The Secret Policeman's Poem

On the last day of 2006, with the girls in a shop stocking up for the evening celebrations, I stood in a quiet Amman street recording a poem I'd written about the Eid scenes the day before.

After I'd read it, a small, dapper man approached me and asked me what I was doing. It became clear he was a plain-clothes policeman. I kept calm and tried to explain, and of course, kept recording. After a couple of minutes the girls came out and told him that I wasn't press - he relaxed, smiled, and even shook my hand before departing.

Turned out this quiet street contained two embassies and the Jordanian National Oil corporations, so I guess he was detailed to hang about looking after those places.

But, what would his reaction have been if they had told him I was press? It made me realise that, pleasant though Jordan is, it does not enjoy the same freedoms which I take for granted in the UK.