THE BLOODBATH which our clued-up justice minister Doros Theodorou had warned would take place at Ayios Mamas church in Morphou did not materialise. His information was not entirely wrong, as some blood was shed in the church courtyard.
From what we hear, one of the faithful at the church suffered a nosebleed, which could, with a little artistic licence, have been described as a brief blood-shower, at least by people standing next to him, but a bath it was not. Nevertheless some people took the ministerial warning seriously enough and took some soap and shampoo with them in case the service degenerated into a bath.
For the sake objectivity, we must mention that the nose-bleed was not caused by Turkish extremists or by excessive use of cocaine, but was self-inflicted — the guy had just picked his nose a bit too forcefully, which is not what you would expect from a devout Christian, but you can’t legislate against human impulse just as you can’t against human stupidity.
WHAT had Doros the doomsayer actually said? He said loads of things about the dangers of going to Morphou on the TV news, but the only bit that found its way to the papers verbatim was the following:
“We have information that murders are planned during the Morphou events. But I cannot give instructions to people not to go,” he said. Murders were planned, but our minister was such a liberal chap that he was unwilling to advise people to stay away and thus avoid the possibility of being killed. Make sense?
Responding to accusations that he was trying to frighten people from going, Doros said that he would not have issued any warning had there not been a bomb explosion at the church. So he was prepared to allow people to go to their death if there had not an explosion? Or could it be that he only took the information he was given seriously, after the explosion?
Big mistake. Anyone who has lived on the plantation long enough would know that security information picked up by our formidable secret services and released to the public, 999 times out of a thousand, is totally unreliable and one time out of a thousand it is completely wrong.
EVEN the atheist commies of AKEL sent a delegation to the Ayios Mamas vespers on Wednesday night, giving rise to rumours that this was the beginning of a rift with the palazzo which disapproves of any interaction with the enemy. The rumours were about as accurate as Doros’ intelligence info.
Peculiarly, two out of the three members of the delegation sent by Commissar Christofias were hard-line supporters of the Ethnarch’s anti-solution ideology – Nicos Katsourides, the palazzo’s man in AKEL, and Christos Mavrokordatos. Was this a case of the commissar showing he has a sense of humour, or was he reminding these closet Tassites, that he was boss?
Whatever the case, Kats eventually managed not to go because he did not take his passport with him to the checkpoint and he did not have a European-format identity card to show. Apparently, he showed the Turkish cops his old ID, which was not accepted; then he showed his parliamentary ID and then his driving licence. He even showed his neighbourhood DVD shop membership card.
This is a grown man, considered to be one of AKEL’s intellectual heavyweights, but he was unable to follow a simple instruction – to take his passport – that even the village idiot would have had no trouble with. The things people do, to get out of going to church!
THE IDEA that showing your passport to the Turkish cops is unpatriotic and tantamount to recognition, but showing other state documents such as ID and driving licence is acceptable could be the subject of a doctoral thesis on political stupidity.
The other patriotic practice that could be explored in such a thesis is one that is dear to AKEL. Before the Morpou visit, the commie party had been in contact with the occupation authorities, in an attempt to secure permission for its delegation to go through the checkpoint without having to show passports.
Of course, applying to the authorities of the occupation regime to request privileged treatment for AKEL deputies did not constitute recognition of the pseudo-state, in the way that individuals showing their passport to the pseudo-cops would. And if this nonsense about the showing of passports leading to recognition were true, the pseudo-plantation would have been a member of the UN by now.
STAR OF the week was undoubtedly the Bishop of Morphou, Neophytos, the most rock ’n’ roll priest of the plantation. Neophytos played a leading part in the organisation of the two services at Ayios Mamas thus incurring the wrath of two of his holy brothers (the psycho of Kyrenia Pavlos and the Paphos loonie Chrysostomos). He also pissed off the government.
Neophytos, who has stopped wearing the cool, John Lennon specs, received big praise from many for his speech at the church about love and forgiveness on Wednesday night. It was also translated into Turkish and English. After Thursday’s service he was driven to Lefka, where he received a warm welcome from the infidel Turkish Bananiots. It takes guts for a priest to wander around the occupied areas without bodyguards, a lot more guts than making fiery, patriotic statements from the safety of your bishopric’s office.
Does Neophytos have a political agenda? Probably, as all bishops have, the only difference being that each has his own way of pursuing them. At least his agenda is based on a message of brotherly love and forgiveness, in contrast to some of the crazed Turk-hating fanatics running the other bishoprics.
