Crisis? What Crisis?

It’s Cold Outside

Clement popped by for tea to meet Clive. Alluding to the ceaseless storm clouds of recession that just refuse to budge, his provocative first words were “I’m so sorry, things must be so awful for you in England” barely concealing his ill-judged glee with fake concern. Predictably, Clive’s hackles rose like an angry porcupine and a prickly exchange of political, social and economic views ensued. I’m afraid it became rather heated. Clive gave firm assurances that he wasn’t queuing up at the local Sally Army soup kitchen just yet.

After an indecently brief stopover, my cherished Clive departed with happy promises to return. He left us sad and melancholy.

Oh Woe is Me

Laugh and Cry
Screen Dames
A Real Weepy

A chill night wind conspired to trap us inside most evenings so we amused ourselves with a delicious mix of gossip and the silver screen, liberally lubricated with increasingly less cheap plonk as wine prices seem to rise by the week. We amused Clive with our sorry emigrey tales of the mad, the sad, the bad and the glad. We watched Beautiful Thing and Tea with Mussolini; two of my favourite films. Seriously sentimental Clive just loves a weepy so I kept a box of autumnal shades to hand.

We ventured out  to a village morgue bar just the once and really wished we hadn’t. We’d hardly taken our first sip when a despondent, drunken emigrey called Fergus from Falkirk was working his pitch at the bar and looking for a stooge. He collared us to impart his hard luck story. Fergie is a big man with a greasy ginger toupée and a disproportionately hefty lower torso, giving him the look of a bewigged weeble. He had married an attractive tender-aged Thai girl who he had picked out of a catalogue. She was delivered by post and married for security. After a couple of barren years, the Thai bride divorced fat Falkirk Fergie, kept the security and moved south to warmer climes. He now drowns his sorrows in the bottom of a beer glass frittering away the meagre income left to him. A dismal tale of woe too far, we headed for the door, taxied home and chucked on Steel Magnolias to lighten the mood. It was not the best selection. Clive was inconsolable and emptied the autumnal box.

Bodrum Blues

We rushed Clive around the peninsula to provide a tasty titbit of our foster home. He took to Bodrum even in mid makeover mode and adored the castle, camera-clicking like a man possessed. Unhappily, despite the glorious, cloudless skies, the rest of the midwinter yarımada is distinctly unprepossessing – scruffy, neglected and vacant. I think he finds Turkey’s rough, ramshackle patina rather unappealing. As man of certain age, cultivated habits and mature sensibilities, Clive is more drawn to the coiffured charm of the Home Counties.

It wasn’t always so. Clive’s salad days were filled with audacious spirit as he criss-crossed the globe in search of adventure and discovery; even floating up the Irrawaddy on a Sampan to smoke opium in the jungle with the natives (I know a sampan is a Chinese flat bottom boat so highly unlikely to be found in Burmese waters, but no matter). Alas, we must all grow up eventually and get a sensible job in sensible shoes. These days Clive’s favourite holiday destination is refined Madeira – Surrey with a little more sun.

A Star is Born

Burger-star, Clive, landed after sundown at a wind-chilled, sodden Bodrum Airport, jetting in via Istanbul. We waited outside the domestic terminal without realising that internal Pegasus passengers disembark from the International terminal.

Plonk

As my first-born friend of 38 years, it is fitting and proper that he is our maiden caller. I am truly gladdened that he made the effort to join us, exhausting his air miles to do so. We hurried him home, hit the sauce to rejoice and chatted into the wee small hours. Over-drinking is fine for a couple of old reprobates like us but poor Clive suffers terribly from hurricane-force hangovers. The next day he scrambled out of his pit in time for afternoon tea, mumble-mouthed, fuzzy-eyed and ashen-faced fumbling for the paracetamol.  It took him another hour or so to string together a few coherent words which were “What’s for dinner?”

Sodden Bodrum

We were spited by a vengeful Old Testament deluge punctured by a spectacular light and sound show that lit up the sopping sky and cut the power. Prodigious pulses of horizontal rain assailed every crack and cranny, through every easterly window frame and beneath every threshold. Towels were requisitioned and old cushions commandeered to ebb the relentless biblical flow. The bucketing, biting blast blew over, a catastrophe was averted and we retired two by two.

