“Take down your trousers, please." There is no box on the census form marked "Asian Muslim women who deal with near-hysterical non-Muslim men's trousers", but here the Asian Muslim woman is, doing exactly that.

It is hard to be entirely sure how old she is, as the Asian Muslim woman is wearing a hijab. But she is young and clearly experienced at this sort
of thing. "Please," she repeats, "the trousers." I say, "Trousers?" She points at my trousers: "They must come down." I have not come here to have my penis scanned, and this latest turn in what has so far been a frightening and panicky morning baffles me. "Down?"

She fixes her gaze on mine and, immediately, I calm down a little. She continues, in clear and patient English that carries a trace of the subcontinent: "Your belt buckle will interfere with the scanning machine. Now lie down."

I take down my trousers and lie on the CAT machine gurney. She places a napkin over my penis.

It is a standard cliché of the left that the NHS would collapse without immigrants. It's one to which we all pay lip service - even the Tories, who wish it would hurry up and collapse so they can stop pretending to believe in it. But it strikes me, lying on my back, with a napkin on my penis, as the most important social fact it is possible to know.

The manner of the woman in the hijab may be representative of nothing more than her own personality and professionalism, but I suspect there are hundreds, maybe thousands, more like her - women of similar religious and ethnic background who are occasionally obliged to deal with agitated white men in their pants. And though it is wrong to wish health scares on fascists (I think), if BNP members were to have an obligatory CAT scan at this hospital, it might fix their idiotic racism.

As the machine begins to hum and move, I look through the window to the next room, where two technicians are sitting at the controls of the CAT machine. They do not look at me, and as I disappear into the white tunnel, I feel lonely and disturbed.

Above me, a small label appears that reads, "Do not look directly into the beam," and I panic. "Can I open my eyes in here?" The Asian Muslim woman says, "Yes, you can open your eyes. It is OK." Still, I keep my eyes shut until I think my head is out of the white tunnel. When I open them, I find the Asian woman standing by my feet. She says gently, "There you are. It is all right now."

And, as I reach for my trousers, I realise it is.

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