IT SEEMS strange that a 17-year-old road hog can be directly responsible for the death of an 86-year-old and get away with it. Drunken driving and driving without due care and attention in Cyprus receive minimal sentences, rather like smoking in public places.
Last Saturday morning, as if to flout the law, a large young man not wearing a crash helmet drove his high powered motorbike at great speed and repeatedly past the House of Representatives; around the block imperiously twenty times, raising dust and causing a hell of a din. Nobody stopped him, chased him, booked him for dangerous driving or displayed the slightest concern. Not a cop in sight other than those in 4WDs on their way to protect foreign embassies or parked sleepily outside periptera.
The following morning, the president’s cortege of Mercs flew by me on the Nicosia/Limassol highway. It often does, shocking me into an automatic response; both hands off the wheel and held in the begging position, middle fingers arthritically erect as it disappears into the distance.
It’s clever how ministerial chauffeurs resembling ‘hit-men’ do it – flashing blue lights, and the last of the three Mercs blocking the inside lane where I’m cruising at my usual 119 clicks – frightening! Why the dickens they think I might give chase, other than attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of the lot of ‘em for speeding, ich weiss nicht!
And just where is our president hurrying to if not yet another self-ingratiating cheek kissing session? Cut out the kissing and drive sensibly I say, or at least give me the chance to salute and receive the royal wave in return.
Most will be aware that the highway from Nicosia to the Larnaca/Limassol fork is being widened from two to three lanes. It might ease traffic flow but will certainly increase serious accidents – or will the fast lane prioritise three litre and above engines. What with a 100km per hour speed limit, who needs three litre cars at all; my two litre turbo-charged diesel accelerates to a hundred in third in 10 seconds. Perhaps Mme d’Erato Kozakou- Marcoulli (I do so delight in our Communications Minister’s title as well as her Luchino Visconti ‘Death in Venice’ facemask) might designate lane speeds like the Yanks, but this will only cause all three lanes of cars to reduce to around 110 when the highway is hectically busy.
Cars have come a long way since Morris Minor days. Most 1.5 litre family saloons have a top speed of over 150. To request we drive at no more than 65 on ring roads and 50 in built up areas is nonsense; most of us wouldn’t get out of second gear. And we know just how difficult it is to use our mobiles, eat a sandwich or gulp Coke in second gear. Performing all three at once doing 95 in top is the general rule.
A long-lost friend, who has just returned after a year and a half managing an Egyptian international sports team (sadly, I’m not at liberty to divulge which team for fear chauffeur ‘mechanics’ will be despatched from Cairo to bomb my car or permanently silence me and my long-lost friend), tells me driving habits there are abysmal, and in his studied opinion, Malaysia is quite the worst place to drive in the world. He thinks us suicidal, yet generally, good drivers.
But that does not excuse our president from turning a blind eye to ministerial chauffeur misconduct. He should set an example by not permitting them to flout the law with impunity like that Saturday morning biker. Perhaps the biker was expressing his dismay with a government who seems to write new laws every day then break them.
Prior to falling out with the Egyptian generals, my long-lost friend managed a neighbouring state’s sports team for five years; no booze, sex or ‘nite’ life. Imprisoned in his luxury apartment from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan, he was even denied access to certain geographic animal habit websites to help pass away those idle hours.
Although fags were available at nine dollars a carton, whisky and pork were unobtainable through normal channels. No way to live, and he was obliged to fly to Kuwait or Bahrain in search of familiar bodily sustenance, even though team-mate princelings kept bookcases of booze in their pseudo palaces and an Eastern European mistress or three on tap downtown.
He found their ordinary policemen lenient and the religious police fanatically strict – as strict as the Taliban are often reported to be. No woman dare be caught sans burqa driving a car or walking the streets ankle bare in search of fun, no man smokes in public, drinks or eats during daylight hours throughout that month.
After saving a princely packet, my friend has decided to retire to his homeland and rediscover democracy, freedom of speech, a vociferous press, glitzy and overly full-bosomed local TV channels and rowdy coffee shops.
He purchased a fully furnished and charming cottage like residence, settled in and installed air conditioning, filling the fridge with beer and Coke, the bar with Bombay Sapphire, Absolut Blue and Jura Superstition; the freezer with his aunt’s Moussaka and Pastichio, souvla pork and lamb. A week later, due to suddenly suffering blurred vision, he visited one of our many renowned clinics to undergo a full medical at a one off cost of €250. He was told he had extremely high blood sugar levels and the wrong sort of cholesterol – a true Cypriot!
Yet he is an extremely worldly and attractive 62-year-old and is now looking for a nice lady to care for him in his dotage – not a Cypriot, fearing she will quickly stuff him to death, nor a Russian after an excessive experience in Kuwait, nor a Filipina, who he suspects are too deliciously short for a man of his height and stature.
Although sylph like Vietnamese – who sensibly cook and eat dogs rather than sleep with them – are fast coming into fashion, I recommended he contact a bona fide marriage bureau and, if possible, marry a European unless he was related to a ministerial chauffeur able to acquire citizenship papers immediately for deliciously short Filipinas and fashionably fast, dog-eating Vietnamese. If not, he’d spend the rest of his life with this nice lady on a lead, trailing her around government departments interminably.