NONE of the bishops hate the Turks so much as to stop the Church-owned Vassiliko cement factory from selling cement to developers in the occupied areas. As the Old Testament says, business is business. The news about this deal has embarrassed the government, which claims powerlessness to prevent it.
It is all down to the patriotism of individual businessmen we were told. But the Church is not an individual businessman. It is a collection of hard-nosed businessmen who know exactly what to go for when faced with the choice between patriotism and profit. Had the services at Ayios Mamas had money-making potential, they would not have expressed their patriotic misgivings so forcefully.
The Church might be selling cement to Turkish developers to build villas on Greek-owned land, but this does not mean it forgives the Turks for the occupation, as Neophytos had done with his speech.
I WOULD not be surprised if the priests have already started selling church-owned land in the occupied area to developers. Two Greek Bananiots with property in the north have told our establishment that they had been approached by estate agents asking them if they were willing to sell.
One had been offered a million bananas for a large expanse to the north of Famagusta, while another was offered 3 million bananas for land near Karmi in Kyrenia. One has been giving serious consideration to the offer, although the one offered the 3 million has said he will not sell because it would be unpatriotic.
You got admire the guy – he is offered 3 million bananas for land, which, the likelihood is, he will never get back, but will not take the money and run now because he considers it unpatriotic.
With such a heightened sense of patriotism he should join the Church.
THE BANANIOT expatriates were in town last week for their annual bash at the taxpayer’s expense. We bring them here, they tell us what we already know and then they promise to influence the governments of the countries they live in (US and Britain) to adopt a more pro-Greek Bananiot attitude in the banana problem. They also ask for a few million bananas to achieve this objective.
During the latest gathering we were informed that key countries, US and Britain, were working against the plantation, but the expats would fight to defend the Republic’s interests. All these years they have been defending our rights, lobbying their respective governments help in effort to solve the Cyprob and what did they achieve?
Their governments gave us the satanic A-plan, which even the expats opposed.
Imagine what we would have been served if Philip Christopher et al did not wield so much influence in Washington and London.
MORE TRAVEL news from the Nicosia Municipality has reached the Coffeeshop. Our jet-setter mayor, Mike Zampelas, we are informed, did not only take municipal councillors to Athens for the Olympic Games. He also took some of his most trusted employees, including his secretary, the municipal engineer and a couple of other senior staff.
The reason he gave for taking them, was that they could see for themselves the wonderful improvements made to Athens for the Olympics, as he wanted to do similar things for Nicosia. Why his secretary and the engineer needed to see the new-look Athens is not very clear, as neither has a say on improvement projects.
When councillors heard what the zany Zampelas had done, they protested and demanded to know why municipal funds had been wasted on taking staff to Athens. Realising that he had made yet another blunder, Zampelas said that he would pay the accommodation and travel expenses of the municipal staff out of his own pocket.
If he has money to throw away why doesn’t he build a few more pavements in Nicosia and pay for them himself instead of wasting cash taking staff on trips abroad.
THE BIGGEST injustice, surrounding the Olympics was that the Mayor of Kyrenia Constantinos Orologas did not get an invitation to attend the Games. One man was so outraged that he wrote the following in a letter to Phil: “The mayor of Kyrenia is a symbol of the struggle and by right should have been given an honorary seat among the most honoured guests. Unfortunately this did not happen.”
Orolgas, according to the letter-writer, was “a pioneering campaigner against the Annan plan, the star of the ‘no-campaign’ in the referendum”, so why had he been “ignored in such a provocative way”? What was worse was that the Cyprus Olympic Committee invited a Turkish Cypriot politician and the former mayor of Nicosia Lellos Demetriades (both unrepentant yes-campaigners) to the Olympics as its guests.
And poor old Orologas, a true patriot and hero, was left to watch the Olympics on TV.
Had we known about this outrage at the time we would have approached his colleague Zampelas and asked him to pay for Orologas to go to the Olympics.
BELOW are some brief stories reported in the British press, sent to us by a customer. Enjoy:
Commenting on a complaint from a Mr Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill, a spokesman for North Westgas said, “We agree it was rather high for the time of year.
It’s possible Mr Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house.” (The Daily Telegraph)
Police reveal that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami in her knickers. When asked why, she said it was because she was missing her Italian boyfriend. (The Manchester Evening News)
Irish police are being handicapped in a search for a stolen van, because they cannot issue a description. It’s a Special Branch vehicle and they don’t want the public to know what it looks like. (The Guardian)
