Category: Britain

News of the World, RIP

I hear the hacking hacks at the News of the World, that famously progressive liberal rag, got caught red handed indulging in a little illegal phone tapping (as opposed to legal phone tapping which is commonplace in Turkey, only requiring consent from the local Jandarma chief). That’s the red tops for you, anything for a salacious scoop. The News of the World isn’t the only newspaper that panders to the base and reactionary instincts of the ignorati by any means. Now that it’s published its last issue the slack will be taken up by another soon enough. To think the British Government is about to hand over full control of BSB (the British satellite broadcaster) to News International, the News of the World’s parent company.

I must confess to one tiny regret about the demise of this 170 year old Sunday institution. If it hadn’t been for their relentless and vicious campaign to expose the twilight world of the perverted homosexual in the late 1970s I never would have known where to go for my jollies. I haven’t looked back since. So thank you, News of the Screws. I owe you one.

Pot Bellied Brits

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.

Jack the Mascot

I have just reconnected with a long lost Blighty pal. His name is Andy and, nowadays, he’s someone awfully important in local government. We first became acquainted many moons ago at a drunken trivial pursuit work shindig. We were on opposing teams. I was the captain of my team which I called Kings and Queen. His team was called Gail Tisley’s Chin. The chin won by a nose. We got chatting afterwards over a tankard or two and thereafter became pals. Andy is a Barnsley lad with thick accent to match and a call a spade a spade Yorkshire charm.  I was a cynical old pro and he was the new kid on the block at the tender of just 21.

Corrie Gail

Andy is irrepressibly heterosexual and so secure in his sexuality he isn’t fazed by mine in the slightest.  I dragged him around the gay fleshpots of Soho. He didn’t flinch from the lecherous shenanigans. He assumed the role of my bodyguard protecting me from the wanted attentions of the dive bar boys, much to my distress. He used to drink in Earls Court, a gay mecca in those far off days. He isn’t bi-curious. It was the only place to get an after hours drink back then.

Andy decided to get hitched and held his stag do in Blackpool. A bit of a cliché but great fun nonetheless. It was thirty straight lads and me. I was the little gay mascot. I got chatting to one of his unsuspecting northern mates. ‘I hear a poof’s come along for the ride,’ he said. ‘That’ll be me,’ I replied. Despite the macho bravado from the boisterous boys I was the only one who actually got a ride that weekend.

Eventually Andy moved on to a better job and we lost touch. It’s an all too common problem for the transient workers of London. He’s still married to pretty little Jill and a proud father of two boys. They’ll grow up happy and well-balanced. Andy will make sure of it. I’m looking for a trip down memory lane when I’m next back in Blighty.

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.

Bikini Bare

Our balcony provides a wonderful vantage point to watch the world amble by. We spend amusing mornings with cuppa and laptop occasionally distracted by the colourful, the curious and the crazy. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we spotted two young ladies walking down the main road in skimpy bikinis that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Cars broke hard, horns blared and the jaws of pedestrian men dropped like limp mechanical diggers. I’m no prude but what did these silly girls think they were doing? If attention is what they were after then they got it in spades. Would they walk around their own home town like this? Bodrum may not be Bahrain but it ain’t Blackpool either. The ignorance of some of my compatriots makes me cringe with embarrassment. At least the bikini babes had the foresight to wax first.

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.

Eurovision, The Verdict

The greatest music show on Earth

As class act Pet Clark famously warbled:

The Show is over now

My song is dying

This is the end, my friend

There isn’t anymore

The greatest music show on earth has drawn to a close. The super trouper has been dimmed, the glitter ball has been packed away and the legions of obscure half-baked camp crooners have boarded the buses bound for their Carpathian villages. Their five minutes of fame is up. The Eurovision Song Contest rebuilt war-torn Europe sequin by sequin and our continent is a more colourful place because of it.

Blue are blue but they shouldn’t be. We Brits are used to vengeful Eurovision voting by our neighbours. We’re destined never to win but to always pick up the tab. It’s the cross that we bear. We could offer up a singing goat for all the difference it would make. We should be consoled by the utter dominance of our once obscure and marginal Germanic tongue. It’s a shame though, that the ethnic tint has been squeezed out of the competition by insipid Euro-pop sung in la la la Ingelish.

Predictably the Balkan conspirators, Baltic cartel and ex-Soviet mafia played their aces. So there we have have it. The travelling circus is off to Baku in Azerbaijan in 2012. At least with all their oil money they can afford to pay for it.

Watch the winning entry on You Tube. It’s a sweet song and a little bit Glee.

The Wedding

We watched the royal nuptials with friends surrounded by homespun bunting, Union flags lovingly coloured in felt tip pens and attached to straws, and photocopied mini-flags on cocktail sticks. We feasted on a celebratory spread of British fare with a Turkish twist – spicy Cornish pasties for the fellas, scones for the ladies, fairy cakes for the pansies. Intellectually I’m a republican but emotionally I’m a true blue royalist. It’s a contradiction I manage to fudge with typically British pragmatism.

