Every Little Helps

Book Tour Intermission

Liam and I spend most of our festive time in Blighty apart. It is our habit. He dispenses TLC to his folks while I tour the Capital like Elizabeth the First dumping myself on various friends and family. Two experiences stick in my mind.

I joined Liam at his folks for a couple of nights and helped with the festive shopping. Picture it – Tesco’s, Christmas Eve, 2011. A cast of thousands weaving over-laden shopping trolleys through the heaving aisles like bad-tempered dodgem drivers. Their faces gave the game away – London during the Blitz. The frayed staff wore festive plumage and forced smiles, praying to the Baby Jesus for closing time. It was as merry as Christmas Day at the Queen Vic.

We shuffled our way along the mile-long till queue, manoeuvred the unfamiliar hire car out of the bumper-to-bumper car park and snaked back to the house, emptied of festive joy. After we packed away the calorific goodies, I stepped outside the front door for a cheeky cigarette. I spotted a corpulent covered lady in Horn of Africa robes wander down the road towards me. A young boy skipped along at her side singing Jingle Bells. She smiled as she passed. That simple, single act of cheer recharged my yuletide spirit. I stepped back inside to recharge it further, courtesy of my father-in-law’s bottle of Jameson’s.

Have you checked out the cheery book?

Crash, Bang, Wallop

Book Tour Intermission

I’ve interrupt the book tour for a heavy weather warning. After a gloriously long Autumn, winter violently thundered ashore – all crash, bang and wallop. We rushed to get old towels strategicaly placed around the house like thin sandbags to stem the impending flood. We’ve learned our lesson the hard way. Once again the street light next to the house blew up like a Roman candle with sparks flying hither and thither. Thankfully, the house lights stayed on but it was touch and go for a while. Light bulbs flickered like a slow strobe until the storm blew over. We lit candles and unplugged the fancy electricals as a precaution. This was on the same day that the water pressure dropped to a trickle. No bracing showers for us. Just a whore’s wipe.

The Love That Dares Not Speak its Name Finally Gets a Voice

Hats off to Ayse

Blog Tour Intermission

Three hours into the flight from Istanbul to London I finally succumbed to the dubious pleasures of the Pegasus inflight magazine – all pretty pictures and shallow articles, as is the nature of these things. A piece on the current Turkish bestseller’s list caught my brief attention. The number one book in Turkey right now is Gizli Anların Yolcusu (Passenger of Secret Moments) by Turkish author, Ayşe Kulin. The English translation of the review read:

“Passenger of Secret Moments is about the kind of love that most of us would have trouble understanding and have prejudices about (speak for yourself, matey). With her usual mastery, Ayşe Kulin addresses a subject most fear to approach head-on in order to break taboos.”

According to a Bodrum Belle of my acquaintance, Ayşe Kulin is a prolific writer who has mass appeal and flogs books by the shedload to the growing middle class, just like Jeffrey Archer. And just like Jeffrey Archer, she isn’t particularly well-regarded by the literati. Who cares? I doubt I will be either. Good for her for writing a book in Turkish with a gay theme that’s made it to the top of the charts. Such people have more influence that many realise. Power to her pen, I say.

Check out my book. There’s a bit of gay theme in it too and the reviews aren’t bad either.

Istanbul Angels

Pioneer Sabiha

Book Tour Intermission

Our flight back to Blighty a few days before Christmas was smooth and relatively uneventful. We flew to Stansted via Sabiha Gökçen Airport, Istanbul, with Pegasus. Sabiha Gökçen is an ultra-modern airport, all shiny and new, in stark contrast to Stansted which is looking distinctly shabby these days. The airport is named after a Turkish aviator who is reputed to have been the world’s first female fighter pilot and one of Atatürk’s eight adopted children.

Istanbul’s airports provide an exotic visual banquet as travellers from across the Balkan, Anatolian, Caucasus and central Asia regions mingle around the highly polished halls in their ethno-religious finery. The most striking group this year was an angelic-looking troupe of people dressed from head to toe in bright white towelling and biblical strappy sandals. I don’t know which country they hailed from or what religion they observed (if any), but I was fascinated by them as they shuffled along through the rowdy crowds. Vive la difference!

Check out the book

Gidday from Turkay

To my eternal shame, I’ve never been to Oz. Liam, has. He loved it and wanted to stay. Forever. He even considered re-training as a hairdresser to gain enough points to emigrate (crimpers were in short supply at the time, apparently). From civil servant to coiffeur would have made a dramatic career change. He thought better of it when he realised it was a gay cliché too far. That was before he met me, of course.

More at stop two on my virtual book tour. Hop over to Gidday from the UK.

Perking the Pansies Book Tour

For generations, book tours have been a vital part of promoting the published word. The famous get to hop from country to country. The not-so-famous get to hop from town to town. Nobodies like me don’t get to hop at all. Then someone came up with a marvellous idea – the virtual tour. No hopping involved. Just sit back and let other people promote your work courtesy of the blogosphere (in the best tradition of I scratch your back, you scratch mine). Ladies and gentlemen, please hop across to the wonderfully rustic Archers of Okçular for the first stop in my stimulating, simulated tour. Enjoy!

Amazon Bestseller

Liam got very excited this morning (not that kind of excited – get your mind out of the gutter). He woke me with a cuppa and glad tidings from Amazon UK. Perking the Pansies, Jack and Liam move to Turkey has hit the bestsellers’ lists.

  • Top Ten – Gay and Lesbian Biographies (in the company of Jeanette Winterson and John Barrowman),
  • Top Ten – Turkey Travel Guides (alongside the Rough Guide, Lonely Planet and Orhan Pamuk),

AND

  • Number One for Gay and Lesbian Travel.

I’m rather pleased.

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

Ringing the Belles

New Year’s Eve brought a couple of tremors and torrential rain to Bodrum. We refused to let Mother Nature throw us off kilter or dampen our spirits as we joined the Bodrum Belles to drink in the New Year. The place of our undoing was Musto’s Restaurant, our haunt of choice. The source of our undoing was a bottle of Jaegermeister doing the rounds courtesy of a particularly boozy Belle (you know who you are). Think 100% proof cough mixture. At the stroke of midnight, Liam and I kissed in front of a passing copper, put out some windows with a salvo of party poppers the size of bazookas, watched the creditable firework display and shuffled from side to side to classic, cheesy, gay dance tracks of yesteryear. I wonder who chose the music?

It doesn’t get much cheesier than this.

Have you checked out the book yet?

Review of the Year, 2011

Happy New Year to pansy fans one and all from a stormy, rain-sodden Bodrum. In the best tradition of the New Year and all those cheap-to-make review and top ten TV compilations I give you:

Perking the Pansies Top Ten 2011

An eclectic mix of the mad, the glad, the sad and the bad, the old, the bold, the sold and the gold. It’s interesting how few of these posts are actually related to expats directly. The list represents around 20% of all hits to Perking the Pansies (out of about 500 posts). Fancy that.

  1. Amy Winehouse, RIP
  2. Now, That’s What I Call Old
  3. Are We Mad?
  4. Pussy Galore
  5. Gay Marriage in New York
  6. Expat Glossary
  7. Publish and Be Damned
  8. There’s Hope for Us All
  9. Happy Birthday Perking the Pansies
  10. Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves

I wonder what 2012 has in store?

This is in store right now.