Educating Rashida

Tariq has acquired a brand new set of dashing, shiny dentures so Tariq is toothless no longer. He proudly grins all over the site flashing his novel knashers at random passers by. Tariq and the missus are archetypal village types; she in a head scarf and clashing floral baggy pantaloons and he in a tatty vest with a fag permanently jammed in his gob – honest people with simple needs. It is to their credit that they are raising their two daughters as thoroughly modern types.

Educating Rashida

Tariq’s eldest daughter came by the house waving a piece of paper which she handed to me with much excitement. I thought it was yet another bill but it was her last school report. I called Liam out to the patio and we examined it together. She had received tip top marks in virtually every subject (except English, unfortunately) and beamed with pride. Quite right too. We were chuffed that she thought to show us, and the next day bought her a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray. My eternal hope is that her parents resist the pressure to marry her off at 16 to some country cousin.

We mentioned her glowing report to Clement, but he simply doesn’t approve of educating Turkish girls “lest they get above their station.” Honestly!

Let the Children Play

I’m touched and heart-warmed to see that children are still children in Turkey, retaining innocence and a simple wonder long since lost in Blighty. I rarely witness a temper tantrum or any kind of brattish behaviour in public.  They have less but enjoy more. Turks of both sexes adore their young, lavishing affection and gentle correction in equal measure. Turkish society has yet to become tormented by rampant paranoia about child snatching paedophiles or obsessed with risk, both of which have turned some western children into selfish, cotton-wool covered social misfits, old, but not wise before their time.

The Great Flood

Tariq the Toothless, called at the house clutching a Red Crescent parcel from Jacqueline and hunky hubby, Angus. Jacqueline and I met at an interview in 1990. I was doing the interviewing and she got the job. She is a wonderfully undemanding friend who I may only see once a year. When we meet we simply carry on where we left off, mixing lascivious gossip with incisive social and political comment (or so we think).

Jacqueline’s package contained an assortment of magazines – cutting edge political commentary and Heat. The timing was impeccable. We are in dire need of extra kindling as we vainly attempt to keep warm during the wettest winter Asia Minor had seen since the Great Flood. I fear if the deluge continues our house may slowly slide down the hillside.

Rubble, Rubble, Toil and Trouble

Dig for Bodrum

As a much needed contrast from our sleeping village beauty, we rode the dolly into Bodrum for a walkabout. We found the town in frantic refashion mode with mechanical diggers in full destructive swing. The Town Hall has been utterly gutted, the promenade hassle cafés have been demolished and the crazy paving beneath is being excavated. All along the narrow pedestrianised ‘bar street’ the cobbles have been ripped up leaving a multi-puddled dirt track and entire buildings have been razed revealing views of the Aegean not seen since Mausolus was on the throne. A chic new civic square overlooking the crusader castle would be a spectacular urban statement. I suspect it’s not to be. Doubtless, short sighted, short term commercial considerations will prevail.

As befits the town’s reputation as the summer playground for the Turkish urban elite, I sincerely hope that sufficient time, money and imagination will be spent on the finished product.

In a vain effort to raise its game, Bodrum’s ill-favoured ugly sister, Gümbet, had its own makeover last year. But still the roads leading into the tacky resort remain grimly uninviting, marred by dereliction and casual building debris. The meagre improvements to the central townscape look cheap, rushed and unfinished. You can’t polish a turd.

My Drag Days Are Over!

Clive in Costume

Word has reached our storm lashed shores that principled vegetarian Clive has won the lead in the latest Hollywood blockbuster Mcdonald’s, The Advert. ‘It’s a meaty role’ he gushed. ‘And after years treading the boards in am-dram productions of dubious quality, my sad, drab drag days are over.’ Clive deservedly won the role after impressing the director with his haunting performances as the bi-polar Pepper Grinder in A Man for All Seasonings and as shot-putting Brunhilda, the pre-op East German transsexual in a post modern production of Wagner’s infamous Ring. We sent a congratulatory Moonpig card and an online voucher for a free Whopper.

We will be hearing more of his breakthrough starring role when he visits next week as our maiden caller from Blighty.