We had a joyous time stuffing our faces, sipping Pimms, waving our patriotic pennants and whooping at the hotchpotch of heavenly and hideous frocks. Princess Bea’s head dress could pick up intelligent life on other planets and Anne wrapped herself in her granny’s tablecloth that she’d run up on a Singer. Her Maj, of course, is above fashion. Harry looked dapper in his uniform. He’s the best of the bunch even though he’s a ginger. I’ve forgiven his faux pas with Nazi party attire some years ago. I put it down to youthful exuberance and stupidity. The Windsor-Mountbattens aren’t blessed with much up top. The Abbey looked magnificent and the majestic pageant was delivered to perfection in a way only the British know how. It gladdened my heart to see Elton John and his Civil Partner, David Furnish, in attendance. The final nail in the coffin of bigotry? Well, perhaps.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ve heard it said that the whole jamboree was a waste of time and money in these days of austerity and the terrible events occurring around the globe. What’s wrong with forgetting the woes of the world just for one day and enjoying the fairytale moment? I hope the dysfunctional Firm have learned the Diana lesson and gorgeous Kate will be allowed to flourish in a thoroughly modern way.

The First Cut is the Deepest

I received an amusing email from Blighty life friend, Jane. She’s a policy manager in health and social care and is involved in making difficult decisions about how to deal with the biggest crisis in the public purse since Good Queen Bess inherited an empty treasury from Bloody Mary. Last year I read in The Times that 75% of the great British public believed that the fiscal deficit could be resolved by efficiency savings alone. Slashing the Town Hall biscuit budget was never going to do the trick.

Jane wrote:

“Have basically been working like some sort of cart horse – on spending cuts, cuts, cuts – so many people have left (some running out of the door with big packages) the remaining chumps have to make do with the leftovers. Work all rather unpleasant – have been involved with reducing our social care eligibility – just finished work on the consultation (why the f**** hell do we have to ask people “Do you mind awfully if we remove your social care?”) Still “we are all in this together”, “the vulnerable won’t suffer”, “how can I step down I am not a leader I have no position” (or is that Gaddafi?) and the Big Society is no doubt just saddling up and will be riding to the rescue.

Some of the responses we have had from the true bluers made me laugh – from the classic “I didn’t vote Conservative for this!” to suggesting (from the mad UKIP fringe) that we could make the £80m savings by stopping our twinning arrangements with European cities (how much do they think we spend on charming spotty 14 year olds from Ghent?) Today we had the protests and the petition – all very chaotic – how is a girl meant to navigate round the wheelchairs and sticks with a grande latte answering a blackberry for chrissake?!

I’ve got a stinking cold and this really cheered me up!

Vile Coffee and Nobody Famous

When Liam and I got hitched we asked for Thomas Cook vouchers as wedding gifts. We had already made the fateful (or was it fatal?) decision to migrate to Asia Minor and didn’t need a brown Kenwood toaster with a cornflower motif. Nor did we want his and his John Lewis bath robes. Since then we’ve slowly used up most of the vouchers for our Blighty flights but the process was becoming a bit of a drag. Vouchers can only be exchanged in Thomas Cook travel shops and these are as rare as ethnic minorities on Midsomer Murders. We decided on a final spree and used what we had left on business class tickets to London via Istanbul with Turkish Airlines.

We could hardly contain our anticipation when we arrived at the domestic terminal at Bodrum Airport. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous. The flight to Istanbul was pleasant enough with a welcome glass of bubbly and a hot breakfast from a fixed-smile waitress wearing too much tarty slap. Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport was a frenetic potpourri of the exotic and the mundane. The bazaar medley included a mysterious sect of elderly men in Persil-white towelling togas. We fled the bedlam to the utter indulgence and serenity of the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous.

We boarded our Heathrow-bound plane expecting to turn left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. Our excited smiles crumbled as we were directed right towards our hard standard size seats. There was no more extra leg room than ordinary emergency exit seats and the food was only distinguishable from economy fare by the china crockery. The much vaunted entertainment selection consisted of an obscure disaster movie about a runaway train and an hour of adverts from the flickering mini screen that descended from the bottom of the overhead lockers. I’ve been better diverted on charter. Booze was provided only on request. Worse still, just a thin curtain divided us from the plebs back in coach. The experience left us disenchanted with a wasted wedding gift and lamenting our decision to reject the brown Kenwood toaster with cornflower motif. What an expensive flop.

Nine days later we returned to Heathrow with heavy hearts. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – delicious coffee, limitless booze, butter-moist croissants, nobody famous. We boarded our Istanbul-bound plane expecting to turn right into our barely above economy cabin. Our resigned expressions were transformed into crazy grins as we were directed left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. We sank into our soft capacious seats with sixteen button-operated positions and in-chair massage. The individual screens provided entertainment of boundless possibilities. Spoilt for choice, Liam couldn’t decide so flattened his seat and took a cat-nap instead. The three course supper was haute cuisine and our camp thin-wristed attendant silently filled my glass without prompting as he swished down the aisle. Just the ticket.

Back in Istanbul, we headed to the business class lounge – vile coffee, no croissants, no booze, nobody famous. We boarded a dedicated business class mini-bus to our return flight to Bodrum – glass of bubbly, cold supper, proper crockery. All our flights provided stainless steel mini cutlery. I assume terrorists can’t afford business class.