THE DRILLING of Aphrodite might not have struck any natural gas yet, but it has facilitated the emergence of a new national saviour, in the shape of the director of the commerce ministry’s Energy Service, Solon Kassinis, the state’s natural gas spokesman.
Kassinis, named after the wise man of ancient Greece, this week gained entry into Kyproulla’s pantheon of living national heroes, rubbing shoulders with legendary freedom fighters such as Madsakis, Faustus, Koulias, Lillikas, la Theocharous, Lazarus, Ignatiou etc.
I would venture to suggest that Solon is the new Madsakis as he displays the same publicity-grabbing skills as the crazy doctor and loves showing off his indisputable bravery on television and radio.
Although a well-known public figure, as he has been imparting his wisdom on energy issues through the media for years, Kassinis has only revealed his heroic qualities in recent weeks when we were faced with the threats of the savage Turk. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and as long as he doth not cometh all over us, our just cause will be vindicated.
SOLON’S heroics were reported in last Sunday’s Simerini, which carried an article about how he singlehandedly overturned the government’s cowardly policy towards the start of the drilling in the Aphrodite plot.
The comrade president and comrade commerce minister, Praxoulla Antoniadou, were seriously considering postponing the start of the drilling, because they feared it could have led to the collapse of the ongoing peace talks. This was when the super-hero stepped in, saying that if the government called off the drilling he would have called a news conference and “revealed everything”.
Fearing a public backlash, the cowardly, comrade gave in to the bash-patriotic civil servant’ blackmail and gave the go-ahead for the drilling. Another factor that may have helped him change his mind was the amount of compensation he would have had to pay Noble Energy for the cancellation.
Solon was gracious in victory, admitting to Simerini that it was a difficult decision because of the political considerations and added: “What matters is that we went ahead, that Cyprus has its own national dignity and moves ahead on the basis of international law and without surrendering its sovereignty rights.”
If the Turks attacked the Noble rig, the comrade would have insisted he was not politically responsible for the decision to ignore the Turkish threats and start drilling, but nobody would have believed him.
LIKE ALL national saviours, Kassinis let his heroism go to his head. When it was pointed out to him by a radio show presenter that a Turkish paper had reported the drilling went ahead “on the initiative of the ‘pig-headed’ Solon Kassinis”, he proudly said that the word ‘pig-headed’ had been wrongly placed in inverted commas.
On Tuesday evening he officially entered the Kyproulla A-list celebrity club, when he appeared on a supposedly serious CyBC political TV show on which he made new revelations. He claimed the US, the EU and Russia were all pressuring the government to start the drilling, as scheduled.
The polite presenter did not ask him how someone at the energy service knew what foreign countries had been saying? Maybe he took over the running of foreign policy so as to ensure Cyprus has its national dignity in diplomacy as well.
Unless he gets his diplomatic information from the Prime Minister of Israel, with whom he claims to be in regular telephone contact.
THE PROUDLY ‘pig-headed’ Solon was not always the wise man of today. This is the guy who persuaded his not-so-wise minister Antonis Paschalides to make a complete fool of himself by imposing a plafond on fuel prices – a crazy joke.
But this was nothing compared to his prediction back in 2006, when he claimed that by 2010 we would be selling crude oil to all of Europe. In 2008 he said he would be visiting Israel to meet a man who had devised a solar energy system that we could introduce to Cyprus and have vast quantities of electricity for free. It has not yet been introduced.
In the same year, he told one newspaper that Cyprus should explore the possibility of a establishing a nuclear power plant, in view of the rising oil prices. Nuclear energy was cheap and there were no carbon emissions he argued.
I hope this was just his way of attracting some public attention, because if these views were a reflection of his wise judgment, it might not be such a good idea for the comrade to let him run the country. He might cause a war without realising it.
SPEAKING of war, I think the comrade should explore the possibility, if he really wants to boost his rapidly falling popularity. He will not regain the support he has lost by speaking to gatherings of the Akelite flocks or by calling on us to show respect for the institution of the presidency.
How can you show respect for an institution of which the Tof is president? I am convinced that his only hope of becoming popular again would be a brief and successful war against Turkey, which has been provoking us for weeks. Only this week, she sent that abomination of an exploration boat, the Piri Reis, into Aphrodite.
The comrade should recall that when Maggie Thatcher declared war on Argentina in 1982 she was the most unpopular PM in the history of Britain. After the Falklands war she won another three elections.
I HATE agreeing with the commies, but I think they are right in claiming that our establishment’s hero the DISY Fuhrer was preparing for presidential elections of 2013.
There have been a lot of tell-tale signs in recent months, but his unprecedented public attack on Big Bad Al, over the Aussie’s comments about possible UN mediation in the drilling dispute, was conclusive evidence. Until this week, he was the only party leader who did not participate in the regular hate campaigns directed at Al.
