OUR HEARTY congratulations to the big Aussie, assisting the effort to find a Cyprus solution for Turkey, as last week he gained entry into Kyproulla’s Hall of Infamy, voted in unanimously by the selection committee of veteran patriots, respected conspiracy theorists and renowned xenophobes.
In the Hall he joins a long list of prominent foreign diplomats, special envoys and former UN Secretaries-General, all of whom had secretly plotted to shaft the Greek Cypriots but were eventually found out by alert hacks and politicians. It also includes, ex officio, the British High Commissioner.
They include former Secretaries-General, de Cuellar, Boutros-Ghali, the much reviled Annan, their special representatives, such as Gobi, Camilion, Feissel, de Soto and an assortment of Yank and Brit envoys, the best-remembered of whom were Dick Holbrooke and the universally-detested Lord Hannay.
It was quite an achievement for the low-profile, Big Al Downer, considering he has not even completed a year on the island and during this time has proved disappointingly aloof and a true master of the bland, inoffensive public statement. How he secured entry into the Hall of Infamy, with such an unimpressive record is puzzling.
I am beginning to suspect his entry was a case of rusfeti, which in the long run could only harm the status and prestige of the Hall. Before long, leading members like Lord Hannay, Annan and de Soto, would write to the selection committee to complain about the unacceptable lowering of the entry requirements, which cheapens the value of the distinction.
We now await the official induction ceremony at which Al will have to repeat, three times, the phrase taken from a Carry On movie: ‘Oh infamy, infamy, these Greeks have got it in for me’.
BIG AL knows however that, once you have entered the Hall of Infamy you cannot be kicked out even if you stand up in Eleftheria Square and chant ‘Cyprus is Greek, Turks out’. We are not in the business of forgiving foreigners, who want to solve the Cyprob.
How did the Aussie become a Hall of Infamer? He had meetings with yes-voters, at which he reportedly discussed ways persuading people to accept a settlement, if there was an agreement between the leaders; he also, allegedly, said that if there was no deal this time there would be partition.
Hacks and the bash-patriotic politicians were seething after reading a report about what he had, supposedly, said in last Sunday’s Phil which described his tone as “arrogant and threatening”. On Monday lunch-time there was TV chat show discussing Big Al’s despicable behaviour. How dare he make threats about partition and why did he have a meeting with yes-voters were the big questions repeated by the guests of the show.
Hacks focused on the fact that he had had a ‘secret’ meeting with treacherous ‘yes-voters’ to discuss how a possible referendum should be approached. But what did they want him to do, invite people who did not want a deal to discuss the rejection of a settlement?
WHAT caused the greatest offence and clinched his entry into the Hall, was his alleged expression of disgust for two daily papers and two television stations. According to Phil (one of the papers that allegedly disgusted Big Al) his “exact phrase in English” was, “I am disgusted…” Apart from Phil, the paper said, his disgust was also, allegedly, extended to Simerini, Sigma and Antenna.
What disgusted him, we never found out, although columnists speculated that it was the media’s coverage of the Cyprob. The possibility that he may have been referring to the TV stations’ locally produced soap operas was not explored.
Big Al twice denied – first through the UN spokesman and then personally – that he had said he was disgusted, but nobody paid any attention. The bash-patriotic camp had decided he had said it, pilloried him for it, recommended him for entry to the Hall of Infamy and there was nothing he could do about it.
Soon he will learn that foreigners must keep their views to themselves. The idea of a jumped-up Aussie freely expressing his opinions about our media is just too disgusting for words.
BUT WHEN the expression of a damning view about a paper is from our number one citizen, it is a different matter. Phil did not write anything about the disgust, expressed by comrade presidente for its negative coverage of the peace talks.
Four top journos plus the paper’s head honcho had gone to the palazzo de popolo to interview comrade Tofias who, we hear, had a go at them for the paper’s abject negativity in covering negotiations and its continuous criticism of his handling of the talks.
Takis Kounnafis, the paper’s second in command and ultra-patriotic, weekly columnist, reportedly said that his critical comments were intended to strengthen the presidente’s bargaining power at the talks, to which Tofias is said to have replied: “Ma xiourizis me re Taki?” (are you shaving us Taki?).
This is a Cyprus dialect idiom, which means ‘are you taking the piss?’ The comrade’s rant must have had an effect because Takis’ column last week did not make any attempt to further strengthen his bargaining position at the talks.
THE FORMER Denktator may have no pseudo-official position in the north any more, but he never misses a chance to give public advice about the Cyprob and the talks. It is a bit of a shame that now there are so many Greek Cypriots who share his hostility to the talks and opposition to re-unification, he does not have the power satisfy them.
In an interview last week, the Denktator called on the Turkish navy to stop the US ship that was carrying out explorations for oil off the coast of Kyproulla, for the Cyprus government. “If I were the president I would have quit the negotiations,” he said.
But how would this be possible? Had he forgotten that he would have quit the talks several weeks earlier? After the Orams decision he said, “If I were president I would have quit the negotiations.”
