Category: Emigreys

Handbags and Gladrags

Chrissy invited the ‘Come Dine with Me’ set to a local restaurant in Torba on the occasion of her birthday. The restaurant is run by a slightly fey man called Emir who rides a motorcycle but keeps his helmet hidden in the pannier to avoid getting it dirty. The gang assembled preened, pressed and powdered with breasts out on display despite the nipple-hardening chill.

Recently engaged Emir joined Liam and I at the bar. He suggested that when the weather improved we might like to join him for a skinny dip on Dodo Beach, an isolated spot where we can bathe unmolested. I suspect he had molestation of his own in mind.

The soiree was as cold as the weather. I was asked to judge a handbag competition because, as a gay man, I obviously know all about women’s handbags. I was presented with a ghastly array of (presumably fake), Gucci, D&G, Burberry and the like. I awarded first prize to the ugliest bag, big enough to transport paint from B&Q. The event became increasingly ill tempered. Bernard, a petty, humourless man of many hidden shallows, complained loudly that Chrissy no longer “puts out” as he delicately phrased it, preferring instead to take Jeffrey Archer to bed. We are growing weary of the relentless rivalry and trivial keeping up with the Jones’ village mentality. The crème is starting to curdle.

Feel the Love

I’ve long believed that everyone hated us. The British strut the world stage hanging onto the coat tails of our mighty American cousins and I can understand why this gets up the noses of many. Ridicule in Iraq, deadly bombs on the Tube, World Cup humiliation and nil point at Eurovision all point to a depressing impression of widespread antipathy. It’s little consolation that the pushy Yanks are despised more. It’s come as a refreshing surprise to discover than dear old Blighty is the second most popular nation in the World according to a BBC World Service Country Rating Poll. It’s a welcome antidote to the legions of emigrey Brit-bashers and doom and gloom soothsayers on the top of the Clapham omnibus. Alas, we were beaten into second place by the Germans but I suppose we’re getting used to that. Apparently, though, Turks don’t think much of us at all, presumably because they are taught that the English (Britain doesn’t seem to exist in Turkish parlance) were responsible for the final destruction of the Ottoman Empire. That’s what happens when you back the wrong horse.

Tree Huggers Unite

 

We honeymooned in Kaş on the Turkuaz Coast. I was by then a seasoned Turkey traveller but Liam was an excitable novice. Kaş is a beguiling Bohemian jewel, surrounded by a pristine hinterland that has been mercifully spared the worst excesses of mass tourism. No expense was spared and we took a suite at the Deniz Feneri Lighthouse Hotel through Exclusive Escapes, an altogether superior hotel by an altogether superior travel company. No one star Gümbet with no star Thomas Cook for me on my first and final honeymoon. We bathed in the sparkling blue waters, strolled along the relaxed hassle-free promenade, feasted by candle-light and danced the night away with the locals in Bar Red Point, the best watering hole in town. I promised Liam the genuine Turkish shave experience and we got a lot more than just something for the weekend from the predatory married barbers on the pull. It put Liam off for life.

We hired a car and explored some of surrounding must sees in old Lycia. The area is stuffed with them. We lunched in pretty but twee Kalkan, meandered through the grand ruins of Patara, relaxing awhile on the adjacent beach – a stunning 18km protected stretch of soft white sand – and bathed in its shallow waters. We stumbled across the intimate ruins of the cult sanctuary of Letoon and watched turtles play in the warm pools. Letoon seduced us with its intimacy while nearby Xanthos, one-time capital of Lycia, awed us with its monumental scale and picture postcard aspect.

My first visit to Kaş was ten years earlier and it had hardly changed a bit. It was then that I met a middle-aged Scottish emigrey couple. They were ex-publicans with money to burn. The lazy town had worked its magic and they instantly decided to buy a house – no research, no cooling off, no going back. Prices were cheap and they visited a cashpoint machine each day to gather the deposit. I wonder if the dream lived up to the reality.

