Weddings and telegrams

By Andrew Adamides

CYPRUS’ quest to turn itself into a glowing replica of Beverly Hills is progressing well, if arrangements at the latest society wedding are anything to go by.

Following the wedding of his son yesterday, Deputy Tassos Papadopoulos held a large and glittering party at his family home in Strakka (between Lakatamia and Deftera) last night.

However, as the house is on a main road, police had warned there could be no parking at the roadside, so invitations were accompanied by a letter informing guests there would be special parking lots provided for those who weren’t coming by taxi.

The lots were marked out with neon signs, and Group Four security men were at hand to aid parking.

But one major problem still remained: the daunting 500-metre stretch separating the car park from the ranch-style house. Would the guests have to set out on foot?

But the hosts were undaunted, laying on a shuttlebus to ferry guests from their cars up to the house every five minutes.

Beverly Hills, however, probably has a telegraph system that can cope with a glut of telegrams. It is thought the flood of telegrams on their way to the happy couple may have contributed to CyTA’s shutdown of the service early yesterday.

When a customer dialled 196, he got a recorded message reciting the opening times of the service – ironically confirming that it should have been available at the time of the call. On ringing 197, the fault report line, he was informed there were so many telegrams coming in that the single employee manning the phone had taken it off the hook at least an hour before the advertised closing time of the service (12.45pm on a Saturday), switching over to the tape so he could work in peace.

And so the unfortunate caller, who had himself wanted to send a congratulatory telegram to the bride and groom, was let down by CyTA.

A time for e-mail to replace the traditional wedding telegram, perhaps?

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.