This afternoon, Liam decided to try out a new recipe: fig tart with crushed almonds. Yum. As he ground the almonds, Liam asked me if I’d like a cuppa. I replied ‘I’d rather talk to the almond than the almond grinder.’ How we laughed.
What do you do with figs?
You can read more on Liam’s developing culinary skills on:
Airports across the world are an expensive necessity. With a captive audience, they can more or less charge what they like for a sweaty cheese roll and a small cardboard cup of flat coke. At least getting to and from the airport isn’t usually too costly. Even the four main London gateway airports provide relatively low cost alternatives to taxis and trains, tedious and time consuming as they are (think buses negotiating the rush hour and the packed Piccadilly Line tube from Heathrow). Not so at Milas-Bodrum Airport. It’s bad enough that, come August, the small, uncomfortable and overcrowded international terminal, virtually mothballed in winter, resembles the Fall of Saigon. Worse though is the rip-off expense of getting to your final destination. Sure, domestic passengers can take the Havaş bus to and from Bodrum Otogar which costs about £8, but anyone arriving from abroad without a pre-arranged transfer has one option: get stung by an extortionate taxi fare. And don’t think your driver will know where you’re staying. They don’t do the knowledge here: they expect visitors to know the way, even if they’ve never set foot on Turkish soil before. It’s all done with a smile though.
It can work the other way round as well. Earlier this year, our airport transfer didn’t turn up and we were forced to jump into a yellow taksi. It cost us sixty quid for a half hour drive. That was done with a smile too. Bloody cheek!
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We were having a quiet drink and admiring the semi-clad totty in Café S Bar opposite the town beach, when an elderly couple called Morris and Edna struck up a conversation. Morris is the strong silent type which was just as well as he couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Full of life Edna has an infectious laugh and reminded me of the late, fabulous Irene Handl, an amazing British film and TV actress whose career spanned sixty years until her death in 1987. Irene was a feisty lady. Responding to a director who was trying to explain the motivation of her character in a play she said, ‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck.’
Morris and Edna are lodging in Gümbet and had ventured into Bodrum for a gander. They live in separate sheltered housing schemes, she in London, he in Wales. They met on the internet and are at it like geriatric rabbits. Apparently, Edna can’t bend over to adjust her corn plasters without Morris trying to take her from behind. Marvellous. There’s hope for us all.
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Gümbet is something else – Blackpool with a Turkish tan. I vowed after our last visit that I’d rather watch paint dry than spend another night there, but it does have one small enticement – a gay bar – a bone fide watering hole for happy homosexuals. It took us a while to find Murphy’s Gay Clup (sic). Presumably it was an Oirish theme pub in a previous existence. It was hidden along a sad little side street off the main drag, and we entered the place with apprehension, anticipating the heady aroma of tinsel and testosterone. We found a half decent, half-filled bar, populated mostly with young fey after work Turks huddled in camp conclave, a few off-duty taxi drivers twiddling with their tashes and the odd bemused bi-curious tourist in search of furtive titillation. Liam couldn’t stop giggling at some of the punters. It reminded me of London in the seventies. At least we didn’t have to knock on the door to gain entry. We stayed awhile and yes, it was kinda fun in a retro kinda way.
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Socially sated from our trip to Blighty and La Belle France, we have returned to our sticky Carian idyll to revive our sauna diet. We pitched the fans stereofanically and, despite the tyrannical heat, have spent a couple of evenings watching the second series of Glee. Fortunately, our randomly malfunctioning DVD player didn’t play up (more of this later).
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Hot on the heels of Clive’s double came Ian’s extended fun fest. The function room of a posh gastropub overlooking Victoria Park in East London was the host for the opening episode. Squally showers did nothing to dampen our spirits as we partied the afternoon away entertained by faces old and new. Drinks were plentiful and complementary and the bash bounced along to the naff sounds of Eurovision. The annual song-fest is a huge but harmless addiction for Ian and his partner, Matt. At the close of play it was back to their Bow penthouse for more liquid refreshment and more Eurovision. They wisely invested in their top storey pad just after London won the Olympics and their balcony directly overlooks the grand stadium. Since it is easier to win the lottery than secure a seat at the opening ceremony, I know where we’ll be on opening night.
Our Euro adventure ended with a final flourish in a French farmhouse a few miles outside Bordeaux. Ian rented a four bedroom pile that oozed rustic Gallic charm and invited along his nearest and dearest to sample his hospitality and clear out his wine cellar. The weather was kind and we had two boozy days of wit and repartee around the bracing pool. Ian and Matt played the gracious hosts with the most with understated panache and saintly patience. Our glasses were never empty as we sank the Bordeaux in Bordeaux and the table was always set for endless fine French fare. The final night’s jollity had Clive and Angus dancing a rumba in the kitchen and me doing something rather obscene with a banana. When Clive makes it as a full-time thespian he’ll be the odds on favourite to win Strictly Come Dancing. ‘Not with my arthritis,’ he yelled from the wings. I’m sure the Bow Belles were glad to see the back of us when we departed, if only to get some rest. I was carrying my liver home in a jiffy bag.
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Apart from celebrating our niece’s nuptials and spending quality time with our folks, the main purpose of our extended excursion to Blighty and beyond was to rejoice in the half centuries of my two oldest friends, Clive and Ian. Their birthdays are a day apart and they decided to revel in style, each with a two centre commemoration.
