Our fat perfidious landlord has unveiled his dastardly intention to evict us should he find a buyer for the house. This is in spite of our two year tenancy agreement and faultless payment history. We will jump before we are pushed. Our minds are now set on change and this is the opportunity to cast our net wider than sleepy Yalıkavak. We now know there is more to the Bodrum Peninsula than living in an igloo with a view on the edge of a ghost town populated by street dogs and feral felines. Besides, the vile Vikings are back for the spring and I don’t relish the prospect of enduring the whinging drivel from miserable Cnut or the sight of vapid Ragnild’s gravity ravaged baps. Despite the temporary bedlam, a Bodrum in shiny new livery looks promising.
Islamic Chic
Our second day in Istanbul was spent meandering through the piazzas and pavilions of the splendid Topkapı Palace, epicentre of the imperial Ottoman court for 400 years. The unheralded highlight was chancing upon relics of the Prophet (yes, The Prophet). We gazed incredulously upon bits of His beard, tooth, sword, bow, a heap of soil used for ritual ablution and a clay impression of His foot – all allegedly genuine. Slightly less credible are the rod of Moses (of the plagues of Egypt fame), King David’s skull, Abraham’s cookware, and Joseph’s turban (though sadly not his coat of many colours). We were most disappointed not to see the Ark of the Covenant and a charred twig from the Burning Bush. Naturally we remained suitably deferential to avoid stoning by the Faithful. I suppose it’s no less fantastic than the implausible holy artefacts revered by the old ladies of Christendom.
In the extensive grounds we encountered the phenomenon known as ‘Islamic Chic’. Gaggles of giggling girls wandering about their Ottoman heritage adorned in exquisitely tailored dark hued, figure-hugging maxi coats garnished with sumptuous silk scarves of vivid primary colours. The head coverings, moulded at the forehead into a shallow peek as if hiding a baseball cap beneath, framed their painted faces. Modest and modern, I suspect the look is more a sign of wealth and status than of piety. We finished the day with a flourish by ambling around the excellent archeological museum.
Ol’ Constantinople is simply sublime and just gets better each time I visit. We travelled home that evening wanting more and vowing to return.
My Golden Horn
We took an all too brief trip to Istanbul to celebrate our anniversary. We did the usual whistle-stop tour of Sultanahmet (the old city). Haghia Sophia still leaves me in speechless awe every time I gaze up towards the magnificent dome that seems to float effortlessly above. Onwards to the curvaceous Blue Mosque built a millennium later. Better outside than in, the seductive silhouette of mosque and minarets defines the famous city skyline. Domed out, we rested outside in the lovingly tended park and endured the call to prayer in thunderous surround sound.
We spent the evening in Beyoğlu, the increasingly hip shopping and entertainment district that looks proudly down on the old city from across the Golden Horn. We expensively dined along Istiklal Caddesi, the broad pedestrianised boulevard that runs like a spine through the area. After settling the extortionate hesap, we ventured out into the night in search of a minority interest inn to quench our thirsts and assess the locals. Unsurprisingly, the Byzantine gay scene is infinitely superior to any other in Turkey. We supped in a couple of minor league joints before ending the night in the appropriately named Tekyön (One Way), a large pulsating dance bar. It might have been London or Paris, except the disco tits on display were attached to young carefree Turks rather than cute Colombians. Discouragingly, you know you’re getting old when, like policemen, the competition is getting ever younger. We left the boys to their play and headed back to our hotel for a cocoa.
Perking the Pansies – Bound and Ungagged
I love writing the blog. It keeps me off the streets and on the straight and narrow (to coin an ironic phrase). I’m truly grateful for all the kind words of encouragement I receive from readers across the globe. I don’t always have the time to respond to each one but I am cheered by them. Thank you.
Alongside the blog I’ve been writing a literary version of Perking the Pansies with added drama and spice, warts and all. It’s altogether a more daring exposé of everyday emigrey life in Yalıkavak and the events that shaped our world. With a lot of luck and a fair wind it may one day get published. I don’t expect to make my fortune but it would be gratifying to see someone lounging and laughing round a shimmering infinity pool, G&T in one hand, Perking the Pansies in the other.
It’s five years since Liam and I first met. Our rollercoaster life is simply the best as Tina Turner famously sang. In tribute to Liam I’m releasing a small snippet of the book which describes the manner of our meeting. It’s still a work in progress but I hope you like it.
