Category: Shopping

Sweet Charity

The world famous Foyles Bookshop along London’s Charing Cross Road is offering 15% off Perking the Pansies if you reserve online and pick up in-store. So, while you’re in the West End looking for summer bargains and something skimpy for your holiday, why not pick up a copy for only £8.49? If you can’t make it into town, you can order online for the full price of £9.99 with free delivery to any address in the UK.

Alternatively, you can buy the book and anything else that takes your fancy on Amazon through Jack’s Shop and I make a few extra pennies. Think of it as charity.

Cock of the Coop

Cock of the Coop

Being a London boy with my London ways, I’ve had limited experience of country life. The occasional weekend cottage in North Wales and four-in-a-bed caravanning holidays in the middle of nowhere don’t really count. To be sure, on primary school trips to Swanage in Dorset and Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, I endured the obligatory excursion to jobbing farms to sniff the shitty whiff, pet the ponies and frighten the sheep. I do remember thinking ‘Sunday roast, mint sauce with all the trimmings, yummy’. The scale of modern-day industrial farming was driven home when I watched conveyor belt cows being drained by an enormous robotic milking machine. No wonder Daisy always looked startled.

Katie Price

Until we set foot on Anatolian soil, I’d never seen a live chicken in the flesh, so to speak. My chickens came hung, drawn and often quartered. Suddenly, clutches of clucking chickens were everywhere I looked, even in the heart of Bodrum. The harems of hens were invariably corralled by a loud and bad-tempered rooster complete with dandy plumage and a cock of the coop demeanour (a bit like the waiters). I remember thinking that British chickens must be smaller than their Turkish cousins. Perhaps Turkish fowl live longer and grow larger. Perhaps they’re fed on extra-strength growth hormones. Whatever the reason, Turkish chicken breasts were Amazonian by comparison, the Katie Price of the poultry world.

Every Little Helps

The Bodrum Bulletin has just updated its annual grocery price check, comparing Britain with Turkey. This exercise was first started in 2009 using the same basket of goods from Sainsbury’s (in the UK) and Migros (in Turkey). The headline is that the price differential between the two countries has been gradually eroded since the survey started. In 2009 the British basket cost 26% more, whereas today the difference is less that 10%.

As with all things, the devil is in the detail. Buying habits vary from person to person and the comparison is affected by the prevailing lira to pound exchange rate. Nevertheless, it does indicate a direction of travel during these recessionary times. We residents all know that booming Turkey is no longer the low cost paradise it used to be. To add to the depressing trend, the Turkish Government has just hiked the price of gas by nearly 19% and the price of electricity by just over 9%.

A year ago, I set Liam a challenge. I wanted to know the cost of living for our kind of life in Britain, Spain and Turkey. He calculated  our average monthly spend on the typical stuff we consume –  food, booze, fags, essential trips back to London, rent, bills, healthcare, insurances, etc. He also used Migros for the Turkish grocery shop, comparing it to Tesco’s in Britain and a major Spanish chain. At the time, the results showed that living in Spain would cost a fifth less overall whereas living in Britain (outside London) would cost a third more.

The same analysis today (excluding Spain) paints a completely different picture. Our British living costs will be on par with our Turkish expenses. This is almost entirely due to the low rent we expect to pay in Norwich and the fact that we’re (almost) a smoking-free family. This isn’t the reason we’ve decided to leave our foster home but, as they say at Tesco’s, every little helps.

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Y Viva España

Pounds and Porn

Overcooking the Books

Sadly, my prediction about the little market a short sashay along the street from our house has come to pass. The ever-so smiley pony-tailed proprietor has removed his dusty stock and abandoned his customer-less business. A padlocked glazed door protects the dusty ghost shop, the shelves are empty, worthless rubbish is piled up in the middle of the cracked floor and a tatty ‘for rent’ sign is swinging in the wind outside. What next for this ill-fated space? A croissant-erie would be nice.

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Cooking the Books

Cheaper than Primark

Retail Therapy

I’ve started a little shop to add a few coppers to our coffers. It takes me back to the distant days of my misspent youth when I was a store boy on Chelsea’s trendy King’s Road. Days on the tills and nights on the tiles were the best probation for a young gay boy about town. My shop is stocked with a few hand-picked items that you never knew you couldn’t do without. Naturally, my book takes centre stage in the window display. So, if you’re looking for great deals on hotels, flights, books or anything on Amazon then visit Jack’s shop. It costs you nothing and I need the money. No pressure.

