YOU SUSPECT all is not well in the banana kingdom when the royal advisers are unwilling or incapable of protecting el presidente Glafcos the First from making a court jester of himself. I am not suggesting that they should prevent him from cracking unfunny jokes on every state occasion, for that is his royal prerogative. But they should be a touch more selective over the people they allow to visit him up the palazzo.
As readers will have seen elsewhere in this paper, on February 21 the Press and Information Office issued an announcement which said that el presidente had been visited by the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, Velimir Ilic, who supposedly discussed the possibility of Bananiot businessmen investing in his country. Ilic was not and never has been a deputy prime minister: he is the mayor of the provincial Yugoslav town of Cacak, with a population of about 100,000.
Ilic has links with Bananiot and Lebanese cigarette traders, who have plans to build a tobacco factory outside Cacak. Serbian newspapers have linked the factory to the flourishing cigarette smuggling trade, and when this was put to Ilic by a Serb journalist, he reportedly attacked his interviewer physically.
So was this guy described as the deputy prime minister an impostor, who had duped everyone in order to get an audience with el presidente? Or had the PIO pen-pusher who prepared the statement about the meeting erroneously given him the wrong title? If that had been the case a correction would have been put out, so it is more likely that the PIO had been fed the wrong info by the palazzo. Was this done knowingly, or had the palazzo mandarins been deceived as well? And why did the Yugoslav embassy say nothing?
One person who must have known Ilic’s proper title was DISY deputy führer (or is he the mayor of Athienou?) and confidant of el presidente Panayiotis Demetriou, a lawyer who visited Cacak last year accompanied by two businessmen who wanted to build the cigarette factory. The visit was deemed so important it was even reported by Yugoslav TV.
We can only speculate that maybe Demetriou had arranged the visit by the ‘deputy prime minister’ to the palazzo as a way of thanking Ilic for the hospitality (including TV coverage) he was given when the lawyer had visited Cacak. But why did he pose as the deputy prime minister? Would el pres not have granted him an audience otherwise?
EL PRESIDENTE is not the sort of power snob who would have refused to meet a mayor if his advisers had urged him to do so. This is, after all, a guy who has no trouble attending supermarket openings. And on Friday he will be the guest of honour at a dinner at Limassol’s Hawaii Hotel given by a newly set-up company, Mobil’ Affiche Cyprus, to mark the start of its operations on the plantation.
The company had been successfully operating in the Lebanon, and has won awards for its innovative idea of having trucks drive around big cities with large advertising signs on them — it is known as mobile advertising. But should el presidente give his seal of approval to a business activity that is not currently covered by plantation legislation? And considering the absence of specific legislation, how will Mobil’ Affiche be given the necessary legal permission by the authorities to carry out mobile advertising? Will it be granted by presidential decree at Friday’s dinner?
If el presidente had a clue about the complete chaos and anarchy that characterises outdoor advertising on the plantation he would have thought twice about officially endorsing yet another form of outdoor advertising. Has nobody told him that his Communications Minister has been trying to sort out the chaotic mess and ugliness exemplified by outdoor advertising, much of which is illegal, for months now? Even the police are complaining because of the threat to road safety. Now the chaos will be compounded with the blessing of el presidente, whose advisers seem hell-bent on always giving him bad advice.
DISY FÜHRER Nice Nik has become an over-zealous supporter of the protesting farmers. On Wednesday night he called a meeting of his party’s political bureau, which was also attended by the Ministers of Finance and Labour, who are directly involved in the dispute with the farmers.
At the meeting, the Führer gave instructions to all his deputies in the Famagusta and Larnaca districts to show solidarity with the farmers by attending Thursday’s protest blocking of the Rizoelia roundabout. He then turned on the ministers, demanding that they find a way to satisfy the farmers’ unreasonable demands. Farmers do not want to pay the £900,000 they owe to the social insurance fund and want the minimum wage they are obliged to pay seasonal foreign workers to be reduced and brought into line with the generous remuneration offered to foreign maids.
On Friday, with the protest continuing, he tried to ingratiate himself to the protesting farmers, by arranging for a delegation to meet el presidente. He brought about 20 of them up to his palatial office in Nicosia, called and set up a meeting for them with el presidente, and sent them up the palazzo. When they arrived, they were told that they would be seen by Generalissimo Kouros instead, as el prez had a policy of not seeing protesters while their protests were still happening.
Outraged by the snub, and feeling they had been fooled, the farmers refused to see Kouros and called Nik to complain, threatening to drive their tractors on to the Larnaca airport runway in revenge. When he heard the news Nice Nik hit the roof. Those unfortunate to be with him at the time jumped for cover as Nice turned Nasty and flew into a rage. This was more a snub aimed at him, not to mention the fact he had been shown up in the eyes of the farmers for not having the power he assumed he had. He picked up the phone, called the palazzo, and began shouting abuse at the person unfortunate enough to answer.
After he had calmed down he found a face-saving solution and arranged a meeting of the farmers with the Finance and Labour Ministers, thus preventing a blockade of the airport runway. Had he been more cunning he would have told the palazzo that a delegation led by the deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia would be visiting el presidente — and the farmers would have definitely been seen.
THE FARMERS have become the darlings of deputies as well as the media, which have been waxing lyrical about them. Antenna TV described their protest as the “farmers’ uprising” and devoted nine tenths of its main news show to these hard-working honest paragons of virtue who fight against the elements in order to scrape a meagre living for their families. Deputies also painted an idealistic picture of these poor but proud men, who deserved all the help the state could give.
