The descriptions varied. Officer Frank assumed he was “a white man”, but thought: “It would be worth somebody else having a look.” Officer Ivor believed he had “Mongolian eyes”; Officer Harry said he was “acting in a wary manner”; Commander Dick thought him “very, very jumpy”. But a consensus soon emerged: he was a jihadi about to blow up London’s tube.

New friends came to dinner with a request for halal fare. There are parts of France, I am told, where such questions are treated as a clear and present danger to the republic. In the name of secularism, some French judges have been known to rule that Muslim children be served pork chops from uncircumcised pigs that were slaughtered while facing the Arc de Triomphe. But I live in Hackney: France has Culture; we have multicultures. In Ridley Road market halal butchers are in plentiful supply.