It was in Kaş that the seeds of our own change were sown though germination took another year. As we sipped chilled wine by the glorious infinity pool, we idly speculated about dropping out of the rat race and finding our place in the sun. We dreamed of Kaş and the Turkuaz Coast as if our lives could be one long honeymoon. Common sense prevailed as it must. Kaş is what it is because of its glorious isolation, protected by a wilting three hour drive from the nearest international airport. I hear talk of a new gateway to open up the coast. I would gladly chain myself to a tree like Swampy or pitch a tent like a Greenham Common lesbian to prevent it.

Grey Britain?

Peering out of the damp windows provides a timely and salutary reminder of one of the reasons we left Britain. The sea and sky are united in an unbroken dirty greyness disguising the horizon and cloaking the Greek islands in the far distance. We are confined by the persistent drizzle. There are many things I miss about London but the weather isn’t one of them though I was surprised to stumble across ‘Interesting European Weather Facts’ that suggests that my home town has one of the most benign climates of the major European cities. It must be true. I read it on internet. Whatever the facts I’m glad of our regular city fix that enables us to have the best of both. Despite our warm and forgiving hosts, London is a place where we can genuinely breathe free. I can’t see us becoming diehard Blighty bashers unlike so many of our compatriots.

Everyone has a tale to tell and tell it they do. Many of the stories are depressingly similar – running away from something or someone and seeking renewal. It’s hard to fathom why poor old Blighty is so often blamed for their plight. Do people really think a faraway land offers a sure fire panacea for the demons who lie within? Liam and I have chosen to embrace our new life, not as a rejection of what had gone before, but as validation of our future. We are under no illusion that we can simply deposit our unwanted pasts at left luggage.

Pounds and Porn

I was casually surfing the net and stumbled across a web page published in 2008 that promoted Turkey as the low cost destination of choice for those wishing to live out their dotage in the sun. In between the usual flannel and hype I found a couple of blasé declarations that leapt from the page and beat me viciously about the face. The first stated that electricity costs “should be no more than £10 per month” and the second is that “Turkey will remain a low cost alternative for years to come”. Even if this was true at the time it certainly isn’t true now. Our last electricity bill was over 80 quid and the cost of our daily essentials seem to rise month on month. I don’t know how the locals manage and, with plummeting interest rates, I’m not surprised some of my fellow compatriots are struggling to make ends meet. I hear talk that, like the stateless nomadic tribes of yesteryear, emigreys are migrating en-masse to greener, cheaper pastures in the land of the Bulgars. We won’t be joining the camel train any time soon but if it carries on like this Liam and I will have to give up the sauce. Never!

Talking of web surfing, I was amused by the “gay hairy Turkish men” search that led someone to click on Perking the Pansies. I hope he (and assume it was a he) didn’t get too hot under the collar by the absence of hard core images of swarthy, hirsute men laying bare their assets and doing what Ottoman men have done for centuries. Now I’m getting hot under the collar.

Oh Woe is Me

A chill night wind conspired to trap us inside most evenings so we amused ourselves with a delicious mix of gossip and the silver screen, liberally lubricated with increasingly less cheap plonk as wine prices seem to rise by the week. We amused Clive with our sorry emigrey tales of the mad, the sad, the bad and the glad. We watched Beautiful Thing and Tea with Mussolini; two of my favourite films. Seriously sentimental Clive just loves a weepy so I kept a box of autumnal shades to hand.

We ventured out  to a village morgue bar just the once and really wished we hadn’t. We’d hardly taken our first sip when a despondent, drunken emigrey called Fergus from Falkirk was working his pitch at the bar and looking for a stooge. He collared us to impart his hard luck story. Fergie is a big man with a greasy ginger toupée and a disproportionately hefty lower torso, giving him the look of a bewigged weeble. He had married an attractive tender-aged Thai girl who he had picked out of a catalogue. She was delivered by post and married for security. After a couple of barren years, the Thai bride divorced fat Falkirk Fergie, kept the security and moved south to warmer climes. He now drowns his sorrows in the bottom of a beer glass frittering away the meagre income left to him. A dismal tale of woe too far, we headed for the door, taxied home and chucked on Steel Magnolias to lighten the mood. It was not the best selection. Clive was inconsolable and emptied the autumnal box.

