Category: Police

Come Dine with Me

Come Dine with MeFor better or for worse we have become part-time curios on the crème de la crème dinner party circuit adding exotic seasoning to various pretentious repasts. It’s all very Come Dine with Me and the competition is frightfully fierce. We attended a meal at Chrissy and Bernard’s imposing pile in Torba.

Around the fussily arranged table, we met vetpat Viv from Dereköy. Impeccably turned out, fifty something Viv is elegantly statuesque but struggles to raise her slender forearms due to the weight of clanging bangles. In bygone days she owned a Battersea bistro with her ex-husband until the day she found him in flagrante with the pastry delivery boy. She never suspected that her ex batted on both sides of the net though his treasured collection of classic Judy Garland vinyls was a bit of a clue.

Viv has since carved out a prolific career as a serial VOMIT hopping on top of one Anatolian after another. The boys get younger as she gets older. Despite the predictable pattern of broken heart and emptied purse, she remains irrepressibly upbeat about her lot. We make attentive listeners to assorted emigrey tales. The complement is rarely reciprocated. Do I have agony aunt tattooed across my forehead?

At the close of play Viv gave us a lift home taking the back road to evade the Jandarma. Naturally, we small-talked about the evening along the way. I commented how appetising the food had been. ‘The rice was cold’ came Viv’s withering verdict. We are not confident cooks and have no intention of being subjected to microscopic scrutiny from the affected. The most anyone can expect from us is a bottomless cellar and a few savoury nibbles.

Much Ado About Nothing

My nightly tribulations anticipating a cross knock at the door by a scandalised conscript in latex gloves conducting an internal investigation has mercifully abated. All the fuss started when a distressed Digiturk obtained a court order to shut down a couple of insignificant blogs illegally broadcasting highlights from the Turkish Süper Lig. In response, the inscrutable authorities banned hundreds of thousands of websites that share the same Google ‘address’ as the obsessive soccer bores with their wobbly handicams. Imagine the sheer farce of Calvin Klein forcing every market across the land to close because a few stalls flog phony CK knickers.

Yesterday I was off blog in a vain attempt to forget the whole sorry story and return to a near normal life of degenerate leisure. We had a late liquid lunch followed by a reinstatement of Liam’s conjugal rights hurriedly withdrawn when I was branded a petty felon. We topped off our perfect day with an evening of ‘Strictly’ courtesy of the BBC iPlayer. It was delectable to behold that unreconstructed old bigot and professional virgin with two left feet, Miss Widdecombe, finally expelled from the show. National institution? She should be in one.

I retired to my pit pissed and paranoid thinking our phone might be tapped.

Fancy a Fag?

Turkey is an unlikely place to introduce a smoking ban. Nicotine consumption is an obligatory male pastime, along with rakı drinking and parlour games. Since most Turks appear to have a distinctly cavalier attitude towards petty authority, I assumed the new rules, as with parking regulations, would be roundly flouted. To my surprise, it has caught on; rigorous enforcement by the jandarma and instant fines for miscreants have both provided added incentives. It hardly matters. Life is very al fresco and popping out for a fag is a breeze compared to huddling outside a London pub in the drizzle heckled by tut-tutting passing strangers.