BUSINESS continues to boom for our presidente’s favourite building contractor, Miltiades Neophytou, who is also chairman of our presidente’s favourite football team.
Neophytou’s contracting firm, reported last Sunday’s Politis, landed a contract after bidding €21.6 million for it, while the second cheapest had bid €22 million. Neophytou “is always the cheapest and always through crystal clear procedures,” wrote Thoucis.
Two days later, Phil, also wrote about the project, but implied that the procedures were not as crystal clear as Thoucis thought. Under the headline ‘Query’ it asked, how Neophytou (it did not name him but it was obvious it was referring to him) was awarded a road-building project, for which one of the requirements was to have undertaken a similar project worth at least €7 million? Neophytou’s company did not satisfy this requirement as its only previous road-building project was worth half the above amount.
The paper asked: “Is it now a given that all tenders for projects will be won by our super-player? And why do they bother asking for tenders?”
VISITORS to the Hilton Hotel last week may have been as pissed as one of our regulars, over the lack of parking spaces. The police had closed off the section of the car-park in front of the building so there would be room for the coaches ferrying athletes to and from the events of the XIII Games of the Small States of Europe.
The lack of parking inspired a rant by our regular, who thought the idea of Games for Small States were ridiculous. “What is the point of these games? It is like a porn film festival for small dicks or a wet T-shirt contest for the flat-chested. Who cares about the small dick games?”
THE SMALL dick games had another negative effect. CyBC 2 was broadcasting live coverage of the games for hours every day,
which meant it could not show much tennis from the French Open, despite having secured the TV rights.
I suspect the corporation’s bosses were not too bothered about this waste of money, as the main reason they had paid for the French Open rights was in order to show the matches of local hero Marcos Baghdatis. Unfortunately, Baghdatis, whose career has taken a nosedive, since his appearance in the Australian Open final in 2006, was knocked out in the first round at Roland Garros and the CyBC’s interest in the tournament evaporated.
As for Bagdatis, the only thing you can say is what a shameful waste of a great talent. He could have won a Grand Slam event but the way he is playing now his only hope of a title is at the tournament of the small dick games.
SPEAKING of the CyBC, you’d expect the public broadcaster’s employees to show a bit more of a public spirit. Ever since work was started on the parking area (the unions had demanded that it was asphalted), employees have been parking their cars on the pavements in the surrounding area, leaving no room for pedestrians.
Police headquarters is just down the road, a three-minute walk away, but not once has a cop ventured to the area to issue parking tickets. I bet the CyBC unions secured permission from the police command to for their members to park on the pavements, because they are performing an important public service.
STAYING on the subject of roads, could anyone in authority inform us why a 40-metre stretch of road, adjacent to the Apollonion Hospital car park in Nicosia has been made one-way? It just does not make any sense, adding substance to my suspicion that most decisions for one-way roads are totally random and have nothing to do with improving traffic flow – the primary concern must be to annoy drivers.
Unless of course the decision, to make the 40-metre stretch of road one-way, was taken when Al Capone was staying at the Apollonion, the police wanting to limit his possible escape routes. If this were the logic we take back our criticism and apologise.
EVERYTHING went smoothly at the wedding of the comrade presidente’s daughter the previous weekend. The cops made sure the traffic in the area was moving, there was little parking on pavements and the waiting time in the queue, to congratulate the newly-weds was less than 60 minutes.
A police security operation was needed for dealing with the wedding gifts. Apparently, all the gifts were taken by members of the presidential police guard and put in a lorry, which the transferred them to an open field somewhere. There, the cops unwrapped every gift and checked what was inside the package. They did not check the small white envelopes that were given to the couple.
THE ABSENCE of AKEL’s parliamentary spokesman and challenger for the party leadership Nicos Katsourides, from the dinner party given at the Hilton Park by the couple did not go unnoticed. Kats rarely declines invitations to social events for the great and the good of our society and his absence was seen as a snub of comrade presidente.
His excuse was that his wife was unwell, but AKEL insiders reckon he has not yet forgiven the father of the bride for openly supporting Andros in the party leadership contest earlier this year.
AGAIN we received complaints for dropping our ‘words of wisdom by Michalis Ignatiou’ feature for two successive Sundays. We are happy to resume services today, with an extended excerpt from last Sunday’s ‘Letter from Washington’, which is the title of the US-based hack’s weekly column in Phil.
It is particularly appropriate as it coincides with the Queen’s Birthday Party, which would be celebrated later this week in Nicosia. “Last week Cyprus felt the deathly British embrace at the UN Security Council,” he wrote and then offered the following bit of wise advice to comrade presidente, with regard to his dealing with the back-stabbing Brits:
“He (Christofias) must stop not only trusting them, as he had done at the start of his term, but also seeing them and consulting them. He has absolutely no reason to sit and talk with the rude British diplomats, who are champion Turkophiles, bad-mannered and make fun of him.”
