Tales from the coffeeshop by Patrolcos
WE ALWAYS knew that comrade presidente desperately wants to be loved, which may explain why he tries so hard to be all things to all patriots.
What we hadn’t realised was that he is also one big, cuddly bundle of insecurities, unable to cope with any form of criticism directed at him personally. Three times in the last seven days, he betrayed the thinness of his skin, publicly sulking because his undisputed wonderfulness had been doubted by some mean-spirited nobodies.
Last Sunday, in the third successive interview he had given to Phil in three weeks, he lashed out against critics of the government’s efforts to secure the much-talked about Qatari investment and responded to the rumours circulating about backhanders.
“They said we would take backhanders from Qatar. I consider these (rumours) big insults to my person. I have something to boast about myself until the day I die, it is my empty pockets and my reputation,” he told the interviewers and added: “I do not allow anyone to disparage me and tarnish my name in this vile way.”
He forgot to mention that he does not allow anyone to speak ill of his wife either, but he said that a few weeks ago, so it is on record. Nobody picked up the point about his “empty pockets”, which I think is a bit of a provocation to the tens of thousands of proletarians who earn a tiny fraction of what their guardian angel is paid as a salary.
A man who has been paid more than 100 grand per annum plus tax-free allowances, for years now, is being socially insensitive when he boasts about his poverty and demands sympathy for his empty pockets.
WHAT IS the betting that Phil would carry yet another interview with the comrade today? They kicked off with one three weeks ago that was published over two days. Then the paper published one after the Euro-elections, in which the touchy comrade analysed the election results and there was one last Sunday as well.
What has caused this outbreak of love between the paper and the comrade? Presumably, the paper has got over mourning for its beloved Ethnarch and can now concentrate on building its relationship with the current numero uno. We wish them a long-lasting and loving relationship, because like everyone we are suckers for a happy ending.
RETURNING to the comrade’s fragile ego, it was also critically wounded by an article in the Reuters News Blog about the Cyprus talks. The article was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the hyper-sensitive comrade was so offended by it he felt obliged to make a public statement, without anyone asking him to do so.
The report said, “what comes out of the negotiating room more than anything else is shouting,” but it put a positive spin on the screaming and shouting, quoting someone saying that this was “part of the intimacy” of the two leaders. This was not what hurt the vulnerable comrade.
The injury to his pride was caused by the unacceptable questioning of his capabilities. “Both of them have trouble grappling with the language and terms. They are not lawyers like Clerides and Denktash,” the report said adding that talks were moving too slowly.
The upset comrade told bewildered hacks at Larnaca Airport on Thursday that Reuters had accused him and Talat of “being apprentice, wizards (it did not) who are unfamiliar with legal terms.” But the Cyprob was a political problem and not a legal one and should have been approached as such, he said. It was the lawyers who had failed to solve it.
Valid point, but did he have to get his knickers in a twist over a blog? Yes, because such reports were “provocations” that “undermined the (peace) efforts” and were part of a conspiracy “to take the substance of the problem somewhere else”. Finally he made a plea to our media, “not to become messengers or broadcasters of these provocations”.
I do not know about the others, but we will heed the advice of the insecure one and refrain from publishing provocative reports that undermine his self-esteem.
OUR WISE leader was too busy nursing his hurt ego to notice the real provocation of the blog, which quite deviously undermined the Cyprus Republic and presented the president of the Republic as having equal status with the pseudo-president of the pseudo state.
The caption of a picture of the two comrades shaking hands, referred to them as “Turkish Cypriot leader Talat and Greek Cypriot leader Christofias”. Now that’s a provocation that justifies public sulking by the presidente.
THE SULKING did not end there. After dealing with the blog, he turned his attention to former justice minister Appomenos Appomenou who had told Sigma TV the night before that the state and police were turning a blind eye to the illegal activities of underworld figures, who were running companies and controlling football clubs.
The president knew exactly what was going on and the level of corruption said Appomenos, sparking another bout of sulking by the wounded comrade. “If he referred to me, I consider it an insult and a violation of all ethics both by the station which broadcasted it and Mr Sophocleous.”
Stations and newspapers needed to show more respect to him, advised the vulnerable comrade. He is being naïve if he thinks the media would self-regulate and self-censor. Unless legislation is passed to protect the president’s ego, by the end of his term he could be reduced to a helpless bundle of nerves.
IT IS NOT only the president who has fragile ego. On Thursday, night when Appomenos was defying his advice and repeating his corruption allegations on a TV station, the president of Ermis Aradippou football club, Loucas Fanieros, called to demand respect.
Loucas, who drives around in a Hummer, called the station to inform it that Appomenos was referring to him as the member of the underworld who owned a football club and that he did not approve of the pussyfooting. If Appomenos had something to say he should say it openly, he said, implying that politicians had no balls.
During the Euro-elections it was politicians who were calling the alleged members of the underworld begging them for votes, the Ermis Aradippou president said. Whether Appomenos, a candidate for Edek, had called him, he did not say. What he did say was that he refused to help people who did not support the same party as him and from what we know he is too intelligent to support Edek.
