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.

Life in an Hermès Scarf

Elegance in a Head Scarf

Liam has become quite the Mrs. Beaton of late, honing his once impoverished, improvised gastronomy and turning his hand to exceptional cake making, biscuit baking and seasonal specialities. Today’s impressive delight is walnut and carrot wholemeal bread. He’s been inspired by domestic guru, curvaceous Charlotte and Kirazli Karyn’s various online cook booklets. I secretly fear he is gradually going native and that head scarf moment is inching ever closer – Hermès, naturally. Methinks I should leave him to his culinary creations, withdraw to the tea house, play parlour games with the local boys and take an illicit lover or three. It’s the Turkish way. I’ll expect my supper on the table when I get home.

Just Shout Loudly in English

“Avustralyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına” is a Turkish term pronounced as a single word and an extreme example of agglutination, the process of adding affixes to the base of a word. This word is translated into English as “as if you were one of those whom we could not make resemble the Australian people”. Crikey. Turkish is stuffed with tortuously lengthy agglutinations and therein lies my knotty problem.

Turkic Language Distribution

Though rhythmic and poetic on the ear, Turkish is not an easy language for Europeans to assimilate as it is thought to belong to the Altaic language family and is distantly related to Mongolian, Korean and other inscrutable Asiatic tongues. Despite Atatürk’s valiant 1928 adoption of the Latin alphabet and the fact that the language is phonetic and mostly regular, the word order, agglutinations and the absence of familiar sounds all conspire to make learning Turkish a very daunting prospect. At least that’s my excuse. Liam is trying. I am just hopeless.

Although our hosts are remarkably tolerant of the average Brit’s lazy attempts to nail a foreign tongue, I’m a zealous believer that a little learning goes a long way. Taking the trouble to remember a few choice words and phrases can make a world of difference. One rainy afternoon, we were buying DIY essentials in Koçtaş. A yellow-haired, haughty emigrey ignorati strutted into the store and bellowed imperiously at a random selection of bewildered staff “Excuse me, I am English! I need help! Do you speak English? Yes, you there. Do you speak English?” It made me cringe with acute embarrassment and I peered apologetically at the pretty till girl. Despite my lacklustre language skills, I will never become one those all too common high-handed, po-faced little Englanders.

So what’s the Turkish for “as if you were one of those whom we could not make resemble a drag queen”? Answers on a postcard.

The Only Gay in the Village

We fancied a singalong fright night in the village and headed down to a local beachfront steakhouse. Popular with the hardy resident emigreys, it’s owned by bubbly, brassy bottle-blond Berni Belfast and her Turkish husband, Deniz, who cooks the best steak on the peninsula. Berni lays on the usual winter fare of fixed price menus, quiz nights and karaoke to coax the emigreys out from under their duvets. I like unpretentious Berni. She is the real deal, calls a spade a shovel and is a bracing breath of fresh air on a brisk night.

Proletarian Berni has a high-octave accent delivered like a sub-machine gun. As my Mother is from that part of the world I can catch the conversation. Alas, poor Liam understands hardly a word and just nods and smiles politely like the Queen at a Commonwealth jamboree.

Berni regaled us with tales of the bar wars. Allegedly, following months of clandestine subterfuge, her former front of house left without warning to launch his own restaurant taking with him their head chef and photocopies of their menus. I sense industrial espionage is rife in the catering trade here but to set up a new establishment dishing up identical fare for the same audience only a few hundred metres along the pretty promenade does seem a touch provocative. The bilious bad blood bubbles just beneath the surface.

Blackpool Bobbi was our camp karaoke compere for the evening’s random entertainment. Unforgettable veteran resident Bobbi fosters a unique, instantly recognisable look. Uncompromisingly clad top to tail in Persil whiteness from his back-combed highlights to his shiny patent leather loafers, he belts out a passable interpretation of ‘My Way’ between the vodka shots. I admire his pluck. Truly, Bobbi is the only gay in the village.

Sex and the Sitesi

Vivacious vetpat Charlotte and naughty but nice Nancy are compulsive Sex and the City groupies. So when they heard that my butch scaffolder nephew gave me a DVD of  ‘Sex and the City 2’ for Christmas they started foaming at the mouth. I have a perceptive family who know what I like though I suspect the strapping lad asked his girlfriend to buy it for him to avoid being ridiculed at the till in HMV.

Charlotte and Nancy descended on us for a camp night at the movies dragging Charlotte’s dapper hubby, Alan, behind them. ‘Sex and the City’ really is a gay and girlie thing. Straight men just don’t get it. As with SATC1, the sequel is less edgy and sexually incisive than the broads with balls TV shows but is diverting enough with a thin storyline cleverly disguised by a grand pageant of fab frocks, fuck me heels and glam handbags. The rapid fire costume changes left our girlie guests gasping doubling the dimensions of their bounteous baps. Meanwhile, bored Alan dropped off in the corner.

The soaring triumph of the film is a remarkably nimble performance by premier league gay icon, Liza with a ‘Zee’ Minnelli, who I thought had long since checked into a waxwork museum. Draped in a little black mini dress displaying an amazing set of pins many decades her junior and a fixed nip and tuck expression, Ms Minnelli delivered a delightfully feisty rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)’. The agile, aging diva bopped boldly about the boards like the game old bird that she is. I feared she might fall and break a hip. And, while I have no wish to impugn Ms Minnelli’s undoubted talents or profound ability to hold back the years, I suspected CGI.

Much-troubled Ms Garland’s much-troubled progeny appeared as the surprise star turn at a gay ‘wedding’ at the top of the film. Alas, it  put our tastefully understated French bistro-themed civil partnership reception at a gastro-pub in Waterloo firmly in the shade. That’s Hollywood for you.

