SEVERAL of our regulars were among the 400 guests at Kyproulla’s swankiest, glitziest social bash of the year last Thursday night at the multi-million euro Pyrga residence-cum-art museum of the Phil group boss and owner Nikos Pattichis and his wife Myrna.
The event was held to honour some of the 150 individuals that were declared “great Cypriots”, for being “pioneers in politics, economics, business, the arts, culture, science, education, sports,” by Phil and have featured in a three-volume publication that the group has been selling through the newspaper.
Kyproulla’s crème de la crème was all there – prez Nik, his ministers, the party leaders, a former president (but not comrade Tof), families of former presidents, the top state officials, captains of industry, bank bosses and the super-wealthy. Had the RAF Tornados dropped their missiles on the party instead of on the Akrotiri runway a day earlier, our entire ruling elite would have been wiped out.
The guests were seated in the grounds of the residence and our regulars were impressed with the perfect organisation. There was valet parking, staff to direct every guest to their seat after they were warmly welcomed by the hosts and had a stroll around the house to view Nicos’ art collection.
Thirty of the 150 “great Cypriots” were honoured at the bash and those that were dead were represented by a member of their family. There was a one-minute video about the life of the great man (a couple of women were also included), then a ‘mentor’ introduced him and then the great Cypriot, or if he was dead his relative, made a short speech, before being given the Phil certificate of greatness by the mentor.
PREZ NIK got up to make presentations for former president George Vass, a visionary and pioneer, the late Tassos, a super-committed patriot, and Glafcos Clerides, who was like a father to him. However our regulars present cringed at the way the prez grovelled to Pattichis, praising him and his newspaper to high heaven.
The so-called mentors and the honoured greats, or their relatives, lavished so much praise on Pattichis and paid him so many compliments someone would have thought that he was the man really being honoured by the event. The only mentor that did not utter a word of praise for the host was the departing CEO of the B of C John Hourican when introducing Sir Stelios ‘EasyJet’ Hajioannou, who was not present.
Hourican was at the same table as Nobel prize-winner Christoforos Pissarides whom he was constantly asking to translate what was being said and could not stop laughing at what he was hearing. A foreigner who has lived all his life in the big wide world could not help see the ridiculous side of this smug, provincial extravaganza that declared an individual great because he was patriotic or made a bit of money in business.
The glamour, style and opulence of the event – our moles were very impressed with the mobile WCs that were wood-panelled, with porcelain sinks and paintings – could not hide the parochial nature of the whole project.
IT WAS a very big surprise that Makarios was not one of the 30 greats honoured on the night. He is among the 150 included in the book, but as a former prez that Phil slavishly worshipped, treating him like a deity for the 17 years he was in office, it seemed incredible he was not honoured during the event.
Our establishment’s complaint is that the truly great former president Spy Kyp was not even included among the 150. This was another president whom, during his 10 years in office, Phil loyally supported but now decided he was not even worth a mention in its book. We think it was a scandalous omission considering Spy was as patriotic as Tassos, as visionary as Vass and, most importantly, the founder of DIKO which alone qualifies him for greatness.
Even stranger was the inclusion in the 30 of Dr Faustus who, unlike Spy, never won a presidential election despite standing several times, and did very little in his over-long career as a politician other than make passionate, bash-patriotic speeches.
A man of many fancy words and no action, Dr Faustus, 95, was nevertheless the subject of some embarrassing brown-nosing by his protege, Yiannakis Omirou, his successor as EDEK boss. Omirou told the guests that Faustus’ reputation as a champion of worthy causes had gone beyond the boundaries of Kyproulla and he had become an “international personality of resistance.”
He has been very well rewarded by the Cypriot taxpayer for his international resistance work, mostly conducted from the luxury suites of five-star hotels. Faustus has been living in a government house all his life and paying a nominal rent, been provided a posse of police bodyguards, state limo, super-generous state pension and €3,000 per month for secretarial services he does not use, as former president of the house.
Does this make him a great Cypriot and one more deserving of recognition than Spy Kyp?
THE PHIL boss obviously seems to think so. He is the man that decided on his own the 150 great
Cypriots; no mention of a selection committee, criteria or explanation of how the individuals were chosen and why Spy Kyp was excluded.
