LET’S HEAR it for CyBC television, which on Tuesday night took a break from being the Ethnarch’s official propaganda organ and broadcast a hard news story, for a change. Well it was not hard news in the conventional sense, but it was a failed attempt at hardening a limp story. Alas, it backfired and exposed the sad truth that the greatest minds of TV journalism all work for the private stations.
The story was about a policewoman giving head, which a corporation news-hound, allegedly, found on the internet and decided to do a report for the TV news. The lame justification for the story was that there was a growing trend of filming women with mobile phones while they were having sex and then sending the images on to half the population of Cyprus.
This has been happening for the last couple of years but at the CyBC they have just found out about it, or maybe the reporter presented it as a new trend to justify putting a bit of pixellated porn on the TV news. The reporter also felt that it was in the public interest to mention that the star of the deep-throat revelations was a policewoman, incurring the wrath of the Chief of Police, who called and complained on air about the decision to mention her profession.
The reporter, who is not the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer, also claimed that there would be an investigation and the policewoman could be charged. He was obviously unaware that oral sex between consenting adults was not a criminal offence, nor a breach of police discipline.
Hopefully, after this disastrous attempt at doing hard news, the corporation’s staff will stick to the propaganda fluff that they do so well – reporting stories about the undisputed greatness of our Ethnarch, Lillikas’ resounding triumphs at the EU, the vileness of Talat, the Fuhrer’s pro-Turkish views and the Commissar’s statesmanlike appearances at the local co-op.
THE BLOW-JOB report, in fairness, was not motivated by malice but by good, old-fashioned stupidity. The CyBC was censuring sickos who filmed sexual acts and posted the pictures on the internet but saw nothing wrong with broadcasting the offending video clip on prime time television, on which it would be seen by thousands of people.
It also informed us that the protagonist was a policewoman and showed us shots of the station at which she worked before telling as that transmitting such video clips was a violation of an individual’s personal details and right to privacy. Was there a cop in Cyprus who did not know who the woman was after CyBC’s sensitive broadcast?
A few days earlier, it did a similar thing regarding the hanging of Saddam Hussein. It reported that psychologists in the US had criticised the showing of the hanging on television because it had led to copy-cat acts – two youngsters had, reportedly, hung themselves in the US after seeing the execution on TV.
The CyBC’s coverage of this story was accompanied by film footage of Saddam’s hanging, shown not once but twice… just in case anyone planning on copying it had missed something in the first showing.
COP-RELATED stories in the news mean one thing – an opportunity for our publicity-mad minister of justice and public order, Appomenos Sophocleous, to indulge in yet another three-minute inane, moralistic rant in front of the cameras. Whatever the story, from a periptero burglary to a minor car accident, the Lefkara fruitcake will express his views.
He could never have allowed the oral sex controversy to pass without offering some words of wisdom on the subject. Appomenos declared to hacks that the police should behave impeccably even when they are off duty, which could only mean that cops (male as well as female, I presume, although he did not specify) should not give blow-jobs. At least we know where he stands on oral sex.
He did not tell cops what he considered good behaviour in the bedroom, but I am informed that he would soon be issuing a sex manual for all members of the force defining good and bad behaviour in the bedroom. From what we have heard, use of hand-cuffs, truncheons, tear-gas and other police equipment as sex aids will be banned, while oral sex will be allowed in exceptional circumstances and only after permission has been secured from the minister.
RETURNING to the oral sex saga (rarely do we get an opportunity to have some sex content, so excuse us if we are overdoing it), there have been several video clips of people having sex being circulated by mobile phone. Who would have thought that conservative Cypriots also have an exhibitionist streak in them?
These X-rated clips are known by the occupation of the woman involved. The most widely circulated have had as their stars a hairdresser from Larnaca, a blindfolded nurse, a periptero owner from Parisinos, students from Nicosia and a housewife from Achna.
There was also the Limassol priest, but he was an exception. The CyBC hack was only following the conventions of the film genre by mentioning the woman’s occupation and not because he wanted to tarnish her reputation.
No CyBC journalist has appeared in a sex video yet. This must be because the corporation’s ethical staff don’t do oral sex. They only do the missionary position, which is extremely difficult to film by mobile phone.
ENOUGH SMUT, it’s time to get serious and deal with the more important issues, like the latest takeover bid for the Bank of Cyprus, which has become the sexy maiden of the banking sector, having to deal with one marriage proposal after the other.
All the Greek bankers are hell-bent on getting their hands on the assets of our leading bank, which has been bravely resisting their advances. The B of C would rather remain single and a virgin – never tasting the joys of oral sex – rather than agree to a marriage with someone who only wants her for her money deposits and market share. Her board has made it clear that if she is ever to merge with another bank it has to be for love.
Last month her board turned down the marriage proposal by the Bank of Piraeus, while in the last week it snubbed an offer by wheeler-dealer Andreas Vgenopoulos’ Marfin Popular Bank, which was trying to buy her on the cheap.
Vgenopoulos might be a smart and shifty operator but he could never have raised the funds to buy 100 per cent of B of C. He is acting on behalf of the fabulously wealthy Al Maktoum family, the rulers of Dubai, whose Dubai Investment Group, according to The Times, wants to set up a $5 billion securities and real estate portfolio. Vgenopoulos took the CEO of the Dubai Investment Group, Ba’alawy Soud, to Athens last week to show that he meant business.
The Al Maktoum family, which owns Emirates airline, has too much cash and is looking for investments in Europe, it has been reported. It has also been trying to buy Liverpool football club.