Fecking Fantastic Fares
I bored the drawers off Clive with my whinge-fest about our below par business class flight with Turkish Airlines. He was indifferent to my scandalised account of our barely above economy service and reminded me how much worse it can be. I’m sure we all know about the too good to be true rock-bottom fares of the bargain bucket brigands. Who hasn’t been badly stung by hidden extras and dumped in the middle of the night at an airstrip with no transport connections?
I can’t think of anyone wittier to tell the sorry tale of modern budget aviation than Fascinating Aida, a veteran satirical cabaret act that has been treading the boards on and off since 1983. Thank you to Clive for bringing this to my attention and hammering home his point. People who object to minor expletives should go no further.
Vile Coffee and Nobody Famous
When Liam and I got hitched we asked for Thomas Cook vouchers as wedding gifts. We had already made the fateful (or was it fatal?) decision to migrate to Asia Minor and didn’t need a brown Kenwood toaster with a cornflower motif. Nor did we want his and his John Lewis bath robes. Since then we’ve slowly used up most of the vouchers for our Blighty flights but the process was becoming a bit of a drag. Vouchers can only be exchanged in Thomas Cook travel shops and these are as rare as ethnic minorities on Midsomer Murders. We decided on a final spree and used what we had left on business class tickets to London via Istanbul with Turkish Airlines.
We could hardly contain our anticipation when we arrived at the domestic terminal at Bodrum Airport. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous. The flight to Istanbul was pleasant enough with a welcome glass of bubbly and a hot breakfast from a fixed-smile waitress wearing too much tarty slap. Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport was a frenetic potpourri of the exotic and the mundane. The bazaar medley included a mysterious sect of elderly men in Persil-white towelling togas. We fled the bedlam to the utter indulgence and serenity of the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous.
We boarded our Heathrow-bound plane expecting to turn left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. Our excited smiles crumbled as we were directed right towards our hard standard size seats. There was no more extra leg room than ordinary emergency exit seats and the food was only distinguishable from economy fare by the china crockery. The much vaunted entertainment selection consisted of an obscure disaster movie about a runaway train and an hour of adverts from the flickering mini screen that descended from the bottom of the overhead lockers. I’ve been better diverted on charter. Booze was provided only on request. Worse still, just a thin curtain divided us from the plebs back in coach. The experience left us disenchanted with a wasted wedding gift and lamenting our decision to reject the brown Kenwood toaster with cornflower motif. What an expensive flop.
Nine days later we returned to Heathrow with heavy hearts. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – delicious coffee, limitless booze, butter-moist croissants, nobody famous. We boarded our Istanbul-bound plane expecting to turn right into our barely above economy cabin. Our resigned expressions were transformed into crazy grins as we were directed left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. We sank into our soft capacious seats with sixteen button-operated positions and in-chair massage. The individual screens provided entertainment of boundless possibilities. Spoilt for choice, Liam couldn’t decide so flattened his seat and took a cat-nap instead. The three course supper was haute cuisine and our camp thin-wristed attendant silently filled my glass without prompting as he swished down the aisle. Just the ticket.
Back in Istanbul, we headed to the business class lounge – vile coffee, no croissants, no booze, nobody famous. We boarded a dedicated business class mini-bus to our return flight to Bodrum – glass of bubbly, cold supper, proper crockery. All our flights provided stainless steel mini cutlery. I assume terrorists can’t afford business class.
Ram Raiders
During these days of lean interest rates it pays to shop around. Our money was split between three banks and when one of them offered a better rate we decided to move our cash. The bank that lost out did everything in its power short of outright refusal to scupper our plans. An electronic transfer attracted a ridiculous charge so we were forced to draw the money out in cash. We emerged from the bank like Bonnie and Clyde with two man-bags stuffed with the filthy lucre. We stood by the roadside waiting for our dolly ride clinging onto half our worth like limp-wristed limpits. Every florid passer-by and leather-faced loiterer looked suspicious to our nervous eyes. We made it unmolested to the second bank and slapped the cash onto the counter. I have never been more relieved.
On the subject of myopic banking practices, why are ATM kiosks often clustered in rows? Do they huddle together for comfort and security? Is it to confuse ram raiders? I’m surprised no one has thought of cutting costs by sharing the burden of running expenses, maintenance, cleaning and topping up the dosh. Of course this would mean the banks talking to each other and dropping the fees for using the wrong machines. Now that would be something.
