Christmas Shopping of a Strange Sort
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Posted
by Christina Mackenzie at
11/24/2009 6:51 AM CST
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Whilst many of my colleagues were in Dubai for the air show, a few us had the run of the extraordinary Milipol show in Paris which alternates annually between the French capital and Qatar. This is the show where James Bond's Q and most little boys (or big ones, come to think of it) would have a field day... and get some good ideas for Christmas presents.
Here you can choose the siren (“would you like to hear it briefly, sir?”) and flashing lights (“now, would you prefer -flash-flash-flash or flash/flash-flash/flash?”) for your police cars; admire the latest design in barbed-wire fencing; choose between any number of systems for picking locks usually arranged like jewels on black velvet in nice black leather briefcases; try on security boots (I didn't see any which had flick-knives hidden in the toe but that doesn't mean they weren't there); compare and contrast different combat outfits; admire the ingenuity of near-invisible cameras and microphones hidden in the polka-dots of an ordinary-looking tie and so on.
“Boy, this is a really weird show,” was a comment I overheard several times together with adjectives such as “bizarre” and “crazy”.
The first bizarreness occurs as you walk in because the security guards don't just scan your pass, they also ask for ID to ensure that the pass does really belong to you. There are also many more jeans/T-shirts/leather jackets than at an air-show or Eurosatory for example. I guess special ops and anti-terrorist squads don't own too many business suits and they are the ones who are here seeking out the newest ways to outsmart outlaws.
There is one thing I wonder though. A number of the exhibitors had put up “no photos” logos and one in particular was being made extremely nervous by a young Frenchman with a powerful camera who was paying overly close attention, he felt, to a circuit board he had on show. But if the items are that sensitive, why show them at all?
This is the reason why, sadly, I have no photos to show you.
