WHO COULD have believed that one of the comrade’s fiercest and most outspoken critics, radio show presenter Lazarus Mavros would have ended up defending the man he loves to hate. It happened on his Monday show when his caller was one of the self-styled leaders of the ‘indignant-awakened citizens’ Costas Tsangarides.
Tsangarides concluded a vitriolic attack on the comrade with the customary call for his resignation. Lazarus countered that Tof was the lawfully elected president, voted in by the majority of the Cypriot people, to which Tsangarides responed by saying “Hitler was also voted in by the majority of the Germans*.”
“Come on, you cannot say that Christofias is a Hitler,” Lazarus said. “He has a lot of similarities with Hitler,” insisted the indignant citizen. The presenter told him that this was an absurd claim, but the aggressive caller was unfazed, embarking on another anti-Tof rant and stressing he would not take back a word of what he said.
This gave Lazarus the opportunity to pose as the voice of moderation, for once, censuring the extremist positions taken by the two sides. These loony, ‘indignant-awakened’ fanatics will make us all feel sympathy for the comrade, who is no Hitler – he is cuddly teddy bear by comparison and doesn’t even have a moustache for heaven’s sake.
As for ‘indignant-awakened’ they are becoming rather irritating. They should take some tranquilisers to control their indignation and, hopefully, go back to sleep.
*Hitler was not voted Chancellor by the majority of the Germans in 1933.
HITLER would never have arranged a free pop concert in a Berlin park in order to endear himself to his critics (he would have put them in prison, if they were lucky). As for rallying his followers, which the comrade plans to do with the Christofias Aid gig tomorrow night, Adolf would have done that by invading a neighbouring country.
The gig became a big bone of contention, as many anti-Tofites and the indignant-awakened put pressure on Greek artists through web-sites and Facebook, not to perform. They were moderately successful. Several big names withdrew, but the majority of the artists did not give in to the pressure.
Inevitably the grandiosely-named Civilisation Movement, which organised the event, called a news conference to protest against the ‘intellectual terror’. Its chairman, Andreas Chrysanthou, a man with AKEL DNA, claimed that “an organised group exercised real terror against the artists who would participate, making threats against their lives and against their careers.”
What a shame that some cowardly, selfish singers were not willing to put their lives and careers at risk for the noble objective of boosting our president’s popularity.
DESPITE the fact that the Civilisation Movement had ‘AKEL satellite’ stamped all over it, AKEL apparatchik Chrysanthou declared the AKEL-promoted Christofias Aid gig was not the idea of any pro-Tof group which wanted to build support for the president, and that any such suggestion in the press was a lie.
Unlikely as it may seem, it is a lie, because only the genius mind of the comrade president himself could have come up with this brilliant idea – a pop concert to defend democracy, the constitution and institutions, promote unity and brotherhood and strengthen our side ahead of the ‘critical developments in the Cyprus problem’.
How many more reasons do you need not to go to a concert? Christofias Aid was not the idea of a group it was the idea of one man, the man who will give a self-pitying speech before the start of the concert, about the need to respect institutions and unite behind the president.
THE BREAD and games ploy dates back to the Roman Republic, when offering free entertainment and bread to the masses was a sure-fire method for ambitious politicians to rise to power. Roman emperors, in later years, also offered bread and games to keep the mob happy.
It remains to be seen if the Imperial Civilisation Movement, has arranged for Zorpas bakeries to offer free eliopites, tyropittes and pittes tis sadjis to the plebeians attending tomorrow night’s free bash.
I always said that the comrade and his advisors were a bit old-fashioned when it came to communications’ policy and manipulating public opinion, but I thought their methods dated back to the 1950s, not 120BC.
PRETTY-BOY television presenter and blogger Chrysanthos Tsouroulis suffered a big embarrassment this week. His image as the crusading campaigner for higher public standards received a bit of blow when it was revealed that the blogs he had been posting on the internet were not his work.
He would copy-paste big chunks of articles written over the last 11 years by leading Greek columnist Yiannis Pretenderis, change the names (where the writer referred to Greek PM Karamanlis, he would replace it with Christofias) and post it on the Sigma Live portal as his erudite and cleverly-phrased blog.
The hack who uncovered Tsouroulis’ theft, estimated that Sigma’s blue-eyed boy plagiarised some 80 articles penned by Pretenderis, without ever crediting him. Once the cat was out of the bag, last week, all the articles were removed from the Sigma archive and the word-thief wrote a half-hearted apology, commendably, in his own words.
“I want to belong to the category of people who, when they make mistakes, say they are sorry and do not repeat them. We all make mistakes. What distinguishes them is whether the intentions were good or bad.”
