From Mr Brown to Miss Scarlet
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It is just before midday and swelteringly hot in Baghdad.
I am standing outside the blast walls that surround the British Embassy, out of breath and dripping in sweat, having spent the morning chasing around the Green Zone on the trail of Gordon Brown.
Stern-faced Ghurkas guarding the compound regard me with suspicion as I plead to be let inside (and out of the sun) for a press conference that he is due to give.
After a short wait, I’m granted access and taken to an air-conditioned room where UK journalists travelling with the Prime Minister are also being kept.
Mr Brown only has a few, spare minutes during a flying visit to Baghdad to talk to the media before setting off to catch a plane down to Basra.
Addressing the visiting UK reporters, several Iraqi journalists and me the lone, Baghdad-based-correspondent-for-a-British-newspaper, he touches on plans to cut troop numbers, dutifully answers a few questions and then leaves.
Show over, the travelling press pack is ushered on to a bus to follow.
I also try to get a lift to the nearest exit but am told there is not enough petrol.
Alone again in the sun, the only option is to trudge by foot out of the Embassy and along the network of motorway-size roads, linked by concrete roundabouts to a bridge that crosses the Tigris and leads out of the Green Zone.
Not surprisingly, most foreigners move around this compound, which measures about 4 square miles, by vehicle because: a. Of its size; b. The weather is punishingly hot at this time of year; and c. There is still a kidnap threat.
Sadly due to a badging anomaly, I am still waiting for the right pass to get my car through the checkpoints, so am forced to take a bit of a risk whenever I visit the Green Zone, either organising a lift with the person I’m meeting; catching a cab or, when strapped for cash (as I was at that moment), walking.
After a few paces it becomes apparent that I stick out a mile.
Not only am I the only person stupid enough to be walking in the midday heat but I am also a rather conspicuous, blonde-haired foreigner.
It doesn’t take long for some Iraqi man in a dodgy-looking, white, Mitsubishi pick-up truck to take an interest.
admin @ July 20, 2008