Bodrum has arrived and acquired a laid-back sophisticated buzz you can feel. Unlike many of her Aegean sisters, Bohemian Bodrum is chock-a-block with holidaying Turks. This is where the well-heeled come to get well-oiled. I wonder what the urbane Turkish social elite sporting Lacoste polo shirts, M&S Blue Harbour cotton pants and loafers make of the half-naked pot-bellied Brits who waddle along the smart Marina promenade in Nike trainers and extra-large synthetic shorts from JD Sports? I observed a family of tattooed honey monsters looking lost and disoriented in animated conversation. It was almost as if they’d been beamed in from Benidorm. Virtually every second word was an expletive. I have nothing against the occasional curse. I’ve been known to use the odd ripe Anglo-Saxon profanity myself from time to time. However, I swear with care. They cussed because of a limited vocabulary.
Month: July 2011
The Seven Links Project
Natalie from the Turkish Travel Blog nominated me to take part in the Seven Links Project which was started by Katie at Trip Base. If you’ve not heard about the project, here are the rules of engagement.
‘To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor (sic) to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.’
THE RULES
- The Blogger is nominated to take part by another blogger
- He/she publishes their 7 links on their own blog. One Link for each category
- They nominate up to five more bloggers to take part.
I like the idea because often once a post is read it’s dead which is a bit sad. Mind you this hasn’t stopped me re-cycling my old tosh like repeats on BBC Entertainment. So here are my offerings…
My Most Beautiful Post
I don’t really do beautiful, well not since I was 21 when I had cheekbones to slice cheese with. There are acres of fabulous blog pages out there crammed with exquisite writing and stunning photography and Perking the Pansies isn’t among them. Perking is about observation, satire and irony (at least I think it is). However, someone kindly said of one of my posts ‘This is one of the freshest pieces of writing about Istanbul that I have read for a while. I am new to your blog and am looking forward to exploring more. Superb’. Who am I to argue?
My Most Popular Post
I originally wrote my personal classification of ex-pats because Liam thought it might help readers to understand and remember some the new terms I’ve coined or purloined such as emigrey, sexpat and the like. It seems to have caught on and is far and away my most popular piece. The list has even been included on other blogs.
My Most Controversial Post
I always try to be culturally sensitive and respectful of the faith of others though I draw the line at treating women as chattels and marrying off children to their cousins. The trouble is that I’ve been godless since I was a boy and I can’t help poking fun at all those funny old fairy tales. Mind you I just love a classic Hollywood Old Testament epic romp. Anything starring Chuck Heston will do.
My Most Helpful Post
Like beauty I don’t do helpful. I’m not an agony aunt and who am I to tell people what to do and where to go on holiday? Therefore I’ve picked something about the Turkish language not because it’s helpful but because it’s informative (kind of).
A Post Whose Success Surprised Me
I’ve been deliberately courting the site sharing service Stumbleupon. Few seem to know how the system really works as the algorithms they use to distribute websites to their users is shrouded in mystery. One day I posted a piece about Liam’s compositions then stumbled it. A few minutes later my pansy map went berserk and I had one the biggest hit surges ever. It goes to show what a good title can do. I only hope the hundreds of spotty teenagers across the States weren’t too disappointed. I’m sure few returned for more.
So You Think You Can Write a Pop Song?
A Post I Feel Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved
Gorgeous Kym invited me to be a columnist on her new website about the Aegean Coast of Turkey called On the Ege. I was both flattered and delighted. The trouble is my debut article didn’t really fly which surprised me because I really liked it.
The Post I am Most Proud of
Just after I started writing about our adventures in paradise canny, clever Karyn at Being Koy contacted me to ask if I’d like to guest post on her blog. It was my first invitation and I bit her hand off. The piece I sent her just flowed from my pen (well keyboard actually) virtually unchanged from the first draft. Karyn inspired me. I subsequently reposted on Perking the Pansies. I still think it’s one of the best things I have ever written which probably isn’t saying much. You be the judge.
Now for the bloggers’ chain letter. In no particular order the nominations from the Pansy jury are…
- Karyn at Being Koy
- Alan at Archers of Okcular
- Deborah at Bitten by Spain
- Alexandra at Death by Dolmus
- Linda at Adventures in Expatland
As if they haven’t got enough to do keeping on top of their blogging and writing work, and getting on with their unique lives.
But for the Grace of God…
We were shocked and saddened to hear of the fatal car crash on the Torba Road that killed Engin, the chef from Koşede Restaurant in Yalıkavak and seriously injured his wife and child. We used to eat in the restaurant from time to time. We were only on nodding terms with Engin but know Emra, the front of house, a little better. The scale of the tragedy hit the news. The article in the Bodrum View is in Turkish but hardly needs to be. The pain on Emra’s face says it all. It brings back horrible memories of our own near death experience on the same road. I’m not religious in the slightest but think at these times but for the grace of God go all of us.
