THIS is a very important day for our disreputable establishment, for we are celebrating our 11th anniversary. It was on April 21, 1991, that the Coffeeshop was born after a long and problematic pregnancy. Fortunately it was a natural birth, even though the doctor had recommended a Caesarian — not just because he could charge more, but because this was a test-tube baby conceived in an Ayios Andreas pub, long after most respectable drunks had gone home.
The godmother was the then Editor of the Mail, Rachael Gillett, who had an unhealthy fascination with kafenia and suggested we call the baby ‘Tales from the Coffeeshop’. This is a liberal translation from the Cypriot vernacular kouventes tou kafene (coffeeshop-talk), a phrase used to refer to gossip, rumours, unsubstantiated claims, idle chit-chat and ignorant views.
In these 11 years, our establishment has tried to live up to its name, but occasionally some of our kouventes have proved to be very accurate, and for that we would like to apologise wholeheartedly.
The pseudonym of the writer claiming the authorship of the kouventes was less inspired, showing a shameful ignorance of modern interpretations of Homer’s Iliad. In the Iliad, Patroclos was the bosom buddy of Achilles, and some modern scholars of the classics maintain that their relationship was a homosexual one. By the time the gay implications of the pseudonym were pointed out to us several years had passed, and it was too late to make a name change. Fortunately, there are not too many classics scholars among our clientele, so Patroclos has not yet been elevated to the status of gay newspaper icon.
IDEALLY we would have celebrated our anniversary by reprinting a collection of the most profound insights and the scariest prophecies written in this column over the past 11 years, but the establishment’s legendary disorganisation made this practically impossible. We have no archiving and indexing system to help us retrieve items about specific events and personalities from years gone by. (In fact, it’s hard enough finding out what was written last week.)
Nobody volunteered to read through some 528 Coffeeshops in one week (we only realised last Sunday that we had our birthday coming up today) to find the items that could make a ‘Greatest Hits and Misses’ collection for the anniversary celebration. Hopefully we will get our act together over the next 12 months and run a Greatest Hits collections on our 12th (but I wouldn’t bank on it).
The shop was born during the technocratic empire of George Vass, but most of its existence has coincided with the decadent rule of Glafkus and the Generalissimos. Yet if there was one politician who genuinely inspired this establishment and helped establish its reputation, it was the late great Spyros Kyprianou, to whom we will be eternally grateful.
Most publications in their anniversary edition carry congratulatory platitudes which they procure from leading personalities in the plantation (the party leaders, ministers and the chairman of the journalists’ union) but we will not follow this well-trodden path, mainly because none were received. We have decided instead to show some originality and publish a shortlist of names of some of the great and mighty who have complained — often very rudely — over more than a decade about the things we wrote about them. In brackets we mention the form of the complaint received.
Spyros Kyprianou (in writing and in person); Generalissimo Kouros (by phone); Kouros junior (formal complaint to the journalistic ethics committee); the Führer (in writing and by phone); Tassos Papadopoulos (in writing); Mother Teresa (by phone, in writing and in person); Dr Faustus (in writing); George Perdikis (in writing); Alecos Markides (in writing); Takis Hadjigeorgiou (in person); Lellos Demetriades (in writing); Christos Stylianides (by phone); Nicos Katsourides (in person); General Sandy Hunter (in writing); Bill Clinton (in person).
That last one was a joke. There have been plenty of others but we can’t remember them so they can’t be that important. We have purposely left out the lawyers because they are unworthy of the newsprint their names would be written on.
AFTER 11 years, there is always the danger of the column getting tired, repetitive, predictable and boring. So we have decided to copy the Führer’s latest idea and start a dialogue with our customers so we can become more responsive to their demands and needs. Please, do feel free to write in with your suggestions and ideas. Tell us what you want to see in the shop and we might even provide it. If you have a business competitor, political rival or former lover you want to dish the dirt on, just write to us with the information and we will do it for you, completely free of charge. This offer lasts until the end of May.