Just Shout Loudly in English

“Avustralyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına” is a Turkish term pronounced as a single word and an extreme example of agglutination, the process of adding affixes to the base of a word. This word is translated into English as “as if you were one of those whom we could not make resemble the Australian people”. Crikey. Turkish is stuffed with tortuously lengthy agglutinations and therein lies my knotty problem.

Though rhythmic and poetic on the ear, Turkish is not an easy language for Europeans to assimilate as it is thought to belong to the Altaic language family and is distantly related to Mongolian, Korean and other inscrutable Asiatic tongues. Despite Atatürk’s valiant 1928 adoption of the Latin alphabet and the fact that the language is phonetic and mostly regular, the word order, agglutinations and the absence of familiar sounds all conspire to make learning Turkish a very daunting prospect. At least that’s my excuse. Liam is trying. I am just hopeless.

Although our hosts are remarkably tolerant of the average Brit’s lazy attempts to nail a foreign tongue, I’m a zealous believer that a little learning goes a long way. Taking the trouble to remember a few choice words and phrases can make a world of difference. One rainy afternoon, we were buying DIY essentials in Koçtaş. A yellow-haired, haughty emigrey ignorati strutted into the store and bellowed imperiously at a random selection of bewildered staff “Excuse me, I am English! I need help! Do you speak English? Yes, you there. Do you speak English?” It made me cringe with acute embarrassment and I peered apologetically at the pretty till girl. Despite my lacklustre language skills, I will never become one those all too common high-handed, po-faced little Englanders.

So what’s the Turkish for “as if you were one of those whom we could not make resemble a drag queen”? Answers on a postcard.

The Only Gay in the Village

We fancied a singalong fright night in the village and headed down to a local beachfront steakhouse. Popular with the hardy resident emigreys, it’s owned by bubbly, brassy bottle-blond Berni Belfast and her Turkish husband, Deniz, who cooks the best steak on the peninsula. Berni lays on the usual winter fare of fixed price menus, quiz nights and karaoke to coax the emigreys out from under their duvets. I like unpretentious Berni. She is the real deal, calls a spade a shovel and is a bracing breath of fresh air on a brisk night.

 

Proletarian Berni has a high-octave accent delivered like a sub-machine gun. As my Mother is from that part of the world I can catch the conversation. Alas, poor Liam understands hardly a word and just nods and smiles politely like the Queen at a Commonwealth jamboree.

Berni regaled us with tales of the bar wars. Allegedly, following months of clandestine subterfuge, her former front of house left without warning to launch his own restaurant taking with him their head chef and photocopies of their menus. I sense industrial espionage is rife in the catering trade here but to set up a new establishment dishing up identical fare for the same audience only a few hundred metres along the pretty promenade does seem a touch provocative. The bilious bad blood bubbles just beneath the surface.

Blackpool Bobbi was our camp karaoke compere for the evening’s random entertainment. Unforgettable veteran resident Bobbi fosters a unique, instantly recognisable look. Uncompromisingly clad top to tail in Persil whiteness from his back-combed highlights to his shiny patent leather loafers, he belts out a passable interpretation of ‘My Way’ between the vodka shots. I admire his pluck. Truly, Bobbi is the only gay in the village.

Ex-Pat Glossary

Expatriates, like everyone else, come in all shapes and sizes – the mean and the mannered, the classless and the classy, the awful and the joyful. The abbreviated epithet ‘expat’ simply doesn’t adequately express the myriad folk who have chosen to live here In Turkey. To add a little descriptive colour to my posts, I’ve devised some new words to depict the numerous variants of the species.