SORRY that we cannot bore you this week with the goings-on at Diko but we decided that monitoring the party squabbling and the meetings of the party organs, was soul-destroying and more harmful to our health than smoking.
The row however, between two leading party members – parliamentary spokesman Andreas Angelides and newly-elected MEP Antigoni Papadopoulou – at the House was another demonstration of the party members’ adherence to high principles and ideals.
Antigoni, who is set to head to the European Parliament, was angry about the failure of the House to pass a bill that would give employment in the civil service to three employees of the International Conference Centre which was closing down. Angelides was opposed to the bill as it was unconstitutional, but Antigone did not buy this.
She claimed Angelides was opposed to the bill, because he had as a client of his law office at least one person who was employed on a casual basis at the Conference Centre and was also demanding to be hired in the public service. She implied he was blocking the bill in order for another bill to be drafted that would secure a public service job for his clients as well.
The moralising on the radio shows the next day, as the two bickered about their moral superiority and ethical standards was nauseating. Essentially it was over who had betrayed Diko’s rusfetolgical values.
ANTIGONE, perched on her moral summit, castiga
ted the conflict of interest and censured Angelides for not informing the House committee that was discussing the bill that he had a professional interest.
But Antigone who was championing an unconstitutional rusfeti bill, was hardly the person to give moral sermons. The legislature had wasted dozens of hours on a bill that was drafted for the benefit of three specific individuals, who obviously had connections with the party. And the bill is a violation of the law which gives authority exclusively to the Public Service Commission to appoint civil servants.
Does Antigone draft a bill every time three people are sacked from a private company to get them employment in the public service? Why are these three people so special that they need a tailor-made, unconstitutional bill?
And Angelides, on the other hand, is demanding that a different legal arrangement is made that would be constitutional, to “safeguard the prestige of the legislature”. That it would also benefit his client, who is excluded from the current sham of a bill is another matter.
I AM INFORMED that Antigone’s attack on her comrade was not motivated exclusively by her high rusfeti ideals.
Apparently she wanted to get her own back on Angelides, whose son Simos was a rival candidate on the Diko ticket in the European Parliamentary elections. Instead of behaving magnanimously in victory, she wanted to get her own back on Angelides, because she felt he had not fought a fair campaign for his son, a loser.
Diko’s family values were also evident when Antigone went to the offices of the European Parliament in Nicosia immediately after her election. The first question she asked was whether she could hire her husband as her assistant and her son as a researcher. She was crestfallen when she was informed that the European Parliament changed its rules from this year and now barred MEPs from hiring a relative as an assistant. “But how could they, my husband has a PhD,” she reportedly said.
Antigone may have said she would put Turkey in the dock as soon as she was elected MEP, but finding a job for her hubby was obviously a bigger patriotic priority.
THERE ARE ways round the restrictions set by the European Parliament, if a MEP is desperate for cash. For instance, the MEP could hire a close and trusted friend as an assistant and he could just give the salary paid by Brussels to the MEP. I bet there are loads of British Euro-MPs who do this.
There are also honest ways of making money out of Brussels. Every MEP is entitled to between 30 and 50 club class airline tickets to travel their country. One clever Cypriot MEP, we hear, always travelled economy class and pocketed the difference in the air fare. This could mean an additional €15,000 per year.
THE CHUTZPAH of our good friend Charilaos, is unrivalled. On Tuesday morning he was on a radio show to discuss the Central Bank Governor’s announcement that the rate of growth this year would be 0.4 per cent. The Central Bank had got its predictions wrong and had to revise them downwards said a gloating Charilaos, enjoying ticking the boot in.
But our finance minister does not have the right to talk about the predictions of others. His ministry has revised its growth forecasts downwards at least five times since the first figure of 3 per cent was announced last year.
HOWEVER our socialist government’s efforts to bankrupt the state remain on track. Charilaos said last Monday that state revenue has plummeted in 2009. Property sales were down by 75 per cent meaning that revenue from capital gains tax and transfer tax had been drastically reduced as had revenue from VAT and corporate tax, as a result of the economic slowdown.
Three days after these gloomy figures were announced, it was reported that the government had submitted a supplementary budget to the House for the creation of a thousand new public service jobs unemployable layabouts with party conncetions. The way the government is squandering money the only economic target it will be able to meet is state bankruptcy.
ILLUSTRIOUS member of the Hall of Infamy Gunter Verheugen, the vice president of the European Commission who is stepping down this year, was in Kyproulla earlier this week and had no difficulty in stirring the passionate hatred of the bash-patriots, with his “provocative” statements.
Simerini’s editorial on Wednesday, was a prime example of the warm Cypriot hospitality extended to the much-detested German. “Provocative, sarcastic and abusive to our people,” was how the paper described him reminding its readers of the “passion with which he supported the Annan abortion, and his subsequent vindictive mania against the Cyprus Republic”.
“He returned to the scene of the crime more hostile, more vindictive and more provocative. He returned to pour his poison once again, to mock the pain of the refugees and put salt in the wounds of the people.”
If any of these foreigners, we abuse so lavishly, were half as touchy to criticism as the vulnerable comrade, we would have been responsible for several suicides and nervous breakdowns by now.
