that I was checking in on the 14th Day. The rules state I was to have 14 days of quarantine in Bahrain before being allowed to fly into Jeddah. So, a minor discussion with Saudi officials in an office somewhere to check what 14 days actually means resulted in a decision that 14 days means…14 days. Not 13 and most of 14 days. Not 13 days, 23 hours and 15 minutes. I already knew this. So did the company that booked my flight out of Bahrain. But we don’t count. In the end the only things that count is what officialdom thinks count.

Arguing with officialdom is as useless an enterprise as Canute’s tide bending exploits, the Charge of the Light Brigade or expecting a coherent answer from the orange skinned Ex President of the United States. What Trump shared with officialdom is that they can both be factually wrong in your eyes, but it matters not one tiny jot.

As I stood awaiting the answer, I overheard a ‘discussion’ at the next check in desk between…yes, a Brit and the Gulf Air check in official. It was not necessary to hear exactly what was being said, suffice to note the rising volume and pulsing neck veins. The sense of jeopardy started to increase. I foresaw a consulate being contacted, letters to MPs and a family mourning the disappearance of a much loved father, husband and beer mat collector.

My decision came through. It seems that they agreed with my assessment of the situation in that although I was checking in on the 11th hour of the 14th day, that because the flight was at 0230 on the 15th Day, I had indeed spent 14 whole days in Bahrain. It’s great when there is agreement on such basics as calendar interpretation and simple sums. Suffice to say, all papers were in order and off I went.

As for my neighbour, well it seems all was fine in the end and he strolled through to the next step of security.

As we left, I thought I saw the Gulf Air chap wave away two burly policemen, batons at the ready, who turned with, I swear, a disappointed look on their faces.

Such are the things one sees in transit.