Road Kill

Alas, poor Tabatha is banished. Bianca, our neighbour’s fluffy white kitten has grown into a pushy, precocious teen feline and has made it abundantly clear that Tabatha is felix non grata. Bianca is now top cat. After Tabatha was caught catnapping when we endured the invasion of the big black rat I can’t say she’ll be much missed. However, I do hope she’s found a new playground for her orgiastic nocturnal activities and not become another road kill along Bodrum’s busy byways.

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Bees Around the Honey Pot

Old friend Gillian was vacationing in Akbuk with her husband John and daughter, Maria. Gillian had emailed to ask if they might visit when they were over. Akbuk is a small resort about two hours north so I thought it unlikely. However, I had underestimated Gillian’s steely determination, and we received the call that they were on the way. Regrettably, they missed their bus connection in Didim and were forced to take a convoluted route via Söke. Six hours later they arrived at Bodrum’s otogar. Gillian is a matter of fact kind of gal, and they all seemed unfazed by the wilting experience. We all enjoyed a rejuvenating late lunch, bijou tour of the town and a cold beer on the beach as the sun set over the castle. Maria, an intelligent, confident, pretty, curvaceous 15 year old was an instant hit with the seasonal workers with their spring loaded libidos. Waiters danced around her like bees around the proverbial without averting their stares from her perky knockers.

Take a look at:

The Juggling Smuggler

Mobiles and Megaphones

Wake Up Gay

I think our little drummer boy has got a bit bored with his morning call to the Faithful. The first day of Ramazan he banged away with enough gusto to wake the dead. This morning he wandered along the street to the erratic beat of a random limp tap. It’s a bit sad but at least Liam and I awake from our slumber refreshed and ready to face another sweaty day with gay abandon.

Thank you Dina for the Ovaltine ad

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Nappy Rash

The Bodrum Peninsula is not well blessed with decent beaches. Most are a blend of coarse sand and shingle. Some are manufactured and have to be replenished each year. When I think of the finest beaches of Turkey I think of magical Ölüdeniz near Fethiye, the pretty picture on a million tourist posters, majestic Iztuzu, Dalyan where the rare loggerhead turtles lay their precious eggs, and my personal favourite, enchanting Patara, 20 kms of secluded golden sand. However, I don’t think of Bolme Beach, a small, squalid little patch of mud and shingle near Gümüslük. Surprisingly, the august people at the Blue Flag Programme have awarded Bolme coveted blue flag status. They were clearly impressed by the tatty concrete pier with rusting supports against the backdrop of a large, ugly unfinished hotel that’s been allowed to rot for years. Or maybe it was because bathers feel safe by the omnipresence of a life guard (none), easy access for disabled people (not) or the excellent washing and sanitary facilities (er, no). I know, it must be the cleanliness of the beach. Perhaps that casually discarded used nappy wasn’t there when the inspector called. The view is fabulous though.

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Thank you David for bringing this to my attention.

Don’t forget to nominate me in the Cosmo Blog Awards. Only if you feel like it, of course. You can’t miss the oversized badge on the sidebar.

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I’m Coming Out

It’s official. yesterday Perking the Pansies smashed through the magical 100,000 barrier*. I’m genuinely amazed, incredibly flattered and truly humbled. I know 100,000 is small beer to the big boys but this little boy is thrilled. I’ve been writing since the end of October 2010 and, apart from Christmas Day and Boxing Day, I’ve posted every day. In celebration of this event Liam and I are popping a bottle of bubbly (well, cheap Turkish fizz) and coming out of the closet with a few select photographs. I expect a brick through our window any day now.

For best effect keep the music playing as you view the slideshow. Be careful not to dance around your handbag.

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*Combining my current hits with my old Google blog before it was blocked by the lazy Turkish censors.

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a celebration of our civil partnership.

Bugs from Hell

When Summer arrived so too did the cockroaches. I loathe them above all other bugs from Hell. I know they are obligatory in this climate and it’s not like we’re infested. It was just the one that popped in from the garden to have a nose around. Nevertheless it made my stomach turn as it sprinted across the living room floor with its long antennae wiggling about. It was reddish brown. I’ve never seen a reddish brown one before. Trapper Liam, last of the great white hunters, set forth to capture and dispose of the canny creature. He chased the roach round the room for a quite a while until he finally managed to capture it in a downturned glass. Liam cautiously slipped a piece of card under the glass, lifted it gently with its contents violently wriggling and moved slowly to the bathroom. His hand slipped in his attempt to flush the beast away. The rim of the glass decapitated the bug against the pan, guillotining the head cleanly from the torso in single movement. Like a scene from Alien, the headless creature refused to die and writhed around the glass for what seemed like hours. It’s the stuff of my nightmares.

