NOW THAT Turkey’s deep state has been marginalised by the Erdogan government and can no longer be blamed for preventing a fair and lasting settlement of the Cyprob, the resourceful editorial writers of Simerini have identified a new cause for panic. On Friday the paper wrote:
“Turkey was, is and will remain an Islamic country. Not just any Islamic state, but a state of Islamic fanaticism, which has elevated state terrorism, the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities to a science.” And if she managed to get into the EU, “Turkey would bring in the most repugnant Islamist fanaticism and with her big population, military and economic might would constitute a nightmare for Europe.”
The dumb Franks have been warned by a paper which employs enough fanatics to be able to spot them anywhere in the world.
AT THE TIME of writing this, we did not know whether the Israelis had carried out their plan to send a flotilla of three yachts to the seas north of Cyprus, in order to protest against the Turkish occupation.
After negative publicity caused by the Turkish-organised, Free-Gaza flotilla two weeks ago, the Israelis decided to expose the hypocrisy of the Turks, by campaigning for the liberation of occupied Cyprus. With the Turks and Israelis opposed to military occupation the world is bound to become a better place.
But not everyone in Kyproulla welcomed the Israelis planned protest. In an editorial on Wednesday Phil said “we cannot allow the Cyprus problem to be caught in the middle of a confrontation and pay the price.” What price the Cyprob would pay we were not informed.
We were also rather surprised that a bash-patriotic paper was opposed to a protest event against the occupation that would bring world attention to our cause.
NOT EVERYONE in the press asked the Israelis to mind their own business. On the same day, Simerini columnist Savvas Iacovides urged our government “to develop and strengthen all aspects of its relations with Israel,” which “is a big regional power that enjoys strong lings with the US and other forces.”
The columnist did not stop there. Conditions made it “an imperative for Nicosia to seek the conclusion, at a first stage, of a Defence Co-operation Pact with Israel, which has for some time been seeking closer co-operation with Cyprus.”
At a second stage, we will send a joint, ‘Free Constantinople’ flotilla to Turkey, and at a third we could ask the Israelis to replace Turkey in northern Cyprus, because they could provide a better quality of military occupation. They might even build the wall across the dividing line that we yearn for.
THERE is no escaping asphyxiation at the end of the year. The UN Security Council, Big Al and the European Commission have stopped mincing their words about the end of peace process. It is a bit rich for us to speak about asphyxiating time-frames when by November, the theoretical deadline for a deal, the current peace talks would have been going on for 27 months – nothing asphyxiating or artificial about that.
We could also do with an asphyxiating time-frame for the economic measures that would reduce the budget deficit. I suspect the imposition of measures would be further delayed after our good friend Charilaos announced on Wednesday that the recovery had begun. Our economy had recorded a growth rate of 0.1 per cent in the first quarter, announced the incorrigible optimist.
SIGMA TV presenter Demopoulos thought he had come up with a brilliantly original idea by inviting four members of the government to his morning show on Friday to talk about the World Cup Finals. Why would anyone want to hear clueless ministers talking about a really important issue?
Was Antonis Paschalides going to announce a plan to bring tourists to Cyprus from Soweto? No, he restricted himself to informing us that Spain and Brazil were the favourites. Meanwhile, government spokesman Stephanos Stephanou reckoned that Great Britain was a powerful side and had to be one of the favourites. Who could disagree with him.
If our good friend Charilaos had been on the show, I bet, he would have assured us that Greece would win the World Cup.
LEADING Akelites, including several deputies, recently visited the Polish embassy in Nicosia to deliver a resolution expressing “strong opposition” to the Polish government’s plan to ban all communist symbols from being used in the country.
Haravghi reported that AKEL wanted to show its solidarity to the communist party of Poland “with the commitment that it would continue the fight to prevent the prevalence of anti-communist hysteria.” Nobody from the Polish embassy came out to take the resolution from the defenders of Stalinism, who had to leave it in the letter-box.
As supporters of the anti-communist hysteria, we congratulate the Polish ambassador for snubbing the AKEL’s unrepentant Stalinists Respect.
BACK IN the eighties, when the mission of dumbing everyone down was carried out exclusively by state television, she was Kyproulla’s superstar.
Young, lively and super-confident, Erini Charalambidou had become a household name as the hostess of the colossally boring variety show Efcharisto Savatovrado (Pleasant Saturday Evening), which featured an assortment of pleasantly, talentless performers, in between the draws for the CyBC lottery ticket.
Charalambidou had everything needed to succeed on TV – a great smile, bags of enthusiasm, warmth, a pretty face and the ability to talk endlessly without saying very much. Sometimes she displayed a sense of humour, which was a big breakthrough for state TV back in the days of solemn presenters as lively as a corpse.
At some point she left the show, but none of the replacements that followed were as good as her, even though one of them had a sense of irony and enormous tits. Erini married and started a family, staying out of limelight for some years. By the time she decided to make a comeback the dumbing down had become pluralist and she tried her luck, hosting a show on a private station, but it never took off.
