Category: Music & Dance

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.

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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.

Sizzling Bodrum

Old Bodrum Town has hit the season running. In the heat of the day people slowly amble along the promenade, gorge on gossip in the cafés, browse and graze in the posh shops or relax under cooling shade of a tall palm tree. By night the prom sizzles to the heavy beat of Turkopop and a madding crowd of the weird, the wonderful and the well-to-do. This is my rapid round up of what’s hot and what’s not along Bodrum’s celebrated promenade.

Musto’s – Great food, great prices, great host and popular with the biker’s fraternity
Zazu – Nice food, pricey wine, good ambience
Hong Kong – Cross the street to avoid the relentless hassle from the waiters
Good old M&S – Older Turkish men just love their Blue Harbour range
Sünger Pizza. An old Bodrum stalwart. Unpretentious. Try and get a table on the roof terrace
Kahve Dünyası – Great coffee, pretty waiters and a chocolate spoon with every cup
Marina Vista – Lovely hotel in a great location. Pity about the surly service
Tango – So, so steaks, astronomic wine prices, arrogant waiters.
The Yacht Club – Cool place with live music
Fink – You’d need a second mortgage to drink in here
Helva – I spy a lady of the night
Is there anywhere in the world without a Starbucks?

So You Think You Can Dance?

We decided on a diverting night of fun and frolics in Bodrum to celebrate vetpat Charlotte’s birthday. Nancy was back in town, continuing the ebb and flow of her frequent sojourns and combining her twin roles as best friend and chief concubine. Leaving Alan convalescing at home, Charlotte and Nancy arrived dressed to impress, replete with f*ck me heels and bountiful bouncing breasts shimmering in the twilight like overripe waxed melons. As we promenaded along the marina, men of all ages fixed their gaze at cleavage level and jaws hit the newly renewed paving. We dined at Tango, an Argentine-themed steakhouse where meals are served on bloodied breadboards and the price of run of the mill French wine is stratospheric.

After the meal, Charlotte escorted us to a bar of her long acquaintance called Seyfi, famous for ethnic entertainment and décor of manufactured authenticity. Charlotte, Nancy and Liam danced the night away in true local style. I eyed up the talent. Liam’s dance technique, woefully inadequate to the hard beat of the Freemasons was strangely adept at indigenous rhythms.

Our girl’s night of carefree flirtation was cut short by the drunken arrival of Sultan Irfan, the philanderer. Charlotte had unwisely texted him our location and he’d come in search of Nancy, his troublesome and tempestuous paramour. Irfan bounced in a like a giant pinball, finally coming to rest at an adjacent table. Nancy faked outrage at his intrusion but grabbed Liam for a seductive boogie in a brazen attempt to incite his jealousy. I observed from the wings. It was a pretty futile exercise as Liam hadn’t slept with anyone of the fairer sex since the early eighties and these days would need an instruction manual and a road map. Even though Irfan knows Liam’s inclinations, Nancy’s strategy worked. Clearly, I have completely underestimated the any port in a storm mentality of the average Turkish male.

Needless to say, Irfan and Nancy ended the game cooing like adolescent love birds. Irfan escorted the girls home, determined to nibble on Nancy’s savoury titbits. Liam and I retired to the house to watch the sun rise and contemplate the destructive tango of these two middle-aged, lustful teenagers.

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.

Internet Censorship in Turkey

Eurovision Song-fest fever has subsided and I need to get over Blue’s so so showing. My playful poll asking readers to vote for the least worst song of their choice was a dismal flop. Ironically, hits to Perking the Pansies went through the roof and I had my best day ever. I suspect few of the newcomers will return but I may have picked up some new pansy fans along the way.

I’m constantly amazed at the power of the internet as a means of communication. This is liberating for most but subversive to some.  I’ve read that the Turkish Government plans to compel all internet users to access the web through state controlled portals. The Government claims this will protect children from inappropriate sites. Others declare this is an attack on personal freedom because their internet usage can be monitored. Paranoia is fuelled by the Government’s reluctance to open up the list of banned sites to independent scrutiny.

No one would disagree that children should be protected. However, I have always thought this to be the job of parents. Relatively few Turkish children have direct and unrestricted access to computers. They are just beyond the reach of most. A more effective and less draconian strategy would be to offer parental control software free of charge or provide simple advice about how this can be managed through search engine restrictions.

A genuine attempt by the State to protect the young or insidious censorship, China-style? The proof of the pudding, as they say…

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.

Eurovision – Vote Now!

Vote for your least worst Eurovision song.

Eurovision – Nil Point

Join us as we tweet our way through the dirgy ballads, second rate Euro-trash ditties and sycophantic compering of the Eurovision Song Contest. Let us  unite for the nail biting, edge of seat parochial madness that will be the result of the European jury.

Eurovision Song-Fest Fever

Euro Camp-Fest

Forget the crisis in Syria, the civil war in Libya, Bin Liner’s death or the impending draconian clampdown on internet freedom in Turkey. It’s Eurovision Song Contest night and Europe’s having a party. Various angst-ridden bleached blond divas, euro pretty-boys in tight pants mincing around the stage and ruritanians in pantomime drag have been bussed in to Düsseldorf for the annual kitsch camp-fest. What started as a genuine attempt to heal the wounds of a war-torn Europe has degenerated into a financially crippling travelling circus of political intrigue and regional love-ins that now requires an ECB bailout to stage.

Turkey was knocked out in the semis. Who are the Azeri Turks going to vote for now? Will it be the usual Balkan back-slapping bonhomie from people who only a few years ago were at each other’s throats? Who’ll pick up the Greek vote now Cyprus is out? Was Dana International’s unceremonious ejection because the Israelis are beastly to the Palestinians or due to the fact that she’s gone rather broad at the beam and sang a crap song? Will anyone vote for the UK? I doubt it even with Duncan James’ newly acquired disco tits out on display. These are questions of profound global significance.

There will be Eurovision parties the length and breadth of Blighty, staged by queens for queens. Soho will be a ghost town and we will be glued to the set doing our bit for the boys.

Blue did a nude photo-shoot for Attitude magazine in Blighty. Stripping off for the folks back home won’t bring in the votes but might get their so so song into the charts. Watch the video below. It’s a bit naughty so if you are of a nervous disposition or easily offended I suggest you give it a miss!