June 30th, 2009

Of Ramadan, beer and belly dancers

In 1991 there was a war. Not just any war, this was the first big one involving our lot since the Falklands. I was working at National Museums Liverpool at the time and my planned “jolly” to accompany six journalists on an all expenses trip to see the ancient sites of Jordan was put on hold.

So the propaganda was peddled by the western media, the most important weapon in the armoury.  This was a Just War. And hey you know what? They can send a missile through an arms factory without hurting anyone, rather like your dad’s remote controlled model plane smoothes its way through Birkenhead Park.  And we wanted to believe it. But slowly the reality sunk in that weapons are as indiscriminate to age, gender and political persuasion.

So when the Jordanian Minister of Tourism invited us over after the last Scud missile had gone haywire over Saudi, there was a moment of trepidation. For geographical purposes, Jordan had to put itself up as an ally of Saddam in the eyes of the world. How would we be welcomed by the locals?

My role was to assemble six of the finest journos this side of the Crusader trail and chaperone them through the desert castles courtesy of Ministry staff.

I took artistic licence with this one as I decided to offer one of my places to artist and poet, Adrian Henri. He had contributed articles to The Guardian and much PR could be gleaned from his ability to diarise the visit with his pencil. Phil Key and Lew Baxter formed the Liverpool rearguard. Both ex Fleet Street hacks, these boys knew one end of a bottle from the other. But for fear of legal redress, I had better say that both were tremendous writers too!

Making up the team was Derek who wrote for a high circulation car mag, Caroline from Company magazine and Gerald who was archaeological correspondent of the FT.

I scored a PR own goal by not including Joe Riley from the Liverpool Echo but I figured that we needed a decent spread of national coverage via freelancers who had already placed their wares. On reflection, Joe should have been there as there was no way, we could make an impact on national coverage for our hosts. Regional impact would have been fine.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing though.

We met our colleagues in London and I immediately felt as if there was a north south divide going on. Gerald and co. might well have believed some of the ridiculous coverage by the southern media that we Liverpudlians are not averse to leaving our neighbours’ cars on bricks while we sold the tyres the local scrap dealer. Silence and polite nods ensued until Lew and Phil entered the hospitality lounge, setting a pattern then for my lesson in cross cultural diplomacy.

It was whispered to me that on arrival in Jordan, Ramadan was being observed. Shit. So let me get this straight in my head, I thought to myself. Fasting and abstinence vs Fleet Street hack culture. How was this going to work? Of all the weeks in the year, I picked this one. When one loudly questioned the point of “shouting the odds in some high tower” (referring to the call to prayer) I wanted the plush bathroom to take me. Things were looking PRetty grim

Part Two soon