PSYCHOLOGISTS and behavioural scientists one day might be interested to study the lunacy cycle of our House of Representatives.
It starts in a relatively mild form in October and progressively becomes more acute, reaching its apogee in July just before the summer recess. The last session is always a festival of unbridled lunacy. If it were taking place in any other building in the capital, it would end with men waiting outside, holding straightjackets.
But our deputies enjoy parliamentary immunity and are free to behave as crazily as they like – even when their actions pose a very real threat to our society, our economy and our sanity. There are some notable exceptions but they are too few to have an impact.
Why do I mention this? If I knew, this item may have gone somewhere, but I fear the lunacy is more contagious than swine flu and masks offer no protection – especially those that Antenna revealed were ‘made in Turkey’.
THE LAW banning smoking everywhere except houses and the canteen of the House of Representatives (on the grounds that it has a high ceiling) was a big surprise, even by our own very high standards of irrationality.
Our deputies have not accustomed us to passing ultra-harsh laws, guaranteed to piss off large numbers of voters. They usually opt for half-baked laws, featuring several legal loopholes that are aimed at pleasing both the people who are in favour of the measure and those opposed to it. How did they suddenly pass a law guaranteed to piss off all smokers, who must account for at least 30 per cent of the voting population?
(Here, Patroclos must declare an interest. He is a smoker, so if his ranting does not attain the usual high standards of objectivity and you detect a hint of bias, you will know why and, hopefully, forgive him for allowing his disgusting addiction to influence his views.)
There is a suspicion that Health Committee deputies were forced into approving the bill through a combination of misinformation and intimidation, by the holier than thou anti-smoking crusaders, led by the insufferable, moral zealot and turtle-lover Giorgos Perdikis.
DEPUTIES, who are genetically indifferent to what happens outside Kyproulla, were led to believe that there was a blanket smoking ban in all EU member states and on Monday gave the green light for the bill to be taken to the plenum for approval.
On Tuesday, when newspapers published info about the anti-smoking laws in other EU member states, deputies realised that they had been duped. People could still smoke in pubs and restaurants in Germany, Austria, Belgium and Greece, so why had Kyproulla opted for much tougher legislations, more in line with the UK’s? But it was too late to make any changes, as the bill and the committee’s report supporting it had already been prepared.
Deputies could not complain that they had been misled as they would be advertising their ignorance. And they could not make a big fuss, because they would be pilloried in the press again, just as they had been the previous week when it was reported that deputies were blocking the approval of the bill because they were smokers.
The tree-huggers’ party issued a statement condemning the delay and attributing ulterior motives to the heroic deputies who were resisting the fascistic provisions of the law. The intimidation worked, with the heroic resistance crushed and the health committee unanimously approving the health fascists’ bill.
THERE are things that are much more harmful to a person’s health than passive smoking. Listening to the sanctimonious Perdikis giving sermons about saving the world, liberating Kyrenia and constantly advertising his moral/patriotic superiority in public places, causes high blood pressure which is potentially lethal.
I know several people whose blood pressure hits danger levels as soon as they hear his sermons. Yiannakis Omirou also has the same effect on people’s health. So when will the Greens draft a bill to safeguard public health by preventing them from speaking in public places? The health of passive listeners is depending on them.
SMOKERS must not despair because not all is lost. It appears some deputies ensured that the bill could be amended before the implementation date, January 1, 2010, arrived. This was stipulated in the Health Committee report that accompanied the bill.
Close to half the deputies were not present when the actual voting on the bill took place. Only 31 out of 56 were there and the bill was carried with 27 votes. Was this because a big number of deputies did not want to be debited with supporting the ban and lose votes from smoker voters?
It was a correct move, because the Smokers’ Liberation Movement has already drafted a list of the supporters of the bill and will make sure they are not re-elected.
SAINTLY tree-hugger Perdikis went one step further than his expected big fuss about smoking in the last session of the House. He also gave a very worthy moral lecture against the abhorrent phenomenon of avoiding national service.
“Nobody can be exempted from fulfilling his obligations towards society,” declared Perdikis during a debate in the legislature. “Equality of obligations and rights for everyone are inviolable,” he decreed.
You have to admire the guy’s nerve. His son was exempted from fulfilling his obligations towards society and discharged after serving only 12 months. But even in the 12 months he was supposedly serving he was mostly at home, practically demonstrating the ‘equality of rights and obligations for everyone,’ his daddy values so much for other people’s sons.
THURSDAY’S session also approved the creation of another 1,200 public sector jobs, part of the government’s ‘jobs for Akelites’ policy. Ethnarch Junior blasted the bill, saying it would widen the fiscal deficit and put Kyproulla under Brussels’ supervision.
Fellow DIKO deputy, Angelos Votsis – a staunch supporter of the fascistic smoking bill – subsequently informed the House that his party would be supporting the bill. DIKO was convinced that the government had done its homework and could afford to pay for the new jobs. In other words, Junior, the party vice-president, was talking complete nonsense.
Either that or nobody had thought to inform Junior that the government had bought his party’s support by promising to give some of the new jobs to DIKO supporters, in which case the prospect of state bankruptcy had ceased to be a matter of great concern.