Vgenopoulos and his Dubai sugar-daddy were turned down by the B of C board but it is said that that they will return with a bigger offer for our virgin bank. They should not bother, because the takeover is certain to turn into a big political issue.
The question many patriotic Cypriots are already asking and it was hinted at by the meek and mild chairman of the B of C on Friday, is whether our authorities could ever allow our biggest bank to fall into the hands of an Arab family at a time when we are fighting for our national survival? What if this is a plot by the Islamic world to destroy our economy so we would be forced to accept an unfair and unjust solution to the Cyprob?
Unlike Liverpool, our plantation would have nothing to gain from falling under the control of the Al Maktoums.
BRIILLIANT salesman and deal-maker he may be, but Vgenopoulos over-estimated his smartness if he seriously thought he would pull this one off. His arrogance combined with the availability of the Dubai billions must have clouded his judgment.
First, no government would allow our banking system to be under the total control of a foreign company, especially one controlled by Muslims (nobody will say this publicly but it is what they are all saying in private). If there were a merger of the B of C with Marfin Popular, the new group would have more than a 70 per cent share of the banking market and consequently total control of our economy.
Even if there were no political objections the buyout would still have had to be blocked because the new grouping would have monopolistic powers – UK law considers any company with more than a 30 per cent share of the market a monopoly – and screw all of us. Given that the Marfin-Laiki-Egnatia merger, despite Vgenopoulos’ big words, remains an unproven enterprise – it could prove a big business flop – the authorities would be crazy to approve the B of C takeover.
STRANGER things have happened on our happy-go-lucky island and there is no guarantee the authorities would make the right decision, even though finance minister Sarris suggested yesterday that political considerations could prevent the deal.
What will Central Bank Governor Ttooulis decide? He is a well-known bash-patriot who will, no doubt, put the national interest above every other consideration before reaching a decision. There is no way an ultra-tough cookie like Ttooulis would do Vgenopoulos any favours, even if he has reason to be grateful to the man.
Vgenopoulos recently employed Ttooulis’ son-in-law, Andreas Kizourides, as director of Marfin Popular Bank’s Corporate Affairs Department on a very handsome salary. It was a big step up for Kizourides, who has not exactly set the banking world alight. He had been working as personnel manager at the National Bank of Greece.
The Greek banker a few months earlier also gave a high-powered job to the daughter of the mighty boss of the banking union, Loizos Hadjicostis. He is deluding himself if he thought that by giving jobs to the kids of powerful honchos in the Cyprus banking world he would have an easy ride. He obviously had not heard about the colossal integrity of Cypriots, one of our best-known qualities as a people.
DISY MEP Ioannis Cassoulides, who had also served as foreign minister in the Clerides government, hopes to be a candidate in next year’s presidential elections. He has already started a round of contacts, sounding out people and explaining why he wants to stand.
One of the first men he visited was the powerful media mogul Costis Zeus Hadjicostis, despotic ruler of the Dias group, which owns Sigma TV, Radio Proto, Simerini and host of magazines. Cass told the megalomaniac mogul what his plans were and asked for the Zeus group’s support but the response he got was not what he had expected.
Zeus informed Cass that he would be standing in the 2008 presidential elections because the country needed a strong and visionary president whose objective would be the liberation of the occupied territory and not the signing of a settlement that would hand over half of Cyprus to the Turks. If he does stand – he may have been joking just to get rid of Cass – this establishment will be campaigning for Zeus the Liberator.
SPEAKING of the presidential elections, Commissar Christofias is also toying with the idea of being a candidate in the event that the Ethnarch does not seek a further term. There is more chance of the Cyprob being solved by the end of the year than power-hungry Tassos not standing for a second term, but the Commissar has not stopped hoping.
Pressed to say whether he would consider standing on a TV show on Thursday night the comrade became annoyed with the persistence of the hacks and had a go at them because they did not seem to think that he was good enough to become president.
He could not hide the hurt as he said: “Demetris Christofias could not do things as well as Papadopoulos… The implication is that Christofias is so incompetent that he is way behind (Tassos) and cannot handle these problems. Is Christofias incompetent?”
We will not bother answering this question. All we are prepared to say is that come February 2008 we will be voting for Zeus the liberator.
GOVERNMENT sophist, Christodoulos Pashiardis was made to look a complete fool by his predecessor Giorgos Lillikas, who had just returned from his two-week skiing holiday in Austria. Pashiardis repeatedly said during his briefings that the government had sent a letter to the Turkish Cypriot side setting out its conditions for the opening of the Ledra Street crossing.
The Turks said that they had never received such a letter but Pashiardis insisted it had been sent. Had it been lost on the way? Enter Lillikas who announced that no letter had been sent to the Turkish side because the footbridge had not been pulled down and there was no point discussing the crossing while it was still there (all this talk took place before the bridge had been pulled down).
So was there a letter or was Pashiardis lying? There was a letter regarding the crossing, but it was sent to UNFICYP with no instructions to pass it on to the Turks, which was why Talat never received it. But it seems nobody informed the hapless Pashiardis, who overnight was transformed from sophist to myth-maker.
A SEXUAL word of advice to all the ladies before we go – next time you are planning on indulging in some love-making with your partner make sure to ask them to hand over the battery of their mobile phone before you start undressing. Forget to take this precaution and you may end up seeing yourself on the 8 o’clock CyBC television news. Men with mobiles (or cam-corders) just cannot be trusted in the bedroom.
