​Behind the scenes at Biden’s visit – the giant iceberg with swan’s legs

Two examples are the iceberg and swan metaphors. The tip of the iceberg refers to something that is only a small part of a much bigger situation. The swan analogy refers to the illusion of watching something graceful, believing there to be no effort expended, when the hard work is going on out of sight.

During my recent work covering the visit of the US president to Northern Ireland and the Republic, both of these well-worn images came to my mind often. What people see is only a small part of the story. Let me take you behind the scenes of Joe Biden’s visit.

My first marking is at Ulster University, where the president is due to deliver a speech. After several days of warnings about the scale of the security operation and the potential traffic disruption, I decide I had better give myself time.

I need to be at the campus at 10am for security screening. I arrive in Belfast shortly after 7am, anticipating gridlock, but instead find it mostly deserted. Apart from the few roads which have been closed, it seems easier to move around than usual.

After spending the next few hours fuelling myself on coffee, I travel to the university and queue for 45 minutes before being given my White House Press Pool pass (a nice souvenir for my son). Then my bags are scanned at one machine while I walk through another in a routine similar to airport security.

After being brought to the atrium where the president is to speak, I begin to regret my caffeine consumption and set off to find the bathroom. In the first corridor I enter I find my way barred by a burly man wearing an earpiece.

“Can I help you sir?" he enquires in a thick US drawl, exuding an interesting combination of practiced charm and terrifying menace.

“Uh, I’m just looking for the toilet.”

Minutes later I am back in the atrium and find a spot with a good view of the stage. I determine I will not move from this spot and wind my arms through the metal railings as the rest of the press pack gather ominously around me. I look at my watch. There are three hours to wait until Mr Biden’s speech.

I stay there for about 15 minutes before I give up and go to the refreshment bar to feast on the free buns and sandwiches. It is around this time that I discover that the Wi-Fi doesn’t seem to work very well. Worse, the roaming facility on my phone seems unable to connect.

I speak to several other journalists and discover they were having similar issues. I find I am unable to send a tweet or a WhatsApp message, an obvious worry in terms of giving updates on what is happening to members of my team.

“It’s the yanks,” one journalist whispers. “They’ve blocked the signal.”

“Really?” I reply.

“Absolutely,” he nods knowingly.

“But why would they want to do that?”

He looks unsure.

I have lost much of the feeling in my legs by the time Mr Biden speaks. At the end he tours the room and poses for selfies while many of the broadcasters begin to record their camera monologues. As the president leaves the room, a US journalist directly to my left begins to holler “Mr President! A question! Mr President!”

“He can’t hear you, he’s gone,” I advise, trying to be helpful.

The following day and my odyssey has taken me to Dublin. At the media centre I have to undertake another search, although this time my laptop is removed from its bag and examined. A security man asks me to turn it on (to prove it really is a laptop I suppose). I hit the power button. Nothing happens. I hit it again. The screen remains black. I begin to panic.

“Uh, it’s an old machine, sometimes it takes a few minutes to warm up.”

Later in the evening I am taken with a group of journalists into the grounds of Dublin Castle where the president is to attend a banquet dinner. We are told to place all our equipment on the tarmac while a sniffer dog enthusiastically roams around, his wet nose close to the ground. The canine walks over the top of my camera bag, rather than sniffing it, but I decide it probably isn’t a good idea to complain.

Then we are herded onto a riser, a large raised platform which affords a view of the red carpet. I expect that, once again, we will have a long wait. There is a woman hoovering the red carpet. Nothing happens for the next half hour. Then she comes out and hoovers the red carpet again. Nothing happens for the half hour after that. Then she emerges to give it one more run with the hoover.

About two hours after we arrived on the platform, the presidential cavalcade, made up of long black cars and trucks, arrives. I try to count the number of vehicles, but they all look the same and I get mixed up by the time I reach 10.

Mr Biden emerges from his car and I press record on my video camera. He walks along the red carpet and then is gone from my sight. I check my recording. It is 17 seconds long.

I construct a new image to illustrate the gap between what the public see or read about the president’s visit, and how it really is. It is of a giant iceberg with a pair of swan’s legs attached, furiously kicking beneath the water.