Tariq the Toothless is our caretaker. A muscular man with rough hands, his hard labour life is etched deeply into his kind face. He wanders around the site day and night doing very little but then I guess there is very little to do at this time of year. However, he is an efficient rubbish disposer. We are eternally grateful as otherwise we would be forced to yomp up and down Mount Tepe with all the empty bottles. Tariq stares a lot. We must seem like a creatures from a different planet.
The Pretty Stripping Barman
My prophesy that the vicious storm heralded the abrupt end of our Indian Summer was a tad premature. The weather has reverted to its usual generosity. We decided to take full advantage by spending the evening in the village. Yalıkavak is deafeningly quiet as most of the tourists have left. We patronised our little semi-gay bar with the pretty barman who strips off when the booze kicks in. As usual we were minding our own business when we were descended upon by Kay and Barry from Burnley. For some reason Kay took a real shine to me and Barry got on swimmingly with Liam. I said I’d never been to Burnley. Kay said she’d never been to London. Hardly a fair contest, I thought. Barry chirped on about his self-confessed homophobia but thought we were alright. Our gratitude knew no bounds.
Also in their company were an elderly woman and her new Turkish munchkin husband who was thirty years her junior. Clearly, it had been her Elizabeth Taylor looks that first attracted him. He was very, very small and made me look positively statuesque. The wife told me she has a gay son who just can’t find love – probably ugly then.
We all left together at the end of the evening. I gave Barry a big sloppy kiss right on the lips which he drunkenly reciprocated confirming the rumour that the difference between a gay man and a straight man is about 5 pints. As we left, the pretty stripping barman whispered provocatively to Liam that we should return later for extras. We didn’t.
Cleanse, Tone and Clench
London life friend Ian emailed me to remind me of the good old days when we were both free and easy. Well, I was free he was very easy. In days long past Ian was my regular dance partner as we filled our boots across half of Europe, and the main butt of my low wit. Socially polished, popular, sharp and loyal, his is the rare gift of insight into the human condition and I wonder what he would make of the overwintering exiles. In his email he recalled his envy at my popularity with the punters. My memories of our many trips around the dance floor are entirely different. His card was always fuller than mine as he had perfected his cleanse, tone and clench routine for the boys. Sadly, he mostly attracted those with less than a rudimentary command of English; the Third World was Ian’s specialist subject. Still, come the last waltz, I usually managed to secure a booking with some desperado who attracted me with the familiar you’ll do look in his eyes.Bottoms Up
Unhappy with the high cost and variable quality of Turkish şarap (wine), I have advised Liam to double our wine budget. When I first visited Turkey some 15 years ago, a quaffable bottle of table wine was a couple of quid. These days it would be cheaper to arrange an international delivery from Ocado. I feel a golden opportunity is being missed in Turkey. Wine has been produced in Anatolia for six millennia and with some serious investment, better quality control and a more benign tax regime, Turkey could become the new Chile. Most Turks don’t drink that much (presumably influenced by traditional Islamic prohibition) but a weak home market hardly matters for export. Cheers!
Strictly No Dancing
We channel-hopped on Digiturk and, by chance, came across the Turkish version of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on the Show Channel. It’s called ‘Yok Böyle Dans’ which I think literally translates as ‘No Such Dance’. It’s a distant relative of the real thing but the theme tune is the same. It’s a lot of talking but not a lot of actual dancing, and goes on for five hours. I could roast a small chicken during the commercial breaks and not miss a thing. I lost the will to live. I’ll never criticise the licence fee again.
Stand By Your Beds!
Chrissy turned up to check on our home making progress. Actually, it felt more like a military inspection, and we dutifully stood by our beds. She nodded general approval as she moved from room to room though was strangely dismayed by the lack of bedside tables. “But, bedside tables are so last year!” I insisted. She glared at me in sheer panic before composing herself to suggest we might secure the services of a cleaner, “so good for local employment.” How quaintly colonial, I thought. I haven’t had one of those since my days as a sixties army brat in the Far East. However, that was before Britain had withdrawn ‘East of Suez’ and assumed a diminished role in the World.
The Wicked Web
I see the ban on You Tube has been reimposed for some reason. Honestly, all this web censorship is so regressive and only makes Turkey look daft.
The End of Days
Our glorious Indian summer has been violently deposed by an unannounced contest for meteorological supremacy between apocalyptic tempests and dazzling sunshine, a battle which sired a family of stunning, perfectly cut rainbows (which my picture cannot do justice to). The electric rage lashed the house with horizontal rain and peppered the walls with hailstones. I feared the End of Days. I now better appreciate how people in less scientific times attributed this natural replay to the eternal struggle between good and evil with humanity caught in between. The electricity company wisely cut the power during the heavenly discord. We shrugged our shoulders, lit some candles and chucked another log on the fire.
Spooks
Our chattels have been delivered to the house. As we unpacked each box, we were delighted to find that we had suffered few breakages, but gradually developed a nagging suspicion that someone had been subtly rummaging about. A number of the metal clips that hold the back plate in place for the smaller picture frames were in the open position. It was as if the backs had been covertly removed to check what might lie behind. Given the total apathy of the Turkish customs officer, I assume it was a sneaky British spook making sure we weren’t drug smugglers or money launderers. Little did they realise that we stuffed all the dirty cash down our trousers (that’s a joke, by the way).
Midnight Express
We met the rude little man outside the Customs House at Izmir Airport. As the goods were registered in my name alone Liam had to wait outside. I then embarked on my second major appointment with the Byzantine Turkish bureaucratic system. The rude little man ferried me around various offices to pay various official fees to various bored officials, obtaining various bits of official paper, all duly officially stamped along the way. He then deposited me in a holding pen and wandered off, returning now and again to demand ever more cash. I sat there for about an hour and a half with not so much as a cup of a çay for solace, observing the drama unfolding around me. So much of Turkey appears modern or modernising but alas, not the State Sector it seems. My place of confinement was bleak and starkly furnished. Lonely electric wires twisted aimlessly from the cracked ceiling, and an ancient typewriter sat sadly neglected in the corner.
Next to me was a glass fronted office where five of six apparatchik sat working at their desks. Well, I use the word ‘working’ euphemistically. All I witnessed was a lot of gossiping, tea brewing and reading of newspapers, periodically interrupted by someone waving a piece of paper in need of an official stamp. Stamps are big in Turkey; everything must be stamped. Without a word, a heavy-boned, hirsute man would give each document a cursory glance, apply the requisite official stamp and then return to his newspaper. Clearly, this is his job, probably his only job: keeper of the official stamp. However, I assume all the over employment keeps the unemployment figures down and each of these underemployed men probably saves a large extended family from destitution.
The waiting was finally over and the rude little man led me to the depot for my goods to be scrutinised by a rude little customs officer. She didn’t seem much bothered and only inspected the top layer of one crate, though much hilarity was generated by my embarrassing and doomed attempt to mime the function of a terracotta patio heater. At last, I got the last official stamp I needed to release the family silver. I emerged from the Customs House two hours later to a relieved Liam, who had convinced himself that I had been arrested and carted off to prison in a ‘Midnight Express’ kind of way.
Perking the Pansies 