Thanks to Paul Hard for the post title. Sorry Paul, there’s no money in it!

Ex-Pat Glossary

Expatriates, like everyone else, come in all shapes and sizes – the mean and the mannered, the classless and the classy, the awful and the joyful. The abbreviated epithet ‘expat’ simply doesn’t adequately express the myriad folk who have chosen to live here In Turkey. To add a little descriptive colour to my posts, I’ve devised some new words to depict the numerous variants of the species.

  • Emigreys: retirees serving out their twilight years in the sun, most of whom seem to be just a little to the right of Genghis Khan and who bought a jerry built white box in Turkey because it was cheaper than Spain (well, it was at the time). Everyday emigrey life operates within a parallel universe of neo colonial separateness preoccupied with visa hops to the Isles of Greece, pork sausages, property prices and Blighty bashing.
  • VOMITs (Victims of Men in Turkey): vintage desperate ex-housewives with a few lira to spare who shamelessly chase younger Turkish men. Predictably, such relationships rarely last once the money runs out. Thank you to Sara for this one.
  • Semigreys: those too young to retire in the conventional sense, who are living the vida loca on the proceeds of property sales. Plunging interest rates present quite a fiscal test to those trying to maintain a hedonistic lifestyle on dwindling assets while waiting for the pensions to kick in, assuming there will be a pension to kick in given the parlous position of the public purse.
  • Vetpats: veterans who have been living in Turkey for many years. Usually better informed than their peers with a less asinine view of the world, vetpats have taken the trouble to learn Turkish and are better integrated into the wider community. Some have even acquired Turkish citizenship and are fortunate to have found gainful employment on the right side of the Law.
  • Sexpats: discrete grey men of means who are serviced by young Turkish men in return for a stipend.
  • Hedonistas: Those who enjoy a carefree existence of total self indulgence liberated from the binding ties of responsibility or the worries of tomorrow.
  • The Ignorati: A collective term for those who live in utter ignorance of the history and culture of their foster land, shout loudly in English and see the world at large through the pages of the Daily Mail (or The Daily Bigot as I like to call it).

These terms are not mutually exclusive. It’s perfectly possible for an emigrey to also be a vetpat VOMIT and a fully paid up member of the ignoble ignorati.

I have received several suggestions from readers to add to the ex-pat lexicon. Thank you to Greg for ‘emigays‘ to describe well to do old queens spending up their savings because you can’t take it with you. Thank you also to Tom for the deliciously naughty ‘cowpats‘ to describe those I really can’t abide and would flee to the next town to avoid.

More please…

Buyers Beware

I stumbled upon the Horizon Sky Owner’s site* on Facebook where it seems some investors are in rebellious mood, railing against prolonged delays and rising costs. It was a chilly blast from the past. I had considered buying into the development about 4 years ago when I had a proper job, a decent wage, and a few pennies in the piggy bank. It was at a time when the prospect of moving to the sun was but a faraway fantasy so we fancied a part time slice of paradise as the next best thing. The development was heavily promoted in the London Evening Standard property supplement and I was seduced by Galliard Homes’ first-rate reputation for top-drawer builds. Liam and I attended a slick presentation in a swish West End hotel and talked at length to one of the persuasive, pretty reps. I was dangerously close to signing on the dotted line but, at the critical moment of my madness, I stepped outside, lit a reflective cigarette, regained my sanity and walked away. It was not to be.

I know little of the development these days except that it seems colossal in scale and ambition, located on an isolated slope near Iassos and late. Now we live in Turkey we know so much more. Our lives and means are utterly altered as is the dire economic landscape we all now inhabit. We rent and are thankful for the freedom to move as we please and when the mood takes us. We have been mercifully released from that inbred notion to own that Brits nurture in the womb. “There’s nothing safer than houses” my father used to say. Alas, this has a hollow ring nowadays.

Investing in Turkey no longer offers the rapid return it once did, nowhere does. We travel the length and breadth of the Bodrum Peninsula past half-built developments of little white boxes marching up hill and down dale. No-one seems to be buying and few are renting outside the height of summer. And yet the developers carry on regardless, promising pie in the sky, depressing the market and killing the goose.

* July 2011. The Horizon Sky Owner’s site on Facebook is no longer public.

* February 2013. Horizon Sky now has an open Facebook page that anyone can join.

Pansies Across the Seas

I’ve recently found a nifty little device that I’ve added to Perking the Pansies. It’s called ‘Revolver Maps’ which pin points the location of my visitors across the globe. I now stare at the screen for hours to watch the cities of the World light up and pulsate to the perking beat of the pansies. Unsurprisingly most of my punters come from Blighty, the Emerald Isle or the Turkish Riviera though the map of Europe is beginning to twinkle like a Eurovision Song Contest score board with nil point currently awarded to France. Perhaps they don’t like pansies in La Belle France though there was little evidence of it when I was last in Gay Paree.

Most unexpectedly are the pansy punters from more far-flung corners of the globe. I seem to have enthusiasts on both American seaboards but have attracted few fans in the vast lands in between where the bible-belters lurk. The Canadians like to perk (well the Mounties will do anything to keep warm in minus 20 degrees) and I have one or two camp followers in Latin America. The fragrant Far East is where the pansies never fade and I’m particularly delighted by our man in Borneo. Oz is a disappointing late starter though the ever cheerful Aussies do have  a biblical flood to contend with. I have high hopes for Africa and track the map from Cairo to Cape Town looking for signs of pansy flashers.

The South Pole is excluded from my pansy blog domination. Nothing grows down there anyway and I don’t want the egg-heads of Antarctica to be diverted from their vital work on global warming lest the pansies drown from rising sea levels.