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:

Happy Birthday America

American Idol

Yankee Pranks

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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My Family Jewels

Bulging Biceps

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.

Check out

VOMITs

Fancy a Jump?

Defiant Blighty

The nasty riots that raged across London and other cities seem to have thankfully abated. There’s been a lot of easy talk about Broken Britain and knee-jerk reactions from here today, gone tomorrow politicians with their silly sound-bites who play to the gallery. What’s broken can be fixed but it takes everyone to do their bit. The indomitable spirit of the overwhelming number of Brits of all hues will overcome those who trash their own.

This is an incredible amateur video of a brave woman who challenged the rioters. If you don’t like swearing then I suggest you don’t watch this clip.

Normal Pansyland service resumes tomorrow.

You might also like to read:

Riots in London

Huddled Masses

Mosquito Massacre

We may be suffering from an advanced case of heat exhaustion but at least the much anticipated mozzie threat, like Saddam’s WMD, has been wildly exaggerated. When we lived in suburban Yalıkavak Liam suffered unrelenting assaults from the most ubiquitous of warm weather pests. There’s a definite benefit to living along one of Old Bodrum Town’s busy thoroughfares. The weekly bug-busting van that tours the streets at night drapes the entire house in mustard gas and nips the nasty nibblers in the bud. It probably exterminates all insect life except cockroaches which are indestructible and the true heirs to a post-apocalyptic world.

If you like bug tales you may like Bugs

Last Chance Saloon

Riots in London

London’s Burning

London’s burning and the rising anger felt by most about the three nights of viral riots that escalated across the Capital and other major British cities is understandable. It’s easy to take a lock ‘em up and throw away the key attitude to those stupid people binging on recreational looting and casual arson. Even a bleeding heart pinko liberal like me feels a sense of revulsion when witnessing inner city hoodies in designer trainers, wielding iron bars and Blackberries and rampaging through the streets. I’ve read calls for social networks like Twitter and Facebook to be closed down as if this was the problem. It isn’t. I’ve heard people ask ‘Where are the water cannons?’ There aren’t any. I’ve read calls for the army to clear the streets. I’ve even heard calls for the imposition of martial law. Britain isn’t Syria. However, Britain is France and these riots bear an uncanny resemblance to those that engulfed Paris and other French cities in 2005. Let’s try and keep a sense of proportion. Of course, law and order must be firmly restored but then we need to examine the why. Is this a case of sub-class, out of control feral kids with little care for their families or communities? Or is it a case of a lost-generation, disenfranchised youth with few prospects and a bleak future? Like most things the truth lies somewhere in between.

Also:

Their Daily Bread

Defiant Blighty

How Do You Solve a Problem like Marie?

I don’t normally do the cute dog thing. I leave that to the legion of emigreys who frantically fret about the welfare of street animals. The trouble is that my friend and fellow semigrey Marie is in a bit of a pickle. Marie has a dog called Harry. Allegedly, happy Harry’s an ardent Arsenal fan. He’s got the dog collar to prove it. I say allegedly because I’ve seen plenty of dogs watching the footie but not one from the canine variety. However, I’m content to be challenged on this point since I could write everything I know about the beautiful game on the back of an envelope. I digress. Harry’s not why Marie’s in a pickle.

Help me

One of the street dogs Marie occasionally feeds turned up at her door up the duff and she’s been left holding the babies, all eight of them. To add insult to injury their mother hasn’t the strength to nurse her pups and Marie has resorted to hand-rearing and intensive care. Some hard-hearted idiots have suggested she should just let them die, particularly the two little bitches as it will cost to have them spayed. Girls will be sluts and they’ll bring more trouble to your door. Marie won’t do this. ‘This isn’t India,’ she says. However, Marie’s in imminent danger of becoming a crazy dog lady, surrounded by poo and a pack of pups that’s turning her fine Gümüslük pile into makeshift kennels. She needs help and needs it fast. Can you solve a problem like Marie?

If you can please email Marie on mtcoggin@prospermarketing.co.uk

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