A BIG thank-you to all those readers who have taken advantage of our 11th anniversary offer, writing in to suggest individuals on whom we could dish some dirt.
We were, however, bitterly disappointed not to receive bottles of bubbly from anyone — presumably, readers did not take seriously our subtle hint to send anniversary gifts to our establishment. Maybe it was so subtle they did not understand.
The only gift (if you could call it that) which we received was sent by e-mail and it was a link to a porn website. Admittedly, an original idea, but not a gift you could show your family, and tell them that it was sent in recognition of our years of service to the community.
This is a morally upstanding and respectable establishment, but we thought it would be impolite not to click on the link and see if there was some coded message. Well there was no obvious coded message, just loads of flesh pix and a choice of ‘Asian Babes’, ‘Ebony Gals’, ‘Mature Amateurs’, ‘Granny Cams’ etc. The real trouble began when loads of other smut-sites, linked to the original, started opening by themselves.
You just couldn’t close them fast enough; by the time you closed one site another one or two had opened. We needed about 15 minutes to clear the screen of all this filth, but it was an education for naive souls like us. Dear fan, thanks for the present, but next year send us something less original and a bit more respectable… like a book, or even a tie.
THE KOUMBAROS who wrote with some dirt on the AKEL deputy who has a ‘love affair’ with an Israeli company, currently ‘being evaluated for a mega-bucks defence contract’, should forward us some more information if we are to start shovelling it. Our own investigating team is currently too busy to look into the matter, as all three of them have been stuck in front of the shop’s PC, all their waking (without an ‘n’) hours, trying to discover the coded political message from our porn-loving fan was.
Thanks to the two customers who pointed out an embarrassing factual error in last week’s column. Apparently, the word chutzpah is not Hebrew, but Yiddish — “a high German language of the 19th century”, one customer pointed out. Alecos Constantinides informed us in yesterday’s Alithia that it is a “West Germanic language, also know as Judaeo-German”. We stand corrected.
ANOTHER customer has asked us to dish some dirt on the Weekly’s art reviewer Glyn Hughes, who describes much of the monumentally mediocre stuff he writes about as ‘masterpieces’. But I just don’t have the heart to do it in a professionally nasty way, because I know the man pretty well. But I cannot blame our customer for taking offence at the promiscuous way in which the reviewer lavishes praise on anyone who can paint three red lines on a canvas or press the click button on his instamatic.
Our customer pointed out that in a recent issue of the paper, on the same page, there were pictures of ‘a masterpiece’ by George Lanitis and a ‘masterpiece’ by Lonias Efthyvoulou (both these producers of artistic masterpieces work for the newspaper, which, in fairness, may have somewhat clouded the judgment of their colleague).
But what excuse did Glyn have for describing Andreas Makariou, on the same page, as an “all-time great artist”, which would suggest he is in the same league as Picasso, Rembrandt and Van Gogh? He doesn’t work for the paper, so Glyn better have a good excuse, which I promise to publish in the next issue.
As our customer said: “Reading this (expletive deleted), one is given the impression that Nicosia has more artists of genius than Renaissance Florence and classical Athens put together”.
BUT ENOUGH about geniuses, artistic masterpieces and (ironic?) art criticism. Let’s focus on world statesmen, which the plantation mass-produces at a faster rate than great artists. President of the House Demetris Christofias was in big demand by the television stations this week after he returned from his visit to the cradle of capitalism where he had some very constructive meetings with officials of the US government.
His finest moment, and confirmation of his graduation to world statesman, was the meeting with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice at the White House, which must have brought forward the settlement of the banana problem by a few months. This was not the take of a US-based customer who had several questions to ask about the meeting:
“On a more depressing note, who originated the idea of the Christofias visit to our pristine shores? His (30-second at the most) meeting with Condoleezza Rice has probably set back the Cyprus problem by at least one light year. She’s an academic specialist on the Soviet Union, as conservative as it’s possible to be. Mr AKEL is an old-time apologist for the USSR. What in God’s name could they have in common, let alone have talked about or agreed upon?”