We at the Coffeeshop find it difficult to feel any sympathy for people who charge £1.75 a kilo for watery cucumbers. This idealistic view of the farmers, whose flatulence, we are asked to believe, smells of roses, was made a nonsense of by their demands. These are guys who knowingly broke the law, refusing to make their social insurance payments for seasonal workers, and have been using intimidation tactics in order to get away with it. And our lawmakers, with one notable exception, (see below) supporting the law-breaking.
What’s worse is that the second demand of these lovely but poor farmers is for the government to allow them to screw foreign workers who are much poorer than them. The minimum statutory wage for foreign workers is too high at £280 and they want it brought down to the house-maid level of £150. Even this was too high for one farmer, who insisted on a radio show that foreign labourers should be paid $1 per day — which is what they would receive in their own country. And how would the foreign workers feed themselves on a dollar a day? Perhaps the caring farmers would throw them some chickenfeed. After all, foreign farm labourers are usually made to sleep in shacks built for farm animals, so they might as well be fed with the animals. And once foreign workers are given the status of animals, the farmers would not have to pay social insurance for them. They might even treat them better.
ONLY ONE deputy of the 56 had the cojones to tell the farmers to their faces that they were not above the law and had a legal obligation to pay their social insurance dues. Dr Marios Madsakis was on radio shows on Thursday and Friday, passionately arguing with his populist colleagues who were shamelessly brown-nosing the farming types. If anyone had doubts about the man’s greatness and heroism, these would have been dispelled after he turned up to the protest venue to chat with them.
What chutzpah! What consummate attention-grabbing skills! First he calculatingly enraged them by repeatedly slamming their demands, and then he showed up to talk to them, knowing that he would be the undisputed centre of attention as dozens of muck-spreaders bayed for his blood and tried to pounce on him. Police had to form a protective cordon round Madsakis in order to screen him from the friendly farmers. The unflappable doc even had the decency to tell the farmers not to trust the deputies who were pandering to them because they were doing it just for the votes.
POOR OLD Spyros Kettyros, the sanctimonious CyBC news boss, has landed in a spot of bother, being investigated by police after a female subordinate reported him, alleging indecent assault and bodily harm. She alleged that Kettyros had bitten her on the ear and claimed she had the marks to prove it; a hospital doctor confirmed she had suffered an ear injury, police said. Kettyros denied the accusations, but the CyBC board suspended him pending the outcome of the investigation.
This was not the first time Kettyros has been accused of sexual harassment at work. Some six years ago, another female employee at CyBC reported him to the police, alleging indecent assault. The case went to court, but there was no trial, the Attorney-general issuing a nolle prosequi, presumably because this was in the public interest. At the time Kettyros, who like most CyBC hacks is well-connected, called on friends in high places to help him out. In the end justice did not run its course and Kettyros did not have to prove his innocence in court. The woman, though, was unable to keep working at the corporation and left to find employment elsewhere.
Will the new case go to court? Not if Kettyros’ colleagues at the CyBC news department have anything to do with it. They insist that he is innocent and are threatening to go on strike in support of his innocence; they are also preparing a petition in his support. It is understandable that hacks who pass judgment on everyone and everything feel they have the right to issue their own verdict before the police have even completed their investigation.
MEANWHILE, Kettyros’ lawyer has written to the Chief of Police to protest because the force had made public the accusation against his client, which he described as unfair, groundless and unacceptable. It’s a bit rich for the lawyer of a TV news boss to complain because the accusation had been made public. The news department that Kettyros is in charge of, like most TV stations, constantly broadcasts details about cases that have been reported to the police and are being investigated. Journalists report these cases all the time, but when they are on the receiving end of allegations they demand that the cases should not be publicised by anyone. It is bewildering how hacks who constantly accuse all foreign countries of double standards don’t realise it when they are guilty of the same thing themselves.
THE TOP lady at Mediterranean Catering, a subsidy of Suphire Financial Services, has contacted our establishment to inform us that last week’s item about surveillance cameras in the dining areas of the company’s two restaurants – Date Club and Il Giardino – was inaccurate. She assured us that there were no cameras at Il Giardino. There had been two cameras in the dining area of the Date Club, but these have been removed. Now, there are cameras only at the cash till and the restaurant store-room, so diners can be assured that Big Moustache could no longer be watching them, even if he had wanted to.
Politis also carried story about this, in which it referred to the company as ‘Sapphire Financial Services’. This is the correct way to spell the word sapphire, but the company, for whatever reason, prefers the spelling above. We would love to know what Suphire actually means, because there is no such word in the English dictionary that we can find, and we do like to know what the name of a company means before we invest our millions in it.
APRIL FOOL’S DAY is tomorrow so we are unable to print an April Fool story today, for that would be in breach of the rules. But here’s a selection of items that could easily have been written as April Fool jokes — but are entirely true.
The Nicosia Municipal Council has decided to honour Lellos Demetriades for his long service to the capital and has been discussing a list of suggestions. One proposal, which has not been rejected, was to declare him ‘Mayor for Life’, a title he would always be known by.
Meanwhile the KISOS Honorary President for Life, Dr Vassos Lyssarides, may have stepped down from the party leadership, but he has not ruled out the possibility of standing in next year’s presidential elections — at the age of 83. Asked if he would be standing he said he was not a candidate but in politics it was a mistake to be absolute.
A teeny-weeny country like Cyprus has decided to buy a titanic Russian helicopter that can carry 80 passengers or three small fire engines, or two big ones, for fire-fighting purposes.
Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou is set to become Governor of the Central Bank. He is not doing this to satisfy personal ambition, but because he will be charge of millions of pounds he will be able to distribute alms among the poor and needy.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
You don’t appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle-aged woman — stuff you pay good money for later in life.
Emo Phillips
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
