Clearly a group of deranged militants ... The Clash
Fascinating to learn what qualifies one as a potential suicide bomber these days. En route to catch a flight from Durham airport, 24-year-old Harraj Mann behaved so suspiciously that his driver alerted the authorities. Quick as a flash, an anti-terror squad swung into action, hauling Mann off the jet moments before he could take to the air. His crime? Singing along to the Clash song London Calling.
We do not, of course, blame the cabbie - those lyrics would spook anyone. One can only imagine the driver's mounting sense of alarm as the young - and possibly foreign-looking - gentlemen on his back seat starts banging on about living by the river. One can picture his subsequent shudder of horror as the passenger declares that "phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust" and then, inexplicably, asks him to "give me a smile". If that's not a call to jihad, I don't know what is. As a Durham police spokesperson put it afterwards: "The report was made with the best of intentions and we wouldn't want to discourage people from contacting us with genuine concerns."
(This, incidentally, is not the first time a Clash fan has found himself within a whisker of wearing an orange boiler suit. In 2004, Special Branch officers apprehended 35-year-old Mike Devine after he sent a text message that name-checked the band's 1978 tune Tommy Gun.)
Even so, I worry that there may be a few problems with the use of song lyrics as a litmus test of terrorist activity. One, because I wonder if suicide bombers really do signal their intent in such a way. Two, because - if they did - there are surely more appropriate lyrics they could opt for. Had Mann really wanted to freak out the cabbie he could have crooned him a snatch of John Denver ("Leaving on a jet plane/Don't know if I'll be back again") or even belted out that terrifying jihadist anthem, the theme from Fame! ("I wanna live forever/I wanna learn how to fly").
In the meantime keep your ears open and the local karaoke bar under close surveillance. You never know whom it might be harbouring.
