Bodrum Life

Bodrum’s radical urban overhaul is almost complete save for a few rough edges that will be completed next year (or sometime never). I took afternoon liquid refreshments at Bodrum’s organic deli, a great place from where to people watch. Their natural fare is even more delicious during happy hour when a glass of white costs only 4 lira a shot. The tubby waiter with precision hairdo, George Clooney eyes and Russell Crowe features serviced me silently with charm and grace.

I watched Bodrum life pass by in all its ambling majesty. The strolling likely lads with their grand gelled tresses and baffling stares promenaded along the promenade, stopping to check their reflections in the porthole mirrors of Helva Bar. I watched the Helva bar boys wash down the floors in anticipation of a profitable night’s innings from the urban elite and the Ukrainian prostitutes who silently ply their trade among them. A rainbow of cars cruised by from Nissan tanks to clapped-out Fiats. Happy-clappy kids played hide and seek in the play school playground opposite. Sunny Cabaret was provided by Bodrum’s resident drunk (I thought that was me), who frothed at the mouth, toyed with the traffic, harangued unsuspecting tourists and talked to the street animals like a modern day Dr Doolittle. I staggered home to the tune of the Hi-De-Hi public address system and another power cut in the full knowledge that our Turkish expedition would soon come to an end. To quote Old Blue Eyes, “Regrets, I have a few.”

You might also like:

Unfinished Business

Bedlam in Bodrum Revisited

A Balcony with a View

Blessed (and gloriously noisy) are the children…

Children’s Day 2012

You might also like:

Turkey’s Got Talent

I Believe the Children Are Our Future

Hot Pipes and Wonky Erections

The good burghers of Bodrum have been ripping the town apart with giant yellow diggers. No pain, no gain. It’ll all look fine and dandy by the start of the season. The town will be freshly dressed to impress, with newly-laid tarmac accessorised with fancy paving, modern street furniture and lush landscaping, just in time for the Easter early birds (we hope). If last year is anything to go by, it’ll never be quite finished – a few edges will be left a little on the rough side.

It isn’t just the posh promenade that’s getting the makeover. The little local square near our house has been furnished with brand new playground equipment for the little ‘uns – a multi-coloured medley of swings, slides and metal tubes in bright primary hues. During the height of summer, the kiddies risk being permanently soldered to the glowing pipes in the 45 degree heat.

The old lamp posts along our street have been replaced by a row of elegant green lights. We’ve been without street lighting since the old lamp post blew up a few weeks ago – so the new light next to our garden gate is a welcome illumination. It was installed by five burly men. Well, one did the erecting; the other four supervised. It’s not the straightest erection I’ve ever seen. I should know. I’m a bit of an expert.

Turkey v Fergie

Bad Hair Day

I assume we won’t be seeing Fergie slumming and beach-bumming it down Gümbet way any time soon. Not unless she wants her collar felt by a teenage paramilitary conscript and a stiff sentence from an un-amused Turkish beak. The ill-advised ex-HRH was foolish to embroil herself in a clandestine filming raid on a huge Turkish orphanage for disabled children in 2008. Poor Fergie’s a loose cannon at the best of times. She’s not cut out for investigative journalism and neither is my foster home. She’d do better earning her living more honestly and less controversially. Apparently, she’s to be prosecuted for violating the rights of five Turkish children and damaging the reputation of the Turkish State. I humbly suggest that Turkey’s reputation is best served by the dropping the whole thing.

Resident Aliens

After much brouhaha and faffing about, the Turkish Government will finally introduce new visa requirements on the 1st February. Essentially, this means that foreigners entering Turkey on a tourist visa can only stay for a maximum of 90 days in any 180 day period. Anyone staying longer will have to apply for a residency permit.

The permit process is not particularly onerous or expensive but it is a tiresome paper chase of red tape. It can be weeks before you finally get your mitts on the precious little blue book (that looks like it’s been knocked up by a child in a shed). Patience is needed. After years of encouraging foreigners to spend their readies and buy their dream holiday home, Turkey will not allow them to enjoy the fruits of their investment for more than 3 months at a time without becoming residents of a country they don’t reside in.

There’s a more significant change that is rocketing blood pressures into orbit. Spleens are being vented all over the forums. According to an article in the Land of Lights, the Turkish Parliament has passed a law requiring all expats with a residency permit exceeding twelve months to join the Turkish National Health Scheme. The cost will be a flat fee of 212 Lira per month each. This week’s special offers are two-for-one for married couples and children under 18 get in free. Those living in sin or have done the in-sickness-and-in-health thing differently (civil partnerships, for example) needn’t apply. Also, as with all the best health insurance policies, pre-existing conditions will not be covered. So it’s just tough if you’re a bit old and slightly doddery, with a touch of arthritis and spot of hypertension. That’ll be many expats then. Best not cancel your private insurance just yet.

The article also states that, while the scheme isn’t up and running yet, everyone is required to register by the end of this month. Failure to do so will attract a hefty fine. If this is the case, how come this crept up and caught us awares? What’s our man in Bodrum (actually, our woman) been doing? Sod all as usual.

I’m a great supporter of national health care, free at point of delivery and available to all. Apparently, the fee is the same for everyone, Turk and expat alike. I find this difficult to believe as 212 lira is a lot of dosh to most Turks I know. We’re happy to do our bit and pay our dues but I’m not keen on any scheme that isn’t linked to the ability to pay. As the cost of residency for Brits dropped dramatically last year, is this a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

As with most things the devil will be in the detail. The forums are hot with gossip and hearsay, outrage, resignation, argument and counter-argument. I’ll let the dust settle before I decide what to do. I’d still like something from the Honorary Consul, though. I won’t be holding my breath.

Whirl Like a Dervish

Whirl Like a Dervish

DervishTo 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.

I Believe the Children are our Future

For all the fast talk of political Islam and a return to piety, there truly are two sides to this magnificent resurgent nation. Istanbul’s Kadir Has University clearly has a modern, progressive curriculum that allows students to express themselves in  music and dance in a fun and inclusive way. I’ve picked three great examples of this. The first two are uplifting romps that had us rolling in the aisles. The third brought us to our feet. You’ll see why at the end.

You might also like to look at Turkey’s Got Talent. I challenge you not to at least smile.

Yes, this really is a duet with Jennifer Saunders, presumably remixed from Shrek 2.

Thanks to Death by Dolmuş for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=884B2YhiqrA&feature=related

You might also like:

X Factor Ads

So You Think You Can Write a Pop Song?

Britain’s Got Talent

I’d like to introduce you to my namesake nephew, Jack. He’s fourteen and bursting with the energy and confidence that I never had at his age. If your ears can stand it watch his plucky performance in front of his peers at a school assembly. He’s got the look and the moves though sadly not the voice. He learns, he thinks and writes poetry. He’s good with a football and with a pen. He enjoys life and loves his family. He’s a young man of rounded ability. Let’s give it up for the much maligned state school system.

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.

Turkey’s Got Talent

Thank you to one and all for the good luck messages from my loyal pansyfans. Liam and I are a little pre-occupied with nest building and kitchen reconstruction. Put two gay men in a room and witness the heated debate about where to place the Habitat vase. In the meantime sit back and enjoy a joyous discovery brought to you by You Tube and Yankee Istanbul blog Death by Dolmuş