Now we know – systematically stealing another writer’s work and presenting it as your own, is the sort of well-intentioned mistake, we all make – an accident that could happen to anyone.
THE APOLOGY improved, as Tsouroullis explained that he plagiarised or, as he puts it, “chose to feature other perceptions” only in his personal blog. The articles written in newspapers were his work. He wrote:
“I adopted the thoughts and writings of respected colleagues, having adapted them to today’s reality, in order to highlight their timelessness. I recognise that I should have mentioned the primary source, an omission in which there was no intent of stealing intellectual property. My mistake”
As there was no intent, the theft of intellectual property by Tsouroullis must have been accidental. This could be a clever line of defence in court. A burglar, caught with stolen goods could tell the judge, ‘When I took the goods, your honour, there was no intent of stealing someone else’s property. It was a mistake born of good intentions’
YOU HAD to feel sorry for the well-heeled, former finance minister Michalis Sarris after he had spent seven nights in a pseudo-state police cell, as the Turkish cops tried to find pseudo-witnesses to testify against him. All they came up with was some kids being held for other offences.
Sarris was released on €47,000 bail and is scheduled to go to trial on November 16, facing charges of conspiracy to commit a felony, committing an act against the order of nature and indecent assault. Press reports suggested he was determined to go to trial in order to prove his innocence; this was also the advice of his lawyers.
This would not be a smart move, even if it means losing 47 grand. If he goes back he would be attacked by the Greek Cypriots for recognising the pseudo-court and he would run the risk of being found guilty by the court. The Turkish cops, who make our cops seem like Amnesty International activists by comparison, could find a couple of kids and make them give false testimony against him.
Forty-seven grand is a price worth paying for eliminating the probability, however small, of ending up in a Turkish prison, even for a couple of months.
ONE consequence of Sarris’ ordeal was to turn the normally homophobic Greek Cyprio
ts into gay rights champions, slamming the north’s colonial era, anti-gay laws, which we abolished more than 10 years ago. Back then, there was strong opposition to de-criminalising homosexuality by the Church and the party of traditional values DIKO.
But since those days we have become an open and tolerant society, embracing gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals and celebrating sexual diversity in all its forms. How could we re-unite with a place that persecutes sex between consenting adult males? I hope the comrade makes it very clear that there would be no Cy-solution if the TCs do not de-criminalise homosexuality at his meeting with Ban Ki-moon next Sunday.
BIG UNION bosses were keeping a very low profile in the last few weeks allowing their junior comrades of the teaching unions to advertise their irresponsibility, greed and selfishness. On Wednesday they all reared their ugly heads again, after minister of doom and gloom Kikis Kazamias was quoted as saying that the government might tax the retirement bonuses paid to public parasites.
The heavyweight union bosses warned there would be an “immediate and dynamic reaction” if the government dared to do such a thing, before repeating the familiar tune about the need to clamp down on tax evasion. Paying zero tax on a retirement bonus that could be in excess of 300 grand is not tax evasion it is a worker’s conquest.
THE FINANCE ministry has drafted a bill that would allow the state to prop up the banks, if faced with serious financial problems, by injecting capital. It is difficult to believe that technocrats have been wasting time on such majestically pointless exercise.
If there is a run on the banks, where would the state find the capital to bail them out when it does not have the funds to pay its monthly obligations? Would it borrow a few billion from the international markets at 16 per cent interest so it would also need bailing out 12 months later?
The bill envisages that if the state put capital in a bank, it would have the right to appoint its own board of directors to run it. What are the chances of anyone keeping their money in a bank run by a board of directors appointed by comrade Tof?
HAVING failed to win any support after the Mari blast with the antiquated and rigid communication skills he learnt at the Soviet propaganda school, in the last 10 days the comrade has decided to employ new tactics.
He is now acting like the wounded, wronged, misunderstood hero of a cheap melodrama in the hope that the public will take pity on him. Last week, putting on a sad face he told hacks “I am very bitter. Why shouldn’t I feel bitter? We have a sensitive president.”
A few days ago, he was still bitter announcing that “the opposition is so hard and inhuman it makes people think that we are doing nothing, that we are a disaster, that we are murderers, that we are killers…”
It really got me when I saw him. I wanted to drop what I was doing, run to him, cuddle him, comfort him and tell him that we still loved and cared for him.
I REGRET to say that I made a mistake. In last week’s Shop I reported that the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra’s chief bassoonist lived in the occupied north, but I have been informed by one of his colleagues that he lives in lovely Lakatamia. I can assure him that I have dealt very harshly with the person who misinformed me, but I take full responsibility for reporting the incorrect info and would like to apologise.
Like Tsouroullis, I want to belong to the category of people who, when they make a mistake, out of good intentions, say they are sorry and do not repeat it.