  • Emigreys: retirees serving out their twilight years in the sun, most of whom seem to be just a little to the right of Genghis Khan and who bought a jerry built white box in Turkey because it was cheaper than Spain (well, it was at the time). Everyday emigrey life operates within a parallel universe of neo colonial separateness preoccupied with visa hops to the Isles of Greece, pork sausages, property prices and Blighty bashing.
  • VOMITs (Victims of Men in Turkey): vintage desperate ex-housewives with a few lira to spare who shamelessly chase younger Turkish men. Predictably, such relationships rarely last once the money runs out. Thank you to Sara for this one.
  • Semigreys: those too young to retire in the conventional sense, who are living the vida loca on the proceeds of property sales. Plunging interest rates present quite a fiscal test to those trying to maintain a hedonistic lifestyle on dwindling assets while waiting for the pensions to kick in, assuming there will be a pension to kick in given the parlous position of the public purse.
  • Vetpats: veterans who have been living in Turkey for many years. Usually better informed than their peers with a less asinine view of the world, vetpats have taken the trouble to learn Turkish and are better integrated into the wider community. Some have even acquired Turkish citizenship and are fortunate to have found gainful employment on the right side of the Law.
  • Sexpats: discrete grey men of means who are serviced by young Turkish men in return for a stipend.
  • Hedonistas: Those who enjoy a carefree existence of total self indulgence liberated from the binding ties of responsibility or the worries of tomorrow.
  • The Ignorati: A collective term for those who live in utter ignorance of the history and culture of their foster land, shout loudly in English and see the world at large through the pages of the Daily Mail (or The Daily Bigot as I like to call it).

These terms are not mutually exclusive. It’s perfectly possible for an emigrey to also be a vetpat VOMIT and a fully paid up member of the ignoble ignorati.

I have received several suggestions from readers to add to the ex-pat lexicon. Thank you to Greg for ‘emigays‘ to describe well to do old queens spending up their savings because you can’t take it with you. Thank you also to Tom for the deliciously naughty ‘cowpats‘ to describe those I really can’t abide and would flee to the next town to avoid.

More please…

Las Vegas-on-Sea

After a hearty brunch, Nick decided to initiate us into the ancient Ionian ritual of bush bashing to bring down the olive crop, a technique that has remained unaltered for countless millennia. Liam took to thrashing  a cane with great gusto donning a fetching floral headscarf for the occasion. I withdrew to the foliage to keep Vinnie company. Vinnie was distinctly nonplussed by all the fuss and took refuge in a sunny spot.

Next on the packed agenda was a whistle-stop tour of the dubious daytime delights of Kuşadası, the Aegean gateway to the splendours of some of Asia Minor’s best preserved historical sites. Having read the ‘Rough Guide’ which uncompromisingly describes the resort as “a brash, mercenary and unpleasant Las Vegas-on-Sea…” my expectations were rock bottom. In fact, I thought the epitaph more than a little harsh. The town is a touch rough around some of its sprawling edges and not as classically attractive as Bodrum, but it does convey a vital urban buzz which I found appealing. I was unpredictably impressed by the busy throng of real people, the boulevards of real shops and the sprinkling of smart bistros. And Kuşadası does provide one important facility that sets it above the rest – a proper, bone fide gay bar that entices an eclectic mix of trannies, dancing queens, sugar daddies, gays for pay, hairy marys and the odd bemused bi-curious northerner in search of furtive titillation.

We stopped off for coffee at a trendy café along the neat promenade and watched the sun set over the marina. We contemplated the stark contrast to our cute but comatosed little town of Yalıkavak where nights are spent holding hands and contacting the living. Where’s Doris Stokes when you need her?

Karyn dished up a gastronomic triumph for the evening’s victuals, serving duck terrine which she fretted over all week according to ‘The Competitive World of Expat Cooking‘. She needn’t have worried. The reclaimed brick had done the trick, and the terrine was superb. Karyn invited a few old fairy friends along for the slicing ceremony. We were particularly amused by senior citizen, Peter, a dedicated Friend of Dorothy and philanderer extraordinaire who is an accomplished, competitive cook and keeps a Turk in the basement for afters.

The next day we took homespun kahvaltı in the local soba-warmed lokanta, escaping the crisp mountain air. Popular with both the Chelsea tractor brigade and villagers alike, the rustic eatery served up a plentiful plate of traditional fare. We hit the road after breakfast, waving farewell to our generous comperes and their tender menagerie. I had utterly enjoyed sparring with an intellectual thoroughbred. We shall return.