Bedlam in Bodrum
We took a sunny dolly ride to Bodrum to see how the ambitious townscape transformation is progressing. Much has been done since our last inspection but there’s still much to do and so little time. Work so far has revealed the grand plan. Tired old crazy-paving is being replaced by top-notch slabs and the marina road is being narrowed to a single lane to provide a broad costa-style esplanade to saunter along on balmy summer evenings. Nuisance parking will be banished and the pestering from the hassle bars should be reduced.
Only about a third of the new Iberianesque promenade is complete. The re-paving of Bar Street continues apace though side sokaks resemble the Gaza Strip. It’s still a mystery what is proposed for the main road into town which is being ripped apart by Caterpillar diggers leaving deep trenches in their mighty mechanical wake. I assume this is all part of the project to upgrade the water mains.
The start of the season ominously approaches. A legion of swarthy lads in cheap jeans, sweaty vests and rusty tools has been drafted in from the east in a frantic rush to complete the work on time. Already early bird visitors of the elderly Teutonic type in straw hats and socked sandals have landed. They waddle through the rubble in bemusement. Bedlam in Berlin? Unheard of. Finished by Easter? Not a hope.
Bubba’s Gobbler
Perking the Pansies has exceeded 50,000 hits in just five short months. How did this happen? I know the winter months are long and bleak but we all really do need to get out more. As the orbit of the Earth slowly warms the northern hemisphere with longer days, pansy fans will emerge bleary eyed from centrally heated hibernation. We can free ourselves from our enforced virtual lives and enjoy the bountiful summer. Alas, I guess my hit rate will plummet accordingly. Oh well, maybe my bacon will be saved by renewed interest from a wintering south plunged into darkness. So far, South America, southern Africa and Australasia have been immune to my pansy pulling power.
To lift my spirits I thought I’d celebrate my minor success with two pansy parables from America. In Blighty I was casually thumbing through the gaypers (the free gay publications distributed to pansy establishments). In between the relentless diet of pop, porn, prossies and pec pics I came across a more serious journalistic piece. Called ‘Distant Voices and Gay Lives’ the writer David McGilliveray profiled long forgotten pansy pioneers. The subject that most caught my eye was dashing William Haines who was a major box office star in the twenties and early thirties. One of his first talkies, ‘Way Out West’ (1930) included the immortal line “I’m the wildest pansy you’ll ever pick.” Obviously Billy never visited Bodrum.
Haines’ stubborn refusal to stay in the closet and play it straight eventually killed off his Hollywood career. He didn’t seem to mind and became an interior designer of some note. He met his partner Jimmie Shields in 1926 and they stayed together until William’s death in 1973. Three months later Jimmie killed himself because he found it “…impossible to go on alone and I’m much too lonely.” This is a tragic though strangely tender tale that belies the notion that gay men can’t sustain a relationship beyond a nanosecond. Joan Crawford called William and Jimmie the happiest married couple in Hollywood. I asked Liam if he would consider suicide if anything terrible happened to me. He said he was considering suicide because nothing terrible has happened to me.
From the delicious to the ridiculous, the second entertaining tale concerns my namesake and distant cousin Jack Scott, turkey trapper. Jack Scott’s affair with wild turkeys spans more than 30 years. Read all about Jack’s ever popular box and the legend of Bubba’s gobbler here.
And finally, spare a thought for the spring-loaded wannabe VOMIT who googled “im a woman wanting casual sex with a man in turkey where would i go” and returned Perking the Pansies. The lusty lass must have been devastated to find friends of Dorothy. Of course, the obvious answer is jump on the next plane for the ride of your life (or so the local boys think).
Premature eJackulation
It looks like we’ll soon be following our ex-neighbour Clement. Our smiley landlord called by unannounced dragging a Turkish family of three generations behind him. Liam was taking his morning ablutions and I was taking tea. The family were prospective buyers, and smiley Landlord wanted me to show them around the house. I refused. It was embarrassing and rather unpleasant. If he wants to sell the house from under us that is his prerogative. He will have to give us fair notice and we have no intention of acting as his unofficial, unpaid agents. That wiped the silly smile of his face.
There are plenty of little white boxes around to rent and we shall move. There’s an excellent chance that our landlord won’t be able to sell the house and it’ll remain empty indefinitely like most of the others. Myopic old goat.
Perking the Pansies 