Clive’s was up first with a posh meal in a posh eatery in posh Islington attended by a select group of friends and family, including his consort and civil partner, Angus. The superior banter was lubricated with bountiful booze and nourished by top notch nosh. Clive’s second soiree was at Duckie, the legendary avant-garde club night for those seeking something a little bit different from the usual Saturday night set menu (hard house and South American waiters with chest implants and spaced out expressions).
Coincidentally, it was Duckie’s 16th birthday bash, so they too celebrated in style by hiring the ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall for the evening. The compere dished up a hit and miss medley of arty-farty cabaret which I must confess was more miss than hit, a bit like watching someone’s end of year drama college project. The evening had a British tribal theme – punks, mods, new romantics, blokes in bowlers, housewives, Greenham Common wimin – you get the idea. We went as seventies clones – check shirts, tight stone washed 501s, coloured hankies and joke shop handlebar tashes – more Frisco than disco. We danced the night away to period pop courtesy of the resident DJs, the Readers Wives. I pogoed to God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols, which seemed appropriate given the venue. My cheap fake tash dropped off in the process.
As the evening drew to a close, we tottered across Hungerford Bridge to the Strand and boarded our night bus home. Of course, we sat on the top deck like a couple of tourists. The passenger list was like London life in miniature. Two young men sat canoodling at the front on the bus, nothing pornographic you understand, just a fine romance. A mixed-race straight couple sat in the seat behind in animated exploratory conversation. He’d obviously just picked her up (or vice versa). Two gangsta-looking types in chunky chains sat behind us talking not of drug deals but of share swaps. A gaggle of girls giggled at the back. The good-humoured Clapham omnibus led me down memory lane through the south London streets of my salad days. We arrived home safe, sated and sozzled.
Tomorrow – The Bow Belles
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I’d like to extend a warm hand to my guest bloggers whose sterling work kept Perking the Pansies afloat while Liam and I were gadding about in Blighty and La Belle France. It was a harvest festival of wit and wisdom, revelation and revelry rudely interrupted by substandard despatches of my own from old London Town.
So, ladies and gentlemen please give it up for:
Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.
My final guest post is from Roving Jay at the Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide, your one-stop shop for what’s hot and what’s not. Jay has been a loyal pansy fan virtually from day one so I think it’s right and proper that she completes the series with a flourish.
I frequently swim around the Blog-o-Sphere, following bait from pool to pool. I like to observe the fisherman from a distance, and watch them cast their lines in an attempt to lure me in. If the bait doesn’t interest me, I’ll swim out of one pool and lurk in another. But if the lines thrown in my direction are suitably weighted and baited, I’m enticed in for a nibble, and can become hooked on the content! Jack used his worm to lure me in, and I’ve been nibbling in his Pansy Pool ever since. Even though we live in a society where Facebook and Twitter are household names, the dynamics of collaboration still have a 90/9/1 split:
90% of collaborators are Lurkers, watching but not contributing
So! Are you usually a Lurker, a Nibbler or a Fisherman? It’s not a simple question – because is really depends on which pool you’re in. In my own pool I’m a Fisherman, but in the Pansy Pool I’m usually a Nibbler. I leave the occasional comment. I like a post on Facebook. Or I share a post on Twitter. But look at me today. Fisherman Jack has left the bank unattended and there’s a huddle of pseudo Jack’s at the water’s edge casting lines of their own. And if the words we’re casting are suitably weighted and baited, you’ll continue swimming in the Pansy Pool until Fisherman Jack returns with fresh bait of his own. In the meantime, if you fancy a nibble – there’s a comment box below.
You’d have to be in a coma or living in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea not to know it’s the 10th anniversary of 9/11. There are a number of momentous events that have characterised modern history and changed our world forever – Waterloo, the Great War, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, Stalingrad, Hiroshima and then the Twin Towers. These events define the age. Almost all involved brutality and slaughter – man’s inhumanity to man. Few will forget that fateful day. Most can remember where they were and what they were doing. I know I can. I watched in silent horror. This changes everything, I thought with typically restrained British understatement. The Cold War may be over but a new ideological conflict was about to start in deadly earnest.
Not since January 1815 when 1,500 British troops attacked a thinly defended American battery on Georgia’s coast* has any foreigner attacked the American mainland. To be sure there had been terrorist atrocities before but the scale of the aerial strikes on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were of an entirely different order using two of the most potent symbols of western technological supremacy – the passenger jet and the skyscraper. It’s made America jittery and defensive. Moslems across the West are vilified as the new reds under the bed and the loose talk of jihad and crusades makes our fragile and fractious world an infinitely more dangerous place. Be afraid.
*The British then proceeded to sack the nearby town of St. Mary’s and burn its fort before departing just weeks later. The hostilities marked the last invasion and occupation of the U.S. mainland by foreign troops. The fighting was all the more remarkable because the War of 1812 (when the British tried to burn down the White House) had ended a month earlier with the Treaty of Ghent. By the time the invaders pulled out, even Andrew Jackson’s victory over the British at New Orleans – often considered the final battle of the war – was history. It had taken a month for word of peace to make its way across the Atlantic to both British and American forces.
Source: The Archaeological Institute of America
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