Category: Blogging

Stop and Search

Fellow jobbing blogger Deborah writes Bitten by Spain, an amusing narrative of living on the Iberian rural edge. Deborah commented on my recent post about the Turkish Government’s attempt to curb suicidal driving. Deborah wrote:

‘We have an absurd situation here at the moment whereby the Spanish police are stopping to fine all extranjeros for driving in sandals without heel straps, or not having the dog belted into the back seat. During this operation a moped can be passing unsanctioned bearing two adults with a child sandwiched between them and a goat in the front basket. And none of them will be wearing helmets.’

It made me think of our own experiences of the local Jandarma. Road blocks are common, particularly at night. Drivers are routinely stopped and their particulars checked. The authorities are looking for drunk drivers and uninsured or un-roadworthy vehicles, all too common offences hereabouts. It’s the Law in Turkey to carry ID at all times. We often forget. Being Brits we’re just not used to it. We’ve been stopped a number of times by a youth in an ill-fitting uniform. On each occasion we smiled sweetly, spoke politely in English and were waved on. We assumed the spotty conscript just didn’t think it was worth the hassle. Or maybe we were just lucky.

Alice’s Bucket List

It takes a lot to make this cynical old queen cry. Okay, I confess. It doesn’t. I cry at sentimental films cleverly contrived to elicit an instant emotional response. I cry when Karen (Emma Thompson) realises that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is having an affair in Love Actually. I weep when Mary (Joan Plowright) and Arabella (Judi Dench) wave farewell to Luca (Baird Wallace) in Tea with Mussolini. I am inconsolable when Ste (Scott Neal) and Jamie (Glen Berry) run through the forest to the soundtrack of Make Your Own Kind of Music by the Mamas and Papas in Beautiful Thing. It’s an acting thing and it gets me every time.

Alice Pyne is not acting. Alice has cancer and she has a blog. She writes:

‘Hi, I’m 15 years old and live with my parents and sister in Ulverston. I’ve been fighting cancer for almost 4 years and now I know that the cancer is gaining on me and it doesn’t look like I’m going to win this one 😦 I’m hoping to write in here as much as I can and I’m also going to show my bucket list which I’m trying to get done before I have to go. Hopefully, I’ll update as I tick each one off the list :)’ Alice’s Bucket List

I began to read Alice’s wish list out loud to Liam. I had to stop half way through. It was all too much. Her courage astounds and humbles me. It should humble us all. Alice has restored my faith in humanity. Thank you Alice.

Pansies on the Go

Google Blogger has just released a new mobile phone version of the Perking the Pansies Showcase which makes reading the Showcase on the go a breeze.

Perking the Pansies Showcase

Road Runner Writing

Although I get a buzz from it, this blogging lark is a cumbersome business that requires dedication, stamina and forethought. In order to preserve an independent life away from the keyboard, I write fast and frequently.  After all, we migrated to rest our weary bones not to develop a repetitive strain injury (actually I’ve got that already which is why I use a full size keyboard and an odd looking roller mouse thingy).

The trouble with the Road Runner approach to my minor art is the inevitability of typos, grammar errors and daft gaffes when I speed write or replace a word and don’t recheck the sentence. Changing a positive to a negative can have a devastating effect on the meaning and get me into hot water. Added to this I become word blind and simply don’t see the clangers staring me in the face. Spell checkers help a bit though WordPress employs American spellings that just get in the way. Liam does his best to proof read my posts but he isn’t always on hand to slap my injured wrist.

I beg your indulgence for my slipshod style. God help me for the book.

More Cheesy Tales

A few days ago I posted a tale of two cheese shops. What I shamefully failed to mention is that Yellowwedge Cheese (the shop) and What’s for Tea Tonight, Dear (the blog) are hoping for a gong from the Observer Food Monthly Awards. The shop is owned by David and his partner Philip and caused quite a stink in 2008 by running away with the British Cheese Award for Best New Cheese Retailer. Not bad for a couple of old reprobates.

Philip is a treasured old soul and the Imelda Marcos of scarves (the wrap-around-the-neck kind, not the bad hair day kind). He never travels by open top car for fear of being strangled like Isadora Duncan. He and I worked together for donkey’s years. I managed him for a while though I was always left wondering who really worked for whom. His innate intelligence is beautifully blended with creativity, wit and style, and the ability to drink me under the table.

Philip sent out a begging letter a short while ago. He wrote:

Dear Friends,

Voting in this year’s Observer Food Monthly Awards is open now and will close on 24 June. There are several categories which might be of interest (you can vote in as many or as few as you like) but I’m shamelessly trawling for votes in the categories:

  •  Best food blog (UK based)
  • Best independent local retailer

 My humble recommendations for your consideration in these categories being:

 I’ll leave you to work out which is in which category!

I’d be grateful for any support you’re happy to offer so if you have friends, family, colleagues, schoolmates, children, parents, students, tutors, parishioners, customers, clients, readers, editors, drinking buddies, PAs, personal trainers, hairdressers, naughty bits on the side or anyone else you think may be interested then please feel free to GO VIRAL and forward freely!!!

