Blame the Tourism Minister

 

When I was first asked whether I would like to write a blog for the new website, I said no, thinking I wouldn’t have the time, it would be just another thing I’d have to do at the office, and so on.

So who should you thank for changing my mind? Take a bow, Commerce and Tourism Minister Antonis Paschalides.

A short while ago I was listening to the CyBC lunchtime news, and heard Paschalides say that consumers should boycott cucumbers this Christmas if they think they are overpriced. This advice was followed by five minutes of shouted exchanges between various representatives of vegetable producers, one of whom stated solemnly that there is no cucumber cartel operating in Cyprus.

Well, you can imagine the scene in the office. After a two-hour editorial meeting to discuss how we would go about exposing the truth behind this “denial”, it was decided that confronting the underground figures who are mercilessly ramping up the price of the average “horiatiki” was just too dangerous.

OK, I may have made up that last bit.

Actually, I decided that rather than sounding off without the excuse of having a bottle of wine to wave around, from now on I would put my thoughts on this and similar matters in writing.

You lucky, lucky people.

 

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.