The House of Baghdad

It was gone 4.30 before Tom Brown received the call from Baghdad.  His friend and BBC colleague had been shacked up for days in his hide-out.  But, knowing Dave Fletcher as he did, it just had to be somewhere right near the action. Tom Brown, it seemed, would bloody well have to wait for the report which, no doubt, would be as poetically English as the last one. His friend's descriptions of 'natural disasters', wars, famines and other events of this crazy world had touched the hearts and minds of countless men and women everywhere - to the extent that his name had seriously been put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The line crackled hopefully and Dave Fletcher's distinctive voice once more invaded the airwaves. 'It's bloody chaos here, dear boy... little to eat, panic, of course, looting, kids running about laying their hands on as many weapons as they can grab and then firing at anything that takes their fancy. And all the while, an old man still manages to sell a few tired-looking melons from his meagre stall - all, naturally, with the Colonel's face deftly charcoaled on one side. Nice touch, I think'.

Tom Brown laughed down the line, and, like the true Englishman he aspired to be, enquired after his friend's health.

'Tip top form, dear boy--.. bit low on gin and tonic mind you.   Otherwise, no complaints'.  

The line had gone dead and Tom would have to sit it out again. Damn.  He envied Dave's coolness and was jealous of his assign­ments. Increasingly, he'd become bored - kicking his heels in England, covering yet more puerile squabbles between MPs over issues which no party had ever got right despite what each con­tinued to claim. All parties, it seemed, had conveniently short memories - and Joe Public had none at all. Oh, when would he be able to escape this mediocrity and embroil himself in something exciting?

'You should jolly well count yourself lucky,' advised Peter Watson, Tom's senior, crouching over his desk and eyeing his young charge with some suspicion. 'You have a cushy number, here, and.......'

'That's just it, Peter. It's too damned cushy. If only......'

'What's the matter with you for Heaven's sake?  As a Jew, you ought to be glad of a bit of peace and quiet for a change. You are peace loving, I take it?'

Tom had ignored that last remark together with its implication.  His mind was out on a day-trip of adventure. 'Perhaps I should go to Israel, and ......'

'What a good idea. I'm sure you could find a nice kind Arab nearby to blow your head off. And who knows? You might even get the opportunity to blow his off first.   I wouldn't hesitate if I were you, old man. I really wouldn't.'

'Jesus, Peter. I think you've flipped.  I only meant I could do with a bit of excitement, for a change. One doesn't have to be silly about these things.'

But Peter Watson had lost patience. Up to now he'd been a paragon of tolerance and understanding - a steady, long-suffering Englishman - slow to rise, but never unaware.  He was not a racist by nature, yet he could see now how easily people can become one.   In fact, if the truth were known, certain ethnic minorities - as they were still sparingly called - were beginning to irritate him.  Moreover, racial tensions appeared increasingly to be the stuff of modern journalism. Quite frankly, he'd had enough and secretly pined for the good old days when an English­man's home was his castle - and that included a bit of land and some white faces around the place. Peter's credentials as an open-minded journalist were already in the process of glorious, irreversible erosion. And he looked forward to his retirement and his books, in peaceful Devon.