Philip

PS in the new category of Best Cookbook my vote goes to Lucas Hollweg’s Good Things To Eat 

If I didn’t agree to plug the nominations Philip threatened to dispatch a Lancashire bomb (a black waxed cheese in the shape of a sphere with string poking out the top). No pressure then.

Gorging on Cheddar

There are a number of food obsessions that often preoccupy the everyday emigrey life. We’ve attended many a Come Dine with Me soiree where the conversation inevitably turns to bacon, ham, pork chops and cheddar cheese. Visa hops to the Isles of Greece are a regular excuse to stock up on pig products and emigreys return from Blighty with trunk loads of larder essentials. Coming to stay? Bring a few bricks of mature cheddar with you. It’s a precious gift worthy of the Three Wise Men.

The French are amused by our national love affair with cheddar which they consider to be an insipid, mass produced atrocity that doesn’t even have to be made in Somerset and is indicative of our immature palate and dreadful cuisine. This Gallic jeer is not without merit but is hardly very entente cordiale. We all know our continental cousins can be insufferably smug, eat anything that moves and speak English behind our backs.

The British are gradually waking up to the glory of cheese in all of its infinite varieties. Small independent cheese shops and delis have sprung up in recent years spreading the word and the pong to the masses. It’s a noble, if smelly, cause that deserves to be supported, particularly during these days of austerity.

Old pal Philip and his partner David own a cheese shop in St Margarets, across the Thames from Richmond in Southwest London. It’s called Yellowwedge Cheese and it’s weathering the recessionary storm remarkably well considering. If you’re in the area pop in and sample their goodies. Philip also writes a food blog called What’s for Tea Tonight, Dear? Liam tried his southern fried chicken recipe and it was finger lickin’ good.

Parlez Vous Francais?

The Perking the Pansies Showcase can now be translated in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Now something like 90% of the planet can read my trivial drivel. Mind you it’s done by Google so who knows how meaningful the translations will be. I haven’t yet found a way to make the showcase available in Turkish which is ironic considering I live in and write about Turkey.

Words and Music

We took the dolly to Yalıkavak to lunch with friends. The once dormant village has awoken like Sleeping Beauty from hibernation and is draped in a new spring livery. The beach has been replenished with imported grit and dressed in sun beds and parasols. The tea houses along the attractive high street have been displaced by seasonal souvenir shops and postcard vendors returning from their winter pastures. Village life is in jovial mood and much improved with a new collection of smarter establishments that will give the greasy spoons a run for their money.

In some ways it’s a shame our perfidious landlord prompted us to move on. Yalıkavak is deservedly popular with visitors with a charm that eludes many of the resorts hereabouts. The trouble is winters are grim and the village is too small for city boys like us. We will return from time to time when we crave a little respite from the hassle and bustle of Bodrum.

To its credit wintering in a ghost town has given me the time and space to start Perking the Pansies. Until we moved to Turkey my writing was confined to dull business plans, strategic reports and the like that would gather dust on a lonely shelf, unread and soon forgotten. Now I blog daily, have a book in the offing and have developed previously unknown skills in web design. Also, Liam has started to write music for the first time in years. So thank you little Yalıkavak. We owe you one.

Perking the Pansies, The Book

A few months ago I happened across someone called Jo Parfitt purely by chance. Jo is an accomplished and successful author, mentor, journalist and publisher with 26 books and hundreds of articles under her belt. Jo specialises in publishing books by ex-pats who write about their lives or have something original to say about living abroad.  I thought that Perking the Pansies had the potential to be something more than a blog and set about writing a book version. I sent Jo a sample of my work. She thought I had an interesting idea with a different angle. Since then Jo has been helping me to knock the book into shape. Her critique has always been fair and honest but gentle and encouraging. Jo has been my muse and my mentor. I listened. Her advice and guidance have been freely offered with a carry on, you’re nearly there message. I think Jo now thinks I have got there. She has offered me a publishing contract. I couldn’t have got there without her.

Now I’ve got to finish the book so no summer loving for me this year. I doubt I’ll make it out of the front door. Liam will mop my sweated brow and keep me fed and watered. He is my other muse and is much less kind than Jo. I’ve promised the manuscript by September and, if I deliver, Jo will publish Perking the Pansies by Christmas. So what’s Santa bringing you this year?

Check out Jo’s website.

Read a sneak preview of Perking the Pansies.

New extract…

Chapter 6 Extract

Previously released…

Chapter 5 Extract

The Day Perking the Pansies Went Viral

After I posted So You Think You Can Write a Pop Song? last night I checked my pansy map and thought there was a nuclear attack on North America and Western Europe – very Cold War. Pansies were bursting out all over the place. It shows that a title that catches the mood can go a long way. I hope all the spotty teenagers across the western world weren’t too disappointed. I suspect they won’t return!

See the video on my Facebook Wall.