THE LUDICROUS mass production of heroes – honouring the men who had allegedly offered resistance to the 1974 coup – continues. You would have thought that we would have run out of cops to honour after the two bills passed by the Ethnarch’s government, giving promotions to some thousand cops.
The people-friendly government, however, has discovered more resistance cops that need to be honoured. It transpired during the debate that many of these cops were not even cops in 1974 – they were 13- and 14-year-old schoolkids, resisting the coup by refusing to play marbles and lingri with the sons of coup supporters.
Commie parliamentary spokesman Nicos Katsourides, silenced everyone by asking why a student could be considered an EOKA hero, but not a resistance hero? And Kat is one our smarter deputies… Anyway, at this rate, before long the government will be giving promotions to the sons and daughters the resistance fighters.
THEN WE wonder why our police force is a shambolic den of corruption and ineptitude. Could one of the reasons be that too many incompetent, coup fighters are now in high-ranking positions, while able cops are directing traffic and manning speed traps?
At least our cops finally identified the main cause of crime last weekend – gambling and usury. Gamblers borrowed money from loan sharks to pay their debts and when t
hey could not make repayments, the lenders resorted to violence.
An impressive discovery – even though I could have told them that the regular car explosions were just a last reminder to a borrower from loan sharks, who do not trust the postal service, that a repayment was due.
IT WAS inevitable that the loan sharks would become the target of the media and the politicians after the police revelations. Why were the evil loan sharks not arrested, everyone asked, only to be told by the Attorney General that they were doing nothing illegal.
Anyone can lend money and can set whatever interest rate they want, just like the banks. One of establishment’s customers was charged 13 per cent interest by one of the banks, because he had delayed settling a short-term loan. Alternative repayment arrangements had been made, but because he did not sign them on time, a 13 per cent interest was slapped on his company.
If that is not loan-shark practice, then nothing is. The only difference is that the bank does not put a bomb under your car when you delay repaying the loan.
NOBODY likes a loan shark but it is difficult to subscribe to the consensus view that the borrowers are the innocent victims being exploited by the ruthless Shylocks.
If a gambler goes deep in debt it is not the loan shark’s fault. And he goes to the loan shark to borrow cash because no bank or co-op will give him a loan; so he pays an extortionate interest rate to get the money. In my thinking, the gambler has only himself to blame because nobody forced him to gamble and nobody forced him to do business with a loan shark.
But in Kyproulla, nothing is ever our own fault; we are all poor, defenceless, blameless victims of evil outside forces. I bet the loan sharks are British.
IT MUST be said that the debt collection methods of the loan sharks are significantly more effective than those provided by the law. Say a business customer owes a company 50 grand and refuses to pay; he will be taken to court and wait a minimum of two to three years for the trial to be completed and decision to be issued. Then the court will order the debtor to pay €100 a month, because he cannot afford a bigger instalment, until the loan is fully repaid. Even our justice system operates on the assumption that the borrower is a victim.
OUR GOOD friend Charilaos also took the side of the borrowers on Wednesday, when he engaged in his routine rant about bank interest rates being too high. He also urged banks to treat borrowers in a more humane way, offering additional credit facilities to groups which were encountering financial difficulties.
Banks, he said, “must give extensions for the repayment of loans, give them some discounts on interest rates and avoid imposing punitive charges for delays.” Bank and co-ops should treat “these groups with sympathy,” advised our caring and sensitive Finance Minister, who is fast becoming the government’s very own Mother Teresa.
He knows the banks will completely ignore his pathetic advice, but it helps cultivate his new image as a sensitive philanthropist who cares about the poor and unfortunate victims of our society.
IF YOU read in tomorrow’s Offsite that the government’s 2+ lane will be introduced, do not believe it. The electronic newsletter wrongly announced the start of the measure the previous two Mondays. The first time, it blamed its mistake on the Communications Ministry’s website, while last Monday it avoided blaming anyone for being offside.
Offsite did however congratulate itself for its revelation that “diplomatic circles in Nicosia and abroad” were considering not having referenda if a settlement agreement was reached by the two comrades, for fear that it would be rejected. The story provoked a “host of statements” by party leaders, it boasted.
Shame that this big scoop was about as accurate as the previous Monday’s story about the introduction of 2+ lane. Everyone, including the government, denied there was any truth in the story, but, for some strange reason, it was not mentioned by Offsite.
WHAT’S all this about feeding Mia Farrow, you may well ask. Woody Allen’s ex-wife has become Yervant der Parthogh’s latest target (along with self-proclaimed culture vultures of the Nicosia scene and beyond). Yervant’s first solo exhibition entitled 47.11 (don’t ask!) Feeding Mia Farrow opens at ‘Apotheke’, which one finds by walking down the second turning on the left after Lions’ House near Phaneromeni (or the turning after the No Borders lingerie shop – if you prefer).
The artist’s vision is somewhat impaired by myopia and astigmatism as well as a tendency to view things askew, but I hear his installation is fantastic. Apparently, the artist is sick to the back teeth of the likes of Mia Farrow and her 11-day fast in support of the people of Darfur and believes she should watch less news on television.
Opens on Monday at 8pm and runs for a week.