If you like bug tales you’ll love these:

Murder, He Wrote

A Biblical Plague

Ghost Post

I apologise if you received an email notification of a non-existent post. I pressed a button prematurely and sent a phantom post off into the ether. My faculties are fast fading in my twilight years.

Letter to America

I’m forever amazed at the growing popularity of Perking the Pansies across the pond. My inconsequential witterings tell the tale of two middle-aged gay men in a faraway Moslem land written in a peculiarly British carry on style laced with low wit and attempted irony. Let’s face it it’s a minority sport. I’ve published the odd piece about my visits of yesteryear to the Land of the Free but beyond that I can’t see the appeal. So who are you my Yankee pansy fans? Are you mainly expat Brits living in America or genuine Yankee doodle dandies attracted to the semi-gay theme in a fag frat pack sort of way? Does the expat perspective resonate for global nomads wherever they are? Perhaps you just like it because it’s funny or well-observed (or both or neither). Or maybe you’re just waiting for us to be clapped in irons for outraging public morals, or worse (as would happen in some other Moslem countries).

You may have read that I’m writing a book that’s due out at Christmas. God knows I’ve been banging on about it enough. It’s the best of the blog and mixed with the same ingredients but tells our emigrey tale with extra spice and more depth. I doubt it’ll make my fortune but I’d like it to do well. Of course, I’d love it to fly off the shelves. The trouble is I don’t know what American shelves it might fly off from. I’d really like to know why you read my inane and irreverent ramblings. If you have the time and the inclination please leave a comment on this post, add a few words to my Faceache page or drop me a line at:

jackscott.bodrum@gmail.com

I’m not fishing for complements (though all will be gratefully received). If you have any marketing tips I’d like to hear about these too.

If you like this then you’ll love these:

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Gay Marriage in New York

Perking the Pansies – the Book

The Windy City

Wild and windy weather suddenly blew into Bodrum battering gulets and propelling chips off dinner plates. However, the concrete tresses of the fawning waiters stayed resolutely in place. Hurricane Katrina wouldn’t disturb their gelled masterpieces. The cooling gusts were a welcome respite from the sopping humidity of the last few weeks but now every surface of the house is draped in a fine film of dust and sand. It’s too hot to mop. We awoke yesterday morning to find our courtyard covered in leaf litter and dislodged adolescent olives still attached to broken twigs. We also found our landlord supervising a burly man with shovel hands and bad teeth. The florid stranger decimated the shrubs, hacked back the bougainvillea and shaved the ground cover. By midday our garden had been well and truly scalped, pruned to within an inch of its life. Beril and Vadim, our Turkish neighbours, are due back from their Ramazan pilgrimage to Ankara tomorrow. Vadim has been lavishing attention on our shared plot all summer. What will he make of the drastic Ground Force makeover?

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Til Death Us Do Part

I’ve written before that some Turkish men prefer to wed, rather than just bed western women. Not all the Shirley Valentines who come ashore end up as VOMITs. Some lucky lasses marry their handsome hunk, learn the lingo and settle down. I can see the attraction to a modern, progressive Turk. Our girls do have their advantages – a can do attitude, a stronger sense of sex equality and a more open mind. This is something that some of the local po-faced princesses would do well to emulate. The trouble is that we don’t just marry our partners. We marry their families too. This can work once the village in-laws get used to the idea that their darling Ahmed has got hitched to a foreign infidel who can’t cook, can’t clean, answers back, expects fidelity and demands an orgasm. It’s not always a square peg in a round hole.

Pity the poor wife whose in-laws descend to scrub and whinge, colonise the kitchen, move furniture around, re-press the laundry and re-arrange the larder. It takes a strong woman to grin and bear it. There can be a dark side to this cross-cultural tale when the families simply refuse to accept the yabancı wife and make her life a living Hell. Some men are too weak or too stupid to resist the pressure and buckle under the strain. Strong, butch Ahmed will always be his mother’s little boy and do as he’s told. The moral of this story? Meet the in-laws first before he slips a ring on your finger. This doesn’t mean you can’t sleep with him though.

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Fancy a Jump?