Our neighbours decided on a three week trip to Ankara to visit their families for Ramazan. Apparently, Beril’s mother has been rather ill of late and that’s what all the rows have been about. Despite the heated cabaret they are engaging neighbours and nothing is too much trouble. Though, I must confess I’m rather looking forward to taking sole possession of our shared garden for a while. We celebrated last night by playing music at full volume, walking around naked and indulging in a little al fresco fun reminiscent of my youthful dalliances along Putney Tow Path.
Month: July 2011
Gay Marriage in New York
I’ve been following the debate about civil unions across the pond with interest and bemusement. America was founded on the noble principle that all men are born equal (although, at the time this sentiment didn’t extend to slaves or women). The States is not called the Land of the Free for nothing. Last month New York State legalised same sex marriage, the most populous state ever to have done so. New York has now joined a small select group that includes Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia. Because it’s New York, New York where Lady Liberty shines her torch the event has been widely reported across the globe. It’s even hit the media here in Turkey.
I assume I’m correct in thinking that a same sex union registered in New York has no legal standing in those states that do not recognise such relationships or have positively banned them. So it’s okay to be a child African bride, a forced Pakistani bride or a polygamous Arab but it’s not okay for two consenting adult Americans to decide who their significant other should be. What a strange situation. There will always be people who object to same sex relationships on moral or religious grounds. They are entitled to their views but are not entitled to force them on others. The wish of some to form a romantic bond with a member of the same sex is a personal issue. The legal recognition of it does not lead to anarchy and Armageddon.
What of my homeland? Civil partnerships were introduced in United Kingdom in 2004 which give same-sex couples rights and responsibilities identical to civil marriage. New Labour may well have put the country in hock for the next century but they did deliver a radical and comprehensive equal rights agenda. This was truly historic and I believe history will judge it so. About time too. I had become thoroughly fed up with a society that expected me to pay all my dues in return for second class citizenship and semi-rights. Liam and I married in 2008.
What of my fosterland? Homosexuality is not mentioned in the Turkish legal code and so gay people live in a kind of legal limbo neither protected nor persecuted, officially anyway. The Turkish Government has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of introducing equal rights for lesbian and gay Turks. I have to add, our obvious union has never received a bad vibe from the Turks around us. If anything the reverse has been true. As infidels we’re Hell-bound anyway so it matters little what we do.
America is not perfect, no country is, but it is a beacon of freedom and hope for people from less blessed lands. Some people are gay. It’s just the way it is.
You might also like Second Time Around
All Quiet on the Eastern Front
The guns have fallen silent on the eastern front. The constant heated arguments between our neighbours have mercifully abated. Whatever they were rowing about appears to have been resolved, for the time being at least. Lazy days on their side of the proverbial fence have become one long languid banquet. They eat constantly. I appreciate freshly prepared Turkish cuisine is less calorific and much healthier than most Blighty fare, particularly the convenience variety. Even so, if I shoved that much food into my mouth I’d be as big as the house. Perhaps this is why those pretty, slim young things with impossibly tiny waists and bums like two plump puppies in a sack develop into wide-bodied wrestlers. Not the steroid enhanced Yankee WWF kind. I mean the saturday afternoon grab and grunt kind that I used to watch on ITV’s World of Sport in the 1970s, brought to you by Dickie Davies. I realise this analogy will fly right over the heads of my non-Blighty readers.
Spain’s Got Talent
News from the other end of the Med. Swiss-based multi-national engineering company, ABB recently axed 160 jobs at a plant in Bilbao despite reporting record profits. Some ex-employees decided to do a full monty to highlight their plight. Spain has suffered particularly badly during the recession and 1 in 5 of the adult population is out of work. Thank you to Staying Sane in Spain for finding this. I find it a little cheeky but readers of a nervous disposition who find semi-naked hirsute men too seductive or offensive should change channels now. There’s a serious message blended with the fun. We should heed it.
Turk Season
July is Türk sezon and Bodrum is crammed with a richness of middle income people of all generations drawn from across the country taking their annual holidays before the start of Ramazan. The narrow streets are grid-locked and the air is filled with the piercing sound of cross monotone horns. We wandered out into the sticky evening to imbibe the ambiance and sink a few jars. We ambled behind the multitude of multi-generational families promenading along the marina. We headed through the bazaar, past the cheap boys with their cheap goods and snaked along Meyhane Sokak. Miraculously, we found a free place at one of the tall tables outside the semi-gay bar we’d stumbled across the previous year to enjoy the good-humoured scene around us. Alcohol consumption, particularly by women, is generally frowned upon in wider Turkish society. However, there was little evidence of this in the tequila slamming crowd. We had a ball.