Meanwhile, fans and regulars who want to send us anniversary gifts can send them to the Cyprus Mail office. But please, no flowers, ornaments, bottles of Scotch or Irish whiskey. If it’s going to be a bottle of something, make it champagne. And if you can’t be bothered to buy anything just send some money in an envelope, even though we prefer our cash donations in large black bags. CD, video and restaurant vouchers also accepted.
DEPUTIES turned urban guerrillas on Thursday night, scuffling with the cops outside the Israeli ambassador’s residence as they tried to prevent guests from attending the anniversary reception marking Israel’s independence.
Stalinist deputy Eleni Mavrou turned Rosa Luxemburg for the night, leading a mob of professional long-haired unwashed protesters on to the barricades, urging them to stop guests from attending the reception. She was ably assisted by Green Warrior George Perdikis, the sanctimonious middle-aged deputy who keeps trying to recapture his lost youth by behaving like a student activist.
They played the part of militant revolutionaries, remonstrating with the cops and encouraging the protesters to misbehave, safe in the knowledge that, as deputies, they would neither be hit nor arrested. And when the cops did make a few arrests, Rosa and Bakunin gave up being anarchists and turned authority figures, ordering the cops to release those detained. The cops ignored them, but if they had balls they would have arrested them both for disturbing the peace, inciting a riot, blocking a road and interfering in the work of the police.
The guy who should have got arrested was the KISOS Mayor of Lefkara, Sophoclis Sophocleous, a rural guerrilla who was pushing the cops around and trying to pull an arrested man out of a police car. The only major disappointment on the night was Dr Madsakis, who behaved with unfamiliar caution and restraint, remaining an aloof observer throughout. This was not the Madsakis we know and love. Has he lost his fighting spirit, or do his warrior juices flow only when he is on the British Bases?
PREDICTABLY, the next day the lefty parties (AKEL and KISOS) blamed the police for the incidents because they allegedly used excessive force, while the demonstrators were presented as helpless puppies. (These helpless puppies pushed around an 80-year-old man trying to get to the reception, and also sent the Nicosia top cop to hospital.)
Madsakis came into his own on Friday, though, blaming the incidents on the Israeli embassy for holding the reception. This is a classically Bananiot way of looking at things. The guys who actually resorted to the violence and attacked the cops were not to blame. And the few hundred hooligans who invaded the indoor Limassol stadium where a basketball game was being held behind closed doors on Tuesday night, and beat up players and club officials, were not to blame either. The violence was the fault of the Basketball Federation because it had allowed the match to go ahead.
CHUTZPAH is a Hebrew word, so it was no surprise that the Israeli embassy spokesman gave us a classic illustration of its meaning after the cocktail party (which I hear was not great success — the guests never really got into the party mood). The spokesman criticised the protesters for behaving undemocratically in trying to stop guests from attending the party. We sure do need lessons on how to respect democratic rights from a representative of the Jewish state, the only democracy in the Middle East. When he completes the course, maybe he could also give us a few lessons on the peaceful resolution of differences between neighbours.
HOW STRANGE that the hard, uncouth, hairy, macho truckers, widely regarded as a violent lot, behaved in a much more civilised and mature way when they staged their protest outside Limassol port than the educated, politicised, right-on urban warriors outside the embassy residence. The truckers blocked the port entrance but did not lay a finger on anyone as they protested about the ludicrous decision to ban heavy goods vehicles from using the roads passing through Zakaki.
Zakaki, a hideously ugly village/suburb on the fringes of Limassol, the appearance of which is enhanced by the flow of heavy traffic, has become a plantation within a plantation, its residents thinking they can do as they please. A couple of years ago they cost the taxpayer several hundred thousand bananas by persuading parliament to block the government plan to build a desalination plant in the coastal area of Zakaki, which was the most economical location. They did not want the plant there because they feared the value of the land would fall.