I LOVED the public spat between old statesman and prospective presidential candidate Tassos Papadopoulos and the DISY Fuhrer Nice Nik about politicians of the Sixties. And I can’t help but agree with Nik when he asks what change a politician of the Sixties like Tassos could bring as presidente of our corrupt little plantation? He is from another era.
Of course Nik is not really one to talk, considering that his party has twice elected as presidente and, until a month ago, blindly supported another relic of the Sixties — Glafcos Clerides. And our el presidente has been running the country, with the Fuhrer’s unstinting support, and plenty of his friends from the Sixties.
But what about Tassos telling us that “the time has come to put an end to bad government”? For the first five years of el presidente’s term, when his party DIKO was participating in the government with five ministers, we were subjected to sound government. Now that DIKO has switched camps, he has decided that it is bad government and that the majority of people are crying out for change.
One thing that Tassos fails to mention is that the government of el presidente’s second term is an improvement on that of the first term, in which his predecessor as DIKO leader, the late and much-missed Spyros Kyprianou, was calling the shots and Papadopoulos was applauding.
There were good reasons for the improvement of the government — it had hit rock-bottom in the first term and the only direction it could go, in the second, was up… in spite of the appointment of Nik Kosher as Minister of Justice and Mother Teresa at Interior.
THE ARRIVAL to the internationally recognised plantation of the Turkish Cypriot footballer Sabri Selden, who has ‘signed’ for Larnaca club AEK (at least he signed a personal contract with the chairman, who later resigned) has got the creative juices of the defiant, ultra-patriotic newspaper columnists and politicians flowing. The reason for the outrage was that Selden, who came to Larnaca from the occupied plantation with his parents and twin brother, could not be regarded as a Bananiot citizen because his mother was from Turkey and possibly an illegal settler.
Kids of Turkish Cypriots married to settlers are not automatically guaranteed plantation citizenship, according to the law, and require special dispensation from the Council of Ministers which is set to grant Sabri citizenship at its next meeting. But if it does, this would be a step towards legalising the Turkish settlers, argued the critics of the government, intent on maintaining the racial purity of Bananiots. So once Sabri is given citizenship, will his mother be kicked out of the plantation or imprisoned for being an illegal Turkish settler?
One casualty of the Sabri case was the chairman of AEK, Stavros Xeni, who resigned once his handling of the signing of the midfielder hit political snags and raised an outcry in the press. Before he resigned, Xeni also played the patriotic card — AEK wanted to sign Sabri for political reasons, in order to send the right messages (it’s not only politicians who send the right messages) to the outside world.
God help us when even football chairmen have to present patriotic credentials. Couldn’t he have said that he wanted Sabri because he was great player, a skilful midfielder, a strong tackler, or an effective destroyer? Are we now going to have football decisions dictated by the banana problem?
And if he proves a rubbish player will AEK still include him in its first XI in order to send out the right messages? But if he is good and is a hit with the fans will they wave Turkish flags in the same way that Raufman’s fans wave German flags when Omonia is playing? That really send the right messages.
ONE MINISTER who always sends out the wrong messages is Generalissimo Ttooulis, who this week had to handle two issues relating to the rights of Turkish Bananiots. After dealing with Sabri, he had to deal with an eviction order sent to a refugee living in a Limassol house, owned by Turkish Bananiots who had gone to court in order to reclaim their parents’ house.
Ttooulis, reminding everyone that he is above the law, assured the refugee that there was no way he would be made to leave the house. This was after the generalissimo had agreed with the Attorney-general’s office that the refugee would be moved to another house. But once the cameras began filming, the generalissimo forgot what he had agreed and reverted to his role of patron saint of the refugees.
It was a similar line he had taken when a Turkish Cypriot tried to sell land that he owned but was being used by refugees. Again Teresa ignored the law. It remains to be seen which is the superior authority — the law courts or the humanitarian generalissimo?