But as one skettos-drinking customer said: “I don’t blame Nik for joining the political lynch-mob. This is what works with voters, so why not make the most of it?” As for Al, after three-plus years here, during which time he has frequently been treated like the Antichrist, he still hasn’t learnt not to say what we do not want to hear.
KIKIS Kazamias, say his friends, is not looking in very good shape. How could he feel good when his comrade leader cannot even allow him to make the cuts to the budget that would meet the deficit target for 2012 that the government itself had set?
Next year’s deficit is the least of Kikis’ worries. Until the end of the year the state faces a shortfall of €500 million which he needs to cover in some way. This week €100 million worth of treasury bills would be auctioned and the banks are being pressured into helping out. If they do not there will be no takers.
The government has run out of domestic lenders as it has already raided all the provident funds of state-controlled organisations (it even sold bonds to the English School teachers’ provident fund) and the co-ops for its borrowing requirements.
This is no tragedy as the worst that would happen is that the public parasites will not get paid a 13th salary in December.
NEW YORK University finally posted the film of the eagerly-awaited Eighth Annual Emile Noel lecture presented by his Excellency, our comrade president 10 days ago.
The lecture, delivered from a comfortable arm-chair in front of a big fireplace, was another merciless assault on the English language, in which the comrade enlightened his audience about his childhood years in Dikomo, the Cyprob, the world economic crisis, the EU and much more.
There was also the continuous name-dropping. The name of President Sarkozy, a close friend of the comrade as we are constantly reminded, was dropped repeatedly, and Chancellor Merkel also got a few mentions, but the references to her were less affectionate than tho
se to Carla’s man.
“Sarkozy and Merkel are absolutely against Turkey entering the European Union, and we are in favour under some pre-conditions,” he said adding, “the majority are against the accession but the frontiers are Merkel and Sarkozy, but behind them there are a lot of countries.”
HE WAS particularly illuminating in giving his views about the world economical crisis.
“The fact that the market is the master of society and not the society the master of the market, leaded us to this abnormality worldwide. So we had to correct some, let me say, pieces or aspects of the system as such.
“I don’t propose to return back to real socialism. No, this is not possible. It is impossible anyway. But what I mean is that we have to correct the involvement of the states and of the governments and a little bit control the markets, otherwise there going to be victims of the great and big companies all over the world. And not only the economies of the developed countries and the economies of the developing countries because they are under full exploitation of the resources of these countries of such companies all over the world. So I don’t suggest nationalisation but kind of control is absolutely needed.”
THE NEXT excerpt, of the hour-plus lecture, was also featured on Cyprus television, as displayed the leader’s close ties with President Sarkozy.
“When the 16 met, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, in Paris – that time Sarkozy was president of the Council – they said that we have, as government and as states, to assist the banks. I raised something and said: ‘what are you doing? You are going to finance the banks, the States? This is something that if Marx is going to hear is going to come here and dance on the table.’
“Sarkozy said, ‘Demetris is right, but we have to do this.’ So let me say that we have to correct some aspects of the system because otherwise we are going to become all of us victims of the anarchy of the markets and will of the great business.”
He was also supposed to have mentioned elies tsakkistes (cracked olives) in his lecture, but I did not hear it, because I did not watch the video till the end. If you want to watch the show the link is: http://vimeo.com/29686083 (or see below) Enjoy.
POL POL has his big day tomorrow when he will release his report about the Mari blast, said to consist of several hundred pages. Akelites, fearing that Pol Pol might apportion some responsibility on their great leader, who knew nothing about anything, have been throwing dirt at him.
One of the rumours was that he was a Freemason, which from what I know is not a crime. Being a communist has got to be worse than being a Freemason. The other dig against poor old Pol Pol was that he wanted to become president, as if he had no right to entertain such ambitions.
The guy is much smarter, more sophisticated and infinitely better educated than comrade Tof and all other prospective presidential candidates, for that matter, so why should he not have such an ambition. He might not be as good looking as the comrade or have the same command of English, but he would still make a much better president.
I DO NOT want to sound as a defender of Antonis Fanieros, but I just cannot figure out what possessed the cops to publicly call on people who had information or complaints against him to report it to the nearest police station. Is this a new method of building a criminal case against a suspect? Will they employ the same method against everyone they arrest on suspicion of some wrongdoing or will it be used only for celebrity suspects?
I KNOW the advert was in Greek but, when it is translated into English it is very funny. It was advertising some German tools and the punch-line was “Show me your tool and I will tell you who you are.”
The Eighth Annual Emile Noël Lecture: His Excellency Mr. Demetris Christofias, President of The Republic of Cyprus from NYU Institutes on the Park on Vimeo.