And this is the reason they do not want the trucks going through the village as well, even though they claim it is for the safety of their children walking to and from school. If the kids’ safety is their primary concern, why have they been moaning about the police chief’s decision to lift the ban between 9am and 12 noon every day, when the children are at school?
We hope the cops come out in force on Monday, when the Zakakians block the roads to traffic in protest at the chief’s decision to protect the democratic right of truckers to use the roads. The taxpayer footed the bill for the Zakaki roads, and villagers, using their kids’ safety as a cheap pretext, have no right to decide who can use them.
CIVIL UNREST was not restricted to Zakaki this week. It also extended to the Turkish Cypriot area of Limassol, which is currently inhabited by Greek Cypriot refugees and Turkish Cypriot gypsies who have crossed from the occupied north. Residents have been demanding that the gypsies, who, to be fair, nobody would like to have as neigbours, should be moved out, because of their filthy habits and unsocial behaviour. One exasperated female resident, furious about Generalissimo Ttooulis’ failure to keep his promise to solve the problems, invited him to take the gypsies into his own home.
Ttooulis, whose well-publicised humanity, compassion, charity and caring nature do not extend to gypsies, Turkish Cypriot landowners or impoverished immigrants, has been in a quandary, not knowing what to do about the matter. His magical problem-solving qualities have deserted him, and all he was able to come up with was that “I have called the police and ordered them to step up their patrols in the area.” As if this will make the slightest bit of difference.
SPEAKING on telly about the problem, the politically astute generalissimo explained what the real issue was. “This is a very sensitive issue, which could cause us untold damage, especially in Europe, if we give the impression that we are discriminating, that we are not giving gypsies the same rights as other citizens of the Republic.”
On the same show, Ttooulis warned the gypsies that the state would stop giving them benefit payments if they did not abide by civilised norms of social behaviour. He is going to stop their benefit payments illegally (because payments are not linked to acceptable social behaviour) if they continue to pursue their alternative lifestyle. He has ordered the police to step up their patrols to ensure gypsies improve their behaviour, but at the same time he is careful not to give Europe “the impression, that we are discriminating” against them.
He shouldn’t worry, because this is not discrimination — it is ethnic persecution. But we promise not to tell Europe about it.
IT SEEMS that a second Mother Teresa has emerged in the Council of Ministers. Justice Minister Nikos Kosher has been telling everyone how in the past few months between eight and 10 mothers of heroin addicts have gone to him for help. But why would the parent of any drug addict want to see Koshis, who is neither a doctor nor a social worker?
According to the minister, parents usually tell him of the dirty tricks resorted to by pushers to keep their kids hooked on drugs. But why does Koshis see the parents instead of referring them to the Drug Squad, which is supposedly responsible for combatting the drug trade?
I suspect Koshis’ revelations may be part of his efforts to restore his public standing. This must have been adversely affected by the merciless attacks to which he has been subjected by the Führer and his DISY stormtroopers, over his alleged inadequacy and ineffectiveness as minister. But to play the humanity/compassion card was an ill-conceived move: it may have won him some sympathy, but it also proved the Führer’s point.
Surely an effective and able minister has more important things to deal with than comforting the mothers of drug addicts? Noble and humane as this endeavour is, is it not the responsibility of some lowly ministry clerk or Drug Squad cop?
WE REJOICE with el presidente who announced that he felt like an 18-year-old after going for some routine medical tests last Wednesday. We just hope and pray that his good health will not put any funny ideas into his head about standing for a third term. We know that the banana problem is going through a critical phase, as it was just before the previous presidential elections, but please let him think about his suffering subjects. After 10 years of terminal decline under el presidente, his subjects feel like 90-year-olds.
We just hope we don’t hear any reports in the next few months about the imminent purchase of ballistic missiles or nuclear warheads.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
An actuary is someone who cannot stand the excitement of chartered accountancy.
Glan Thomas
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.
