THE MAN who appeared in Nicosia district court on Wednesday charged with being a public nuisance because he called the president a ‘vlakas’ last August, pleaded ‘not guilty’ and faces trial in June.
The 35-year-old, while driving his car had spotted the presidential limo on the road, poked his head out of the window and shouted ‘Fool, president resign’. He was heard by two presidential cops who, after an exchange of words, arrested him and took him to a police station where he had to give a statement.
The CM, in the news report in its Thursday edition, translated ‘vlakas’ as ‘idiot’ which originates from the Greek ‘idiotis’, but ‘fool’, I think, would have been more accurate as there is a subtle difference, ‘idiot’ being a slightly stronger term. Translation aside, ‘vlakas’ is not a word that causes offence to anyone nowadays, not even to the thinnest-skinned village idiots.
It should be noted that the man was charged for causing public nuisance and not for insulting the president. If he had been charged with the latter, his defence could have been that calling the president a ‘vlakas’ was not an insult but a statement of fact, which he would prove in the court.
THIS was not the only case brought by the authorities against citizens who spoke unkindly of the president. One hapless refugee pensioner now living in Paliometocho is facing charges of insulting the president during a chat in his village coffeeshop.
During the coffeeshop argument, the pensioner Takis Mattheou, according to a report in Alithia, asked: “With what authority is he going to hand over our properties to the Turks? Because he is president of the Republic, does he have the right to seize our properties and give them to the Turks?”
A communist snitch who was at the village coffeeshop, reported Mattheou to the police and he was subsequently taken in to give a statement. He denies having insulted our great leader and the court case, after several postponements, is scheduled to be heard in May, with the commie snitch being the main prosecution witness.
There have been press reports of another case. A man who was shouting abuse against the comrade with the fragile super-ego, during a football match, reportedly, has also been charged and is due to appear in court soon.
I feel a bit offended that all these people are being taken to court for insulting the comrade, and our establishment, despite all its efforts, has still not been charged.
IT IS NOT as if the comrade does not pick fights with newspapers. Before he became president, he filed a libel suit against Politis, because it described him as having a big bum. The paper had not even put it so crudely, speaking instead of his “ample posterior”, but the over-sensitive comrade considered this defamatory and sued for libel.
He was represented by the Tassos Papadopoulos and Associates law office as the offending article was published before he fell out with the late Ethnarch. The case has never been heard, one postponement following the other but the suit has not been withdrawn. The comrade has offered to withdraw the suit on condition that the newspaper paid the legal costs, but it has refused to do so.
If the case is eventually heard, the paper plans to summon the comrade and request that he has his bum measured so it could prove that its reference to his fat arse was factually correct and therefore not defamatory. There might have been a legal dispute over what constituted an “ample posterior” but this could easily have been resolved by seeking the views of experts on clothing sizes.
The comrade’s delusions have no limits. Deluding himself that he is a great statesman is one thing but deluding himself that he has small-sized bum that is worth going to court to defend, is just crazy.
THE INSULTS of the comrade have not been confined to Kyproulla. On Tuesday he was lampooned on French national television. He was featured for a few seconds on the Canal Plus show Le Petit Journal which takes a satirical look at current affairs.
The show featured a film clip of a limousine arriving at the EU summit, to the theme music of The Godfather, and the presenter asked, “At the EU summit, could you find Don Corleone?” The comrade stepped out of the limo and the presenter said “this was Cyprus.”
It doesn’t sound very funny, but likening him to Don Corleone is certainly more insulting than calling him a fool. Will he sue Canal Plus or will he just complain to his good friend Nicolas Sarkozy about the lack of respect shown to him by French TV.
You can see the film clip on http://www.canalplus.fr/c-divertissement/pid3351-c-le-petit-journal.html. Scroll down the page to Les Emissions, click the 31/01/12 show and fast forward to 10.40 minutes to see Don Christofias’ arrival.
WE NEVER expected such a stab in the back from France. The day after the offending show was broadcast, in an article about the comrade’s ability to secure foreign support for his positions, the editor of AKEL mouthpiece Haravghi wrote:
“That President Christofias succeeded in winning the absolute support of the French President – who on many occasions told him that ‘whenever Cyprus needs support we will be present’- must be appreciated by even those who do not back Christofias’ policy.
We know that Sarkozy does not control what is shown on French TV, but if Tof thinks he has Sarkozy’s ‘absolute support’ then he must have a small bum.
WILD celebrations greeted the statement issued by the Russian foreign ministry, arguing that it was not the time for arbitration, suffocating time-frames and the calling of an international conference on Cyprus.
It might not be the time, but the suffocating time-frames for an international conference have already been imposed by Ban Ki-moon and Russia cannot change anything, so why are we celebrating?
Spokesman Stef-Stef tried to offer an explanation, which was monument to meaninglessness. “The position of Russia is very important because it comes from a permanent member of the UN Security Council and underlines the need for the resolutions of the organisation to be respected and implemented by everyone without exceptions.”