LOVED the bitchy remark Mother Teresa directed against the lawyer representing the Turkish Cypriots reclaiming ownership of the house. The lawyer, Yiannakis Erotokritou, is Consul of the Philippines, so he often deals with the problems facing Filipinas working on the plantation. This was why Ttooulis said: “The lawyer of the two Turkish Cypriots usually handles such matters and matters relating to housemaids”.
What kind of guardian of the poor and destitute is he when he can speak so uncharitably about housemaids? When it comes to the poor of other nationalities, such as Pontians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Gypsies or Filipinas, Mother Teresa suddenly turns into Jean-Marie le Pen.
SPEAKING of Jean-Marie, Alecos Constantinides was quite rightly wondering why the Akelites were beating their breasts in horror about his strong showing in last Sunday’s French presidential election. As Constantinides pointed out, extreme rightist Le Pen’s positions on most issues were very similar to those of our own communists of AKEL – he is opposed to the EU, is against globalisation, does not want foreign workers in France and hates Israel. Le Pen is probably also against the Clerides government, even though he must admire Mother Teresa’s brave fight to keep immigrants out of Cyprus.
Of course, political hypocrites do not exist only on the plantation. All the European lefties who are outraged about le Pen’s electoral showing also embrace most of his positions.
WE WERE thrilled to hear that the House Finance Committee has amended the Customs and Excise duties bill, in a way that will entitle a person serving as government spokesman for a year to a duty-free car. According to the bill, anyone who has served for a year as presidente, presidente de la casa, Attorney-general, presidente of the Supreme Court, minister or as Kouros to the presidente, will be entitled to a duty-free car, for their personal use.
Why? Are they so poorly paid that a cheap luxury car is offered as compensation? Certainly not, these guys earn much bigger salaries than their qualifications would command in the real job market. Is it an incentive for attracting a higher calibre individual to political office? Certainly not, there are hundreds of Bananiots who would sell their mother for the power and status that comes with a ministerial post.
One thing is certain, this is not part of the EU harmonisation process. When the plantation finally joins the EU, such tax privileges, surely, will have to be scrapped, so why is the government voting through new tax privileges on the eve of accession? It could be said, that in this way, all politicians will be entitled to a duty free car (before it was only deputies) and thus equality will prevail within the ruling elite.
SPEAKING of flash cars, I am informed that the socialist Mayor of Strovolos, Savvas Eliophotou, has been bought by his generous municipality a Jaguar S-type, worth about 70 grand, because his old car had some mechanical problems.
This is a classic illustration of how sensitive mayors are to the needs of the people they are elected to serve. Before the elections, Eliophotou was promising to do more in his second term as mayor to improve the quality of life of Strovolians.
What is the first thing he does, a couple of months after his elections? He gets a 70-grand car that will improve the quality of life of just one Strovolian – Eliophotou’s.
Now if the municipality was mega-wealthy, nobody would mind, but like all municipalities, Strovolos is deep in debt and has no funds to improve anybody’s quality of life, except the socialist mayor’s, that is.
ANY BRITS planning on celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee but unable to find a venue could apply to the British High Commissioner for use of his Nicosia residence. I hear that the residence has been kindly offered as the venue for a children’s Jubilee party, organised by a group of expat women who meet one morning a week for coffee.
There was a bit of ill-feeling among High Commission staff when they heard that only the coffee morning ladies’ kids would be attending the party and after some crisis meetings it was decided to invite all the children of High Commission staff.
Of course, now that a precedent has been set, it would only be fair if the residence is offered as a venue for Jubilee parties for other groups of British expats.
IN THREE days, the contract of Afxentis Afxentiou as Governor of the Central Bank expires, and el presidente has yet to announce his replacement. Given that an extension has been ruled out, I fear that the job will go to Generalissimo Ttooulis, which might be a blessing in disguise as he will have no excuse to appear on television every single night. The economy might go to the dogs but evening television viewing will improve dramatically.
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.