The selection appears to have been done exclusively by Pattichis whose ego must have been given a mega-boost by bestowing greatness on his grateful countrymen. And the truth is he received more praise and adulation on Thursday night than any of the guests he was honouring.
But his real greatness was that someone else picked up the tab for the swanky bash he threw. The ‘Great Cypriots’ was sponsored by the B of C to the tune of 60 grand and by OPAP that gave closer to 100 grand. With such a sharp business mind, Pattichis should have been among the 150 great Cypriots, but his well-known modesty did not permit him to include himself.
NEGOTIATOR and national sacred cow Andreas Mavroyiannis did not make the cut of Pattichis’ list this time but I am certain he will be anointed a great Cypriot if he manages to get elected President of the UN General Assembly for Asia/Pacific in 2016.
Mavroyiannis’ campaign, the 80 grand bill for which is being picked up by the taxpayer, took him to Addis Ababa last week for the UN 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development. He was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Conference, representing Asia, the Tass news agency reported.
He went to Addis Ababa as a “Special Ministerial Envoy of the Cyprus Republic”, which was a clever way to cover up the real reason for his trip and to justify the expense. This week he will be flying to New York, where he will be hosting a dinner at the Big Apple’s top Greek restaurant as part of his election campaign. Will the Cypriot taxpayer pick up the tab?
It would not be a surprise if Tass news agency reports that he is in New York for Cyprob consultations with the UN.
MANY were asking last week whether Junior had lost the plot. Junior, who until a few months ago, was urging the government to become assertive like Alexis Tsipras and re-negotiate our memorandum with the Troika, has suddenly become the biggest champion of the memorandum.
On Thursday, he said: “In the last few weeks we saw the experience of Greece and what happens when a country needs assistance and support and is not in a programme. And this experience confirmed the correctness of DIKO’s policy. Because it is with our responsible initiatives that we pressed for the voting of the insolvency framework, kept Cyprus in its assistance programme and safeguarded its stability. Thanks to our sense of responsibility the Cypriot people did not have to pay the high price to establish what is correct, in contrast to what is happening today in Greece.”
Was it not DIKO that tried to derail the programme by blocking the implementation of the foreclosures law? Meanwhile, on March 7, impressed by Tsipras’ assertiveness, the responsible and prudent Junior had said: “At the time Greece negotiates, stakes its claim and wins, only the government of Cyprus does not discuss the re-negotiation of the memorandum.” Three weeks later he said “the re-negotiation of the memorandum, in the case of Cyprus, could be crowned with success if we took on board the example of the Greek government in claiming improvements to its programme.”
It is a good thing the government showed a sense of responsibility Junior was demanding that we followed Greece’s example.
JUNIOR’S occasional advisor on economic issues, former Central Bank governor Athanasios Orphanides has been in town the last couple of weeks giving interviews and appearing on TV shows giving his views about the situation in Greece and to a lesser extent Kyproulla.
Orph, like his nemesis comrade Tof, has staked a claim to infallibility. Three years after he stepped down as governor we are still waiting for him to admit he made even a tiny mistake during the time he was in charge of the Central Bank. He left behind him one bank on the verge of bankrupty and another in deep trouble, but still refuses to climb off the mount of infallibility he has been camped on for years.
PRESIDENT of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker was also in town last week giving a push to the Cyprob talks, meeting the two amigos, promising to back a settlement with hundreds of millions of euro and praising our government for its commitment to the assistance programme. He failed to thank DIKO for its role in keeping the country in the programme which was a big omission.
The one tangible success of his visit was the halloumi deal he brokered between Nik and Mustafa, but do not ask what it involves. We will find out when bash patriotic cow farmers start moaning that the deal favours Turkish Cypriot sheep farmers and leads to recognition of the pseudo-state.
Juncker is a good buddy of our Nik, their friendship going back many years. From what I hear it was forged by their shared fondness of Scotch and cigarettes to which they remain committed to this day. Our establishment congratulates both for not giving in to the growing intimidation of the health fascists.
PRESIDENT Putin’s big fan club in Kyproulla should take note of how their hero cuts spending now that the Russian economy is not doing very well. On Monday Putin signed an order reducing the maximum number of staff on the Interior Ministry payroll by 10 per cent, which meant 110,000 people being sacked. There were no negotiations with unions, no compensation and no early retirement option. The guy signed a decree and 110,000 people were sent home without protesting or demonstrating in the streets.
