Iranian Intelligence
A few years ago, I managed to achieve a lifetime ambition by visiting Iran for a holiday – it’s a wonderful place and thoroughly recommended. Despite the reputation of the country, we had no trouble at all from anyone – I even managed to get into a conversation with the religious police about whether British or Persian women are better looking… but that’s a different story. However, there was one occasion when the ludicrously inept security services did seem to take an interest in us.

We were in Esfahân, and a few people from the group and I were having a wander along the river. One thing about being a foreigner somewhere like Iran is that the people are incredibly keen to come and talk to you – they don’t get many outsiders I guess. So, on this morning, as on the rest of the trip, we’d been chatting away merrily with the locals as we went.

Just as we decided that it was time to find a tea-shop and a hubble-bubble, Kenny pointed out that one of the Iranians seemed to have been (a) following us, and (b) talking to any local who had talked to us. Eventually, this slightly suspicious guy approached us; it happened to be Kenny to whom he spoke first. Things started normally enough – where are you from, what do you do, and so on.
Kenny: I’m a German teacher
Man: Oh? Germany? I lived in Düsseldorf for five years. I’m an engineer and had a job there in the 1980s.
K [suspicious, and smelling a rat]: Nicht war? Der Tot ist ein Dandy; Trinklied. Ich hatte ein Wort. Was ist die Befindlichkeit des Landes? Ozean und Brandung.*
----------- * K actually spoke proper German. I don’t, so I’m reduced to reproducing Einstürzende Neubauten song titles as a poor substitute. But you get the picutre. ----------
Man: Ummm…
K: Hamletmaschine! Was ist ist, was nicht ist ist möglich!
Man: I didn’t actually learn any German
K: In five years? Really? None at all?
Man: Ummm… Goodbye!

The man then engaged another of my companions in conversation a few minutes later; miraculously, when Paul told him that he worked in computing, the man also currently worked in computing. And later in the day, when we met someone else from our party who had been in the same part of town a bit later, she had been approached by the same man, who, once again, took an interest in her but had yet another biography of his own.

So, if there are any Iranian intelligence agents reading this, my advice to you would be to settle on one cover story, and not to pretend that you speak languages you don’t when people tell you that they teach that language for a living. Oh, and it's possible that if you approach two Brits in succession, they might realise pretty quickly that you said different things to them.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 11:42, 1 reply)

that
has just given me an Einstürzende Neubauten flashback. Which is scary.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 16:05, closed)