I saw the (very) tall sad-faced policeman as well. I had just extricated myself from the crushing cordon where I had been caught and squeezed between two layers of police. As they moved, though, Hossam (of Arabawy) and myself managed to extricate ourselves, and I walked by the tall policeman, and he looked at me (a foreigner) briefly. Then he moved forward very quickly, grabbed Hossam and tossed him back into the crush despite Hossom’s protestations that he was a journalist and wanted to go home.

A taxi driver today told me that the reason for all the police everywhere in Egypt is certainly not to enforce traffic rules (we were complaining together about the lack of order) but to protect the foreigners. I wonder how many other people make that link. There is a certain guilt of being able to go nearly anywhere and not have to fear, like everyone else, these ever-present security cordons blocking everything off.