He did not mention that Russia’s principled stand may have been secured by our principled government’s decision to allow the Russian ship carrying ammunition and weaponry for the murderous Assad regime to sail to Syria, despite EU sanctions. Indirectly assisting the murder of innocent Syrians seems a high price to pay for a statement about time-frames of no practical value.
LAST weekend, the Employers and Industrialists’ Federation OEV issued an announcement telling its members not to give their worker pay rises or the CoLA oat the end of the months. Unions were up in arms, threatening strikes and the labour minister Sotiroulla Charalambous decided to mediate.
It was inevitable that once the totally biased, former union representative Sotiroulla – whose arrogant and self-important style is truly comical – intervened any compromise reached between the two sides would be completely in favour of the unions. And it was.
There would be a two-year wage freeze but CoLA would be paid, while businesses “not facing particular financial problems” would give pay rises. The agreement would also prevent employers from making redundancies without first consulting a committee that would be set up by OEV and the unions in order to advise businesses on how “to avoid or restrict to the minimum possible lay-offs.”
I bet this Soviet measure, giving the right to a committee to tell businesses how they should run their affairs was Sotiroulla’s brilliant idea. But why did OEV, which is supposed to support the free market, agree to the unions having a say over a firm’s redundancy decisions and making suggestions fo
r measures that a business could take “in the exceptional cases that faces serious financial problems”?
If OEV has embraced the philosophy of the command economy that Sotiroulla and her boss subscribe to, it should inform its members.
THE OEV smart-asses were taken to the cleaners by the unions and Soviet Sotiroulla. Had they not publicly announced their demands and entered negotiations businesses would still have given zero pay-rises and increased working hours – staff know how difficult times are – and there would not be a committee of union reps that businesses would have to consult before making redundancies.
The problem is that OEV which negotiates collective agreements is as much a part of our inflexible labour market as the unions. Its employees justify their wages by negotiating with unions and agreeing wages and pay conditions for entire sectors, irrespective of the fact that sector does not consist of companies capable of paying the same wages.
This is why its negotiators went to Sotiroulla’s mediation and surrendered to the unions. OEV jobs would be safe for a few more years by maintaining this collective bargaining joke which keeps unions strong and businesses weak, even at a time of soaring unemployment.
WHAT A shame that turtle-lover Perdikis’ attempt to get the House to declare the super-biased pro-Turk, Big Bad Al, persona non grata and to seek his immediate replacement, failed. In the end, the House resolution was a mild slap on bum of the Aussie calling for the restoration of his “objectivity and trustworthiness.”
The only thing the Downer debate produced was a few amusing sound-bites, the best one coming from the monster-raving-loony Koulias who said: “He operates as if he is an extension of the occupation and an ambassador of the Turks.” Chief Eurocock Syllouris was more restrained. “Diplomats like Downer should be treated like enemies of Cyprus.”
Perdikis, despite going to all the trouble to arrange the debate, had to be satisfied with having his lamely unfunny sound-bite reported be the media. “Downer, go home to the kangaroos,” he said. Had he known that the kangaroos had successfully declared Al persona non grata in the outback, he would not speak so disparagingly of them.
A DAY after the legislature’s resolution about Al, Ban’s spokesman in New York expressed the Secretary-General’s full confidence in his Special Advisor in Cyprus. Will Perdikis now draft a resolution that would be sent to the Security Council demanding the replacement of Ban because he has full confidence in a man who “operates as if he is an ambassador of the Turks” and is and enemy of Cyprus?
WE ARE happy to report that the marriage of the Garoyians is in rude good health and that Marios and Rotika are still swimming in an ocean of boundless love and happiness. This was what the radiant Rotika earnestly revealed in an interview published in the last issue of Must magazine.
Things are even better since Marios lost the House presidency because he now devotes much more time to his wife. “We are going through the best times of our relationship,” she said adding that after two years of marriage “we have a great love that has not changed.”
The interview was given to dispel scurrilous rumours that the couple was splitting up, that Marios was cheating and that Rotika had beaten up an alleged love rival.
These were all nasty lies spread by people who were envious of the happiest and most in love couple of Kyproulla. As Rotika said: “Envy always exists, regardless of whether you are the most beautiful, the wealthiest or the happiest.” People who say the bad things “cannot imagine how happy we are together.”
The only thing missing from the perfect relationship was a child. “If it is God’s will we will have a child – the fruit of our great love.”
You have to admire Mrs Garoyian’s earnestness. You also have to admire her perfectly-shaped back-side which is shown in one of the photos accompanying the interview. I bet nobody would ever make fun of it as they had done of our poor comrade’s.
COMMENTING on the CM web-site last Sunday, a reader accused Patroclos of practising ‘hooligan journalism’. I have never been accused of hooligan journalism before, but I feel quite flattered and I think the reader may have coined a new phrase. I thank him.