More Dolly Tales
Following our mini-break in breezy Yalıkavak we returned home to sultry Bodrum. As usual we travelled by dolly. As usual, it was chock-a-block. Sat immediately in front of us were a young Turkish couple with their infant who loudly asserted its discomfort in a way only babies know how. It seems to me that during waking hours a new human’s only function is to eat, pee and poo using their tiny but powerful lungs to proclaim their pre-occupation. Unfortunately for us it was the latter need that was being expressed on this particular occasion. The doting parents dutifully obliged with a full service. The only ventilation on a dolly is airflow from the front as it moves. We tasted the full potency of the pungent evacuation.
The Juggling Smuggler
On our last day in Yalıkavak we ventured again into the village for a sunny stroll and a spot of lunch. We were greeted by a host of familiar waiters, foremost of whom was Ahmed the Kurd. Handsomely constructed, entrepreneurial Ahmed has a flirtatious charm and dishonest eyes. He juggles his life by waiting tables during the summer and smuggling contraband across the Iraqi border during the winter, bribing the border guards with cartons of Marlboro’ Lights.
After lunch, we sauntered back to the house for a final dip and a nap before our return home. On route we spotted little bit gay, local boy Rasheed sitting alone in a lokanta. We approached him for a cheery, shallow chat. It pained us to find him unkempt, fidgety and broody, so different from the flirty, chirpy chappy we’d met just a few months before. He said that he hadn’t been able to find work this year. This will have left him close to penniless. We offered a few words of solace and a refill which he declined. We left him to nurse his tepid Nescafé.
Happy Birthday America
I’d like to extend a huge thank you to an individual from Burlingame, California who has single-handedly doubled the hits to Perking the Pansies for the 4th July, American Independence Day. I really hope you like what you read and will come back again. Burlingame, the City of Trees, is a small community close to San Francisco. It looks like a charming place to live. Perhaps Liam and I will get to visit one day.
On this side of the pond it was Independence Day long before our Yankee cousins awoke from their slumber and began their tea party. It made me wonder how the course of modern history might have been different if mad King George III and his hapless ministers had agreed to the reasonable demands of the thirteen colonies to be represented in the British Parliament.
Happy Birthday America. No hard feelings.
PS: It would be thoughtless of me not to mention the dedicated Pansy Fan from San José, Costa Rica who has visited hundreds of times over the months. I don’t know who you are but I’m indebted to you. ‘I thank you’ as the glorious Julian Clary would say.
Irfan the Slut
During our stay we strolled down to Yalıkavak for a spot of dinner and a trip down memory lane. We had a few snifters in the bar where last year the pretty stripping barman had danced around us prettily. He was nowhere to seen so we assume he’s moved on to greener pastures where the dancing is more profitable.
I spotted Captain Irfan sitting alone and beckoned him to join us. He did so enthusiastically and ordered a fresh round of Rakıs. Conversation was subdued as Irfan’s grasp of English has barely advanced beyond the ‘enjoy your meal’ stage and our Turkish has remained deplorable. Irfan leered at every bit of skirt that passed by, regardless of age. His lewd behaviour pressed me to exclaim ‘Irfan, you are a slut’ to which he enquired ‘What is a slut?’ My explanation drew the broadest of grins and the proud response ‘Yes, I am a slut!’
Irfan doesn’t really get us. In his world man on man action is, at best, a minor sideshow to the main event. Despite this he makes an affable, protective host which prompted Liam to depict him as the village muhtar (head man). Mighty Irfan was mightily flattered by the accolade. Finally, as the bar entertained the dregs we returned to the house for a final glass of red and a naughty skinny dip.
Hi-De-Hi
Alan’s daughter Samantha was holidaying on Rhodes so he and Charlotte decided to join her for a few days. They offered us unlimited access to their wine cellar and use of their plunge pool in return for cat feeding duties. We accepted without hesitation. Like the Raj of old we headed for the hills to escape the Bodrum heat. We spent a romantic and restful three nights in their luxuriant but unpretentious home overlooking Yalıkavak in the company of various soporific felines and their assorted multi-coloured offspring. The breezy calm was only occasionally interrupted by the call to prayer and the municipal public address system informing the townsfolk of local events, planned power cuts, road closures and the like. It’s a cross between 1984 and Hi-De-Hi. Liam was in frisky, horizontal mood as we lazied around the pool. He whispered to me
I’m ready for my blow job, Mr De Mille.
Ultimate Blog Challenge
I’ve just joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I have to post every day for the whole of July. Well, I post every day anyway so where’s the challenge?
Tarty Chic
We sank a jar in a glitzy overpriced watering hole along the marina promenade and observed the rich-kids at play. The children of the Turkish urban elite are a strange breed. Many of the boys wouldn’t look out of place in Soho and the girls drape themselves in expensive tarty-chic virtually indistinguishable from the Russian ladies of the night who ply their trade discretely around them. It all conveys an emancipated image that I suspect is illusory given the deeply conservative nature of society even at the highest echelons.
Perking the Pansies 