Before the Association of Security Consultants (ASC) lunch, someone said to me that they looked forward to all the gossip, writes Mark Rowe.
As I answered, I don’t tell gossip, only well-sourced news!? As for gossip, the excellent speech by Sir Hugh Orde gave a dilemma; it was by turns witty about the police and (ex-Met) people attending the lunch, and serious about the policing of Northern Ireland. How much of what Sir Hugh said was meant to stay within the RAF Club, at the Hyde Park Corner end of Piccadilly, and how much was it proper to report, at a neither private nor public event? Suffice to say that Sir Hugh did make light of Staines and did joke that of those ex-Met people (and hence former colleagues) around the tables, some retired in the 21st century, some in the 20th, and some, he hinted, in the 19th. I did speak to those sitting next to me at my table; from one if I understood right the thing stopping interception of mobile phone conversations and use of a mobile phone as a listening device is the sheer number of mobiles out there. That is, you have to know which phone number you want to listen into.
Someone on my table recalled we had met at the Raffia meeting hosted by Martin Smith MBE at his base in rural Northamptonshire in autumn 2006. ‘The Raffia is still going strong!’ he grinned. Briefly, Raffia is the light-hearted term for former RAF people in (mainly IT) security. I can say light-hearted because there’s no sign of international crime, and having told the world about them I have not been given a pair of concrete wings and dropped from a helicopter.
I asked a Pilot Officer Prune-like (see below) question about what things that aren’t around now did my fellow diners foresee. The answer was not so much about technology, as I expected, but in terms of how to make people take security seriously, rather than as something to cut, every time there is a downturn in the economy and / or a business and organisation. <br><br>The winner of the ASC dissertation award was a brigadier general in the Greek army, which was another reminder of the high regard that UK academia is held in, around the world. Dr Anna Maria Brudenall represented Cranfield University and accepted the award on behalf of Theodoros Antonopoulos. She did say that at Cranfield (the Shrivenham – well it sounds better than ‘near Swindon’ based institution – much frequented by armed forces people for further degrees) staff had named the brigadier-general ‘Ted’. Surely Theo would have been as easy to pronounce, if Theodoros was too much?! <br><br>But to skip back to the start, it was a pleasant surprise to get to the bar and find it was free! I had half a Bombardier and someone with a camera tried to get a photo of me holding it. On reflection, would it have looked bad that someone from Professional Security was drinking in the day, or was it bad that someone from Professional Security was a cissy drinking only half a pint? But as I told the photographer, the photo’d never see the light of day. And well, have you seen it? <br><br>And in the downstairs bar afterwards I think you had to pay. I say ‘think’ because some people got me both my cans of Guinness. I am unable to thank who it was that bought either of the cans because I was not sure by that stage. A man introduced himself as the partner of an ASC man. I said ‘congratulations’ and the man answered that he didn’t mean sexual partner but business partner. Luckily he seemed to see the funny side; it was an innocent case of crossed wires because I do know the man in question is happily married. <br><br>So, not that many faux passes for the day – or whatever the plural of faux pas is. I was in good company because (besides 90 years’ worth of uplifting RAF paintings on the walls) on the bar counter I saw behind glass a wooden statue of a jaunty young airman with a dog walking behind him, who I happened to know was Pilot Officer Prune, a nonsensical wartime (1939-45) cartoon character used in Royal Air Force training memos on how not to do things. I was going on to Lewes in east Sussex, so as it was on the same train line as Mike Cahalane, he hailed us a taxi to take us the short hop to Victoria station. I had to get my bag out the left luggage and get a ticket so he sensibly went for the train while I queued. <br><br>On Sunday I walked from Victoria past Hyde Park Corner and called on the Australian war memorial which is about four years old and some of the names are already flaking off. The New Zealand war memorial on the other side of the grass appears to be a dozen girders stuck in the ground at an angle. Oh PO Prune (pictured above) what would you have said?
