Accounts of this undercover operation and the related convictions this week were the by-now usual mix of outward-bound bonding exercises for wanna-be terrorists in Hampshire, combat skills and camaraderie honed during cut-price Paintball long-weekends. The last part of the article though, about the initial arrests, came over especially cryptic, blunt and vivid.

Surveillance transcripts recorded the moment when armed officers raided the private dining room shortly before midnight on August 31 2006, shouting: "Sit down. Hands on the table, please. Everything will be explained to you."

Seemed like the kind of moment that conspiracy theorists or zen monks might dream of - when the secret/reality police burst into the room at random and explain everything.

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Meanwhile a friend in the midst of emotional dramas wrote:

i couldn't do anything yesterday except wait for him to arrive. i didn't know that a person can just sit there and wait for hours. just watch the clock. creepy