Jack’s Titanic Tale
Friends invited us along on our first boat trip since our emigration, sailing from the pretty but hassle-bound Gümüslük Bay. We were accompanied by the definitive nuclear family with grandparents in tow. The mini-cruise was enjoyably predictable, dropping anchor at various identical brushy islets for a dip in the gorgeous translucent waters. I showed off my still impressive diving skills learned in my distant youth. Our cheery skipper provided a simple but serviceable meal of sea bass, pasta and salad. Over lunch, Mrs. Nuclear bored us with vapid tales of her multi-gifted progeny, a spoilt and rude little runt who showed little respect to his elderly grandparents. So underwhelmed was I by the tedious litany of his talents, I asked Mr Nuclear if Master Nuclear could do something about Syria.
Without warning, the Meltemia picked up as we headed back to port. Struggling against the mighty head wind, the boat smashed repeatedly against the heaving swell, drenching us with the over-salty waters of the Aegean. We bounced around the deck like jetsam on a trampoline. Fearing a Kate Winslett Titanic moment we clung precariously to anything we could find. Our gentle cruise intended to calm the soul and relax the mind had turned into a white knuckle ride on the high seas – most amusing and, of course, potentially calamitous.
Amy Winehouse RIP
I’m off message today to commemorate Amy Winehouse who died yesterday of a suspected drugs overdose. Her meteoric rise to fame and rapid descent into Hell was tragically predictable. Her seminal album Back to Black is work of a genius with lyrics laced with sorrow and utter desperation. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin and now Amy – all died at the same age. It’s not called the 27 Club for nothing. She just couldn’t come back from the black. Let’s hope she’ll be remembered more for her art and less for her addictions.
You might also like
Icing and Slicing
We were delighted to be invited to celebrate the forty something birthday of a brand new friend. Vetpat Vicki is a gorgeous gal with pretty eyes and the radiant smile of an angel. The drenching humidity failed to dampen our spirits as we supped and chatted into the wee small hours. Earlier in the day Vicki was treated by her Turkish nearest and dearest. A slice of Victoria sponge at three followed by the slaughter of a sheep at four. It’s a sign of things to come as we edge closer to Kurban Bayram, the annual feast of sacrifice.
Whirl Like a Dervish
To celebrate our deliverance from delirium, we fancied a night on the tiles and chanced upon a small nightclub, very Turkish and surprisingly chic. Turkish pop filled the room and young trendy things revolved around the dance floor like whirling dervishes. There was one tiny sensory drawback though, prompting Liam drunkenly to declare ‘my gift to Turkey is deodorant.’ Foreigners were definitely in the minority, though we caught the eye of a couple of likely western ladies, one of whom was topped off with a curly ginger perm and who writhed around the dance-floor like orphan Annie’s grandmother. We sang The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow knowing full well that it always does in Asia Minor at this time of year. Happy and contented we made our way home in the wee small hours picking up a kebab on the way; a very distant relation to the slop that’s dished up in Walthamstow.
The Horn Chorus
Turks are impatient motorists. Their ambling deportment on foot is transformed into Formula 1 wannabes as soon they get behind the wheel. Sometimes the narrow lane in front of our house is grid locked. This might be because a delivery truck is blocking the road by doing what delivery trucks do or simply due to the sheer volume of traffic trying to cut across town on market days. Crazy moped drivers weave dangerously through the static traffic and overheating drivers play the horn chorus. We watch the melee from the safety of our balcony. It can be quirky and comical, boisterous and baffling but rarely bothersome. However, we have witnessed two memorable hot-headed conflagrations, the first aided by a baseball bat and the second resulting in a violent push, a blow to the head and a few minutes on the ground unconscious. Still, I suppose it’s small beer compared to an average Saturday night in Croydon Centrum. To think that Alexander the Great, the most famous of ancient queens, marched along this very thoroughfare to claim old Halicarnassus (Bodrum that was) as his own before beating up the Persians and conquering half the known world. Get the madam!
Check out the book
Perking the Pansies 