She then moved to back the CyBC – where she hosted an afternoon chat show on which a different social problem was discussed every week. This is where the metamorphosis of the glam, fluff queen commenced. While she retained her bubbliness and warmth she started to deal with more serious issues of interest to afternoon-TV viewers.
Eventually she managed to get the show moved to a night-time slot and broadened its scope. This may have been facilitated by the election of the comrade commissar, whose camp Erini had cleverly joined before the vote, despite having been an Ethnarch fan in the past. Once she moved to the night-time slot her re-invention gathered momentum and she is now fully-fledged member of the insufferably pseudo-serious TV presenters’ club.
Not something everyone would be proud of, but Erini set an objective and not only achieved it, she surpassed herself. Her show ‘To Syzitame’ has the highest viewership of all the night-time current affair bore-fests.
REGULARS may be wondering why the Coffeeshop is writing about a jumped-up TV presenter in the aftermath of the Pope’s visit, at a time of critical developments in the Cyprob, a crisis of confidence in our airline-friendly government and the 2010 World Cup – all much weightier issues.
There are a number of reasons. First, we decided that we should start to report more about celebrities as we live in a celebrity culture and this is a gossip column. Second we thought we should report a few success stories, instead of always focusing on losers, morons and lawyers with inflated egos. Third, Patroclos was so flattered to be invited to Erini’s summer bash at the Sorrento pool bar that he felt obliged to give her some positive publicity.
Yes, Erini is having a big bash in 10 days in order to thank everyone who helped in the success of her show, which, the invite informed us, “established itself at the top of the AGB Nielsen viewership table for current affairs programmes in the last few years.”
THIS GLOATING about the success of her show will not endear Erini to her fellow presenters at the CyBC, all of whom have big egos and grossly inflated opinions of their abilities. Good for her, reminding her colleagues – the corporation’s overpaid, smug, humourless bores – that a former variety show hostess has a more successful current affairs show than them.
The former queen of fluff has become the queen of the political show, but we hope her reign does not last too long, because there are already signs of decline. For instance, her last two shows each had a party leader as a guest, which suggested that she may be running out of ideas and was emulating rival presenters.
This may be an indication that she has run out of sexy historical topics do debate – the most memorable of these was the ‘Cyprus Talks 1968-‘74’, featuring the Denktator and Clerides among others. Not a very current affairs topic, but if the viewers are tuning in, there must be a lot of masochists out there. Perhaps they enjoy the sermon given by Erini at the start of these ‘historical shows’. The formula works.
Probably her biggest success is that she is universally hated by the bash-patriots for occasionally challenging their heroic view of the past and inviting guests they do not approve of. Bash patriots also object to her unfashionable highlights which are very ‘80s.
BEFORE closing this subject, we would like to ask the new queen of the political show a question: Why does she invite so few women on her show? The last nine shows featured just two women. Nine shows ago she had the sister of EOKA hero Gregoris Afxentiou as a guest, while last Monday she invited the editor of Haravghi Androulla Gurov to question the Disy fuhrer. The rest of the guests were men. Is it because she likes being the only female at the party or because she thinks Cypriot women have nothing interesting to say about current affairs? We demand an answer.
POPE Benedict XVI’s visit went smashingly well despite the alarmist reports about organised protests against his presence. In the end, the very few protesting Orthodox fanatics were kept at a safe distance from the Roman Catholic heretic and were unable to cause even mild embarrassment to the government.
Although some 1,500 cops were on duty for the three-day visit, security was pretty lax for the public gathering. One Coffeeshop customer was allowed into to the Eleftheria Stadium gathering carrying a bag, which was checked by nobody. There was no metal detector equipment either, but it was unnecessary – cops would have stopped anyone with a bag big enough to carry a rifle or a missile launcher. Nobody would try to assassinate the Pope with a pistol.
THE BIGGEST risk of a minor disaster in front of the world’s media, was posed by the means of transport offered by the government. The Pope was chauffeured around in the comrade’s old Beemer, which he had replaced a few months ago, on the grounds that it had mechanical problems and often broke down when he was being driven around.
It did not break down once when it was ferrying around the Pope. We can only assume that when the comrade’s spokesman talked about mechanical problems it was to justify his extravagant boss’ decision to buy a brand new limo, he did not really need. If there was anything wrong with the car, I doubt it would have been used to drive the Pontiff around.
THE ONLY embarrassment, in the end, was caused by the violations of protocol by the female members of the comrade’s family. According to those who know about the protocol of papal visits, the first comrade lady should not have been wearing a white suit jacket when welcoming him at the airport. Apparently, only female Catholic monarchs can wear white in his presence. The other faux pas by the first family was that both comrade daughters wore dresses that left their shoulders uncovered when they met the Pontiff. This, we hear, is a big no-no.
Our foreign minister and world traveller, Marcos Kyprianou also committed a faux pas by kissing the Pope’s hand (only Catholics are permitted to do so) but does anyone care?
As long as nobody picked their nose or scratched their balls in his presence, I would say the protocol was pretty well observed.