Back to the Future

Liam and I were minding our own business in Tansaş. We were queuing up at the till, weighed down by a basket-full of cheap plonk. The lady in front of us turned towards me and smiled. “You’re Jack,” she said. “I love your book.” I blushed like a spotty teen and shifted uncomfortably from side to side. It was like being a z-list celeb, furtively emerging from a grubby massage parlour with my tail between my legs. Next time, I’ll don a floral headscarf and designer shades before I venture out.
I composed myself and we chatted over the veg and booze. It turns out that we’re near neighbours. My fellow shopper was a former Bodrum Belle of years long past and she recently returned to renew her club membership. As an old and new kid on the block, she has started her own blog, Back to Bodrum. The then and now observations offer a unique perspective of a town on the move. Take a look – fascinating stuff.

Twas the Season to be Jolly

Jack Scott, Columnist

Imagine our confusion and delight when we first happened across the Christmas trinket aisle at the local supermarket, where all manner of yuletide paraphernalia can be purchased. We fondled the multi-coloured shiny balls, flickering fairy lights, soft toy Santas, naff papier-mâché winter scenes and twinkling, tinselled trees, all manufactured by the enterprising Chinese. Not to miss out on the fun, it seems that our Turkish hosts have appropriated many Christmas traditions and grafted them on to New Year.

The book

Fancy Another?

Jilly Likes a Drink

Wine tasting (ok, wine guzzling) is an essential element of our hedonista lifestyle. Together, we survive on in a month what I alone used to earn in a week so we’re rather preoccupied with the cost;  prices have been rising due to increased taxation on alcohol. We don’t have a car so we can’t take advantage of the bulk bargains to be had at Metro, the local cash and carry warehouse. Instead we have to make do with what’s on offer in local supermarkets.

We care about the quality (though less so after the second bottle) and quality isn’t necessarily linked to cost. As Brits, we’ve been rather spoilt for choice. Setting aside the small amount of vino produced by English vineyards, all wine in Blighty is shipped in from the four corners of the globe. Generally, this means the quality is reasonable, even at the plonk end of the market. Liam likes a full bodied red. I prefer a crisp white. We’ve found a couple of labels that tickle our taste buds: Sava from Carrefour (the French multi-national) and Beyzade, occasionally from Tansaş. Both sell at around 7 lira (about £2.40 or $1.80) and are very good value. We’re not experts. We don’t do the Jilly Goolden roll, smell and spit routine. We just sup. A lot. I’ll drink to that.

Check out my new book:

Perking the Pansies – Jack and Liam move to Turkey

Cooking the Books

Our local supermarket, Tansaş, is a short stroll from the house along the narrow ancient street that Alexander the Great once minced down in 334 BCE. Like many ancient Anatolian thoroughfares, the road is just wide enough for two camels to pass each other unhindered. It wasn’t built for a speeding motorcade of Nissan tanks flanked by Vespas on amphetamines. It’s a one way street but we look in both directions to keep body and soul together. It’s just as well the Green Cross Code was hard-wired into my brain as a child.

Three or four times a week, we pass a two storey building containing a shop unit on the ground floor. In the short time we’ve lived in Bodrum, the unit has changed hands several times – variously reincarnated as a small market, café, kuaför (hairdressers) and now a market again. The current proprietor is a smiling middle-aged man with a kind face, balding on top with side strands stretched back and fashioned into a trendy pony tail. He spends his days sitting on a plastic patio chair, chain smoking and chatting amiably to passers-by. We’ve not once seen a customer cross his threshold. Alas, like the predecessors, his business seems doomed to fail. It occurs to me that in Blighty, a prospective buyer would check the books before parting with the readies. In Turkey I assume there are no books to cook.

Check out my new book:

Perking the Pansies – Jack and Liam Move to Turkey

Uniform Behaviour

Now that the Turkish authorities have banned the home delivery of alcohol, we have to trudge to our local Tansaş supermarket several times a week to replenish our supply. As we meander through the aisles, we invariably bump into Ahmed, our friendly security guard. Ahmed used to work at a beach-side bar but gave up irregular seasonal work for security, year round employment and wages paid on time. He speaks good English and gently berates me for my lack of progress with the local lingo. Quite right too. His job consists of little more than a presence in the store. He’s bored rigid and likes to chat. Supermarkets around the world have one thing in common. They move products around to make the punters complete a full circuit. It encourages impulse buying. Ahmed is always on hand to find what we’re looking for: our very own personal shopper. Unfortunately, he doesn’t help us lug the litre bottles back home.

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Supermarket Sweep

Cheaper than Primark