MosquitoBeing four floors up a converted Victorian warehouse means, with the exception of the occasional determined housefly or misguided bee, we’re rarely troubled by high-flying bugs. But the other day a lone mosquito came into land just inches from my line of sight. We eyed each other up for while to see who would blink first. The feeble little Brit-bug had no idea who he was dealing with. During our Turkish days, squadrons of stealthy mozzies dive-bombed dinner parties and bled us dry during our sleep. But gradually over four years, our leathery old hides developed welt-resisting immunity. The ugly sucker staring back at me was no match for its voracious Aegean cousins. So I extended my arm and said,

Go on then, suck it and see.

Now bug off.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

10 thoughts on “Suck It and See”

  3. Nice little post Jack. I hope you don’t mind if I add a rider. Please view mosquitoes as more of an annoyance than a threat, but the tiny insects are far and away the deadliest animals on earth.

    The World Health Organisation estimates that 725,000 people are killed each year by mosquito-born diseases. A staggering 200 million people are at least temporarily incapacitated by malaria alone, of which 600,000 die.

    Dengue fever, yellow fever and encephalitis are also deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes.

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