I was casually surfing the net and stumbled across a web page published in 2008 that promoted Turkey as the low cost destination of choice for those wishing to live out their dotage in the sun. In between the usual flannel and hype I found a couple of blasé declarations that leapt from the page and beat me viciously about the face. The first stated that electricity costs “should be no more than £10 per month” and the second is that “Turkey will remain a low cost alternative for years to come”. Even if this was true at the time it certainly isn’t true now. Our last electricity bill was over 80 quid and the cost of our daily essentials seem to rise month on month. I don’t know how the locals manage and, with plummeting interest rates, I’m not surprised some of my fellow compatriots are struggling to make ends meet. I hear talk that, like the stateless nomadic tribes of yesteryear, emigreys are migrating en-masse to greener, cheaper pastures in the land of the Bulgars. We won’t be joining the camel train any time soon but if it carries on like this Liam and I will have to give up the sauce. Never!

Talking of web surfing, I was amused by the “gay hairy Turkish men” search that led someone to click on Perking the Pansies. I hope he (and assume it was a he) didn’t get too hot under the collar by the absence of hard core images of swarthy, hirsute men laying bare their assets and doing what Ottoman men have done for centuries. Now I’m getting hot under the collar.