Sweet Charity

The world famous Foyles Bookshop along London’s Charing Cross Road is offering 15% off Perking the Pansies if you reserve online and pick up in-store. So, while you’re in the West End looking for summer bargains and something skimpy for your holiday, why not pick up a copy for only £8.49? If you can’t make it into town, you can order online for the full price of £9.99 with free delivery to any address in the UK.

Alternatively, you can buy the book and anything else that takes your fancy on Amazon through Jack’s Shop and I make a few extra pennies. Think of it as charity.

Hit the Road, Jack

Hit the Road, Jack

The show is over and the curtain has fallen on our final Anatolian performance. It’s been a long and successful run but they’ll be no ovation or encore. As we said goodbye to Gümbet, Liam and I reflected on our time in this ancient land of paradoxes and plenty. Turkey has provided a restful respite for our weary bones and taught us that we can live differently and work with less. This is a profound lesson that many would be wise to copy. We don’t regret a single second of it.

We’ve both enjoyed and endured some extraordinary exploits with some extraordinary people. From the outset I called our cast ‘the mad, the sad, the bad and the glad’. This epitaph was no less true in Bodrum than it was in Yalıkavak three years before. From our first encounter with the pretentious expat rat pack to the Bodrum Belles, the Gümbet Gals and the Bitez Babes all sorts – the ladies of this small corner of Asia Minor do what they can to live their lives in dignity and grace. Many succeed. Many don’t. Listen up, ladies. Take a little advice from an old pro. When your ship is holed beneath the waterline, head for the lifeboat. Don’t flounder about like flotsam just because the sea looks inviting.

We’re not looking forward to the downside of Blighty life – the unpredictable weather, the fretful recession or the endless whinging. Let’s face it, some of our compatriots, whatever shore they wash up on, have turned whinging into a class act. Nevertheless, our course is set and it is a step forward, not a step back. But, there’s a sadness in my soul. I shall greatly miss our entertaining encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu to the emigreys, vetpats, semigreys, VOMITs, MADs, Emiköys, and sexpats. You gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank you. The next instalment is on the story drawing board.

Letter of Hope to LGBT Teens

Letter of Hope

This is my letter of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens.

Dear 15 Year Old Me,

That was Then…

Jack, what the hell are you doing? She’s a nice girl and all that but, really, you know you’ll never get beyond heavy petting. Come on, be true to yourself. You’re leading her down the garden path to frustration and disappointment; she deserves better. Just admit that you don’t like ‘it’. Her pretty bits are all in the wrong places, aren’t they? Okay, it’s 1975, it’s the decade that fashion forgot and you’re only fifteen, but you know you know. It’s not just a phase.

London may well have swung through the Sixties when androgynous men wore makeup and liberated ladies burnt their bras, but it’s not stopped you thinking you’re the only one. Yes, trendy Chelsea is just across the river but it might as well be on a different planet. Pick up a newspaper, any paper, and it’ll scream ‘pervert’ at you. ‘Paedophile’ even. The thing is, you don’t feel like a pervert and you’re certainly not interested in pre-pubescent boys. You’re just different from your brothers and the other boys in your class. Stop beating yourself up and get a grip. It’s okay to be different. Your parents will love you regardless, though I admit the conversation might be awkward, perhaps painful. They won’t like it. There may be tears and recriminations. No parent wants their child to stand out from the crowd for all the wrong reasons. It might be dangerous taking centre stage in a hostile world but you’re strong enough to take the flak. Come on, Jack. You learned real pride and you learned it at your father’s knee.

This is Now…

Jack, what the hell are you doing? Turkey’s a nice place and all that but, really, it’s a Muslim country and you and your partner are living openly as a gay couple. You are 51 and resolutely ‘out’ to everyone, take it or leave it. I hear you got ‘married’ back in 2008, a splendid fanfare of friends and family. So, they came round then? You’ve had a life full of peaks and troughs, good times and bad. This is life as it should be. So, your sexuality is only one of the things that define you but it is one of the important things. You’re a happy, rounded individual. You don’t compromise. You change attitudes just by being you. You see? You did it.

Jack Scott

As it turned out, I wasn’t so different from quite a few of the boys from the class of 75 after all. Do you have a letter of hope?

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Cock of the Coop

Cock of the Coop

Being a London boy with my London ways, I’ve had limited experience of country life. The occasional weekend cottage in North Wales and four-in-a-bed caravanning holidays in the middle of nowhere don’t really count. To be sure, on primary school trips to Swanage in Dorset and Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, I endured the obligatory excursion to jobbing farms to sniff the shitty whiff, pet the ponies and frighten the sheep. I do remember thinking ‘Sunday roast, mint sauce with all the trimmings, yummy’. The scale of modern-day industrial farming was driven home when I watched conveyor belt cows being drained by an enormous robotic milking machine. No wonder Daisy always looked startled.

Katie Price

Until we set foot on Anatolian soil, I’d never seen a live chicken in the flesh, so to speak. My chickens came hung, drawn and often quartered. Suddenly, clutches of clucking chickens were everywhere I looked, even in the heart of Bodrum. The harems of hens were invariably corralled by a loud and bad-tempered rooster complete with dandy plumage and a cock of the coop demeanour (a bit like the waiters). I remember thinking that British chickens must be smaller than their Turkish cousins. Perhaps Turkish fowl live longer and grow larger. Perhaps they’re fed on extra-strength growth hormones. Whatever the reason, Turkish chicken breasts were Amazonian by comparison, the Katie Price of the poultry world.

Pipe and Slippers

We’re hoping to start our East Anglian adventure in a brand spanking new city-centre designer pad with a high spec and low bills: a six month probation while we try the city on for size.

Ancient Norwic is a young person’s university city with a vibrant crowd and a thriving arts scene; these old nags aren’t quite ready for the knacker’s yard just yet. I’ve chucked my old floppy slippers in the bin. Now they were knackered. Ironically, I bought my first ever pair of slippers in the Bodrum branch of Marks and Sparks, a soft shoe shuffle designed to keep my little tootsies warm during the challenging Bodrum winters.

We’ve been struggling to become a fag-free family, frequently falling off the wagon, usually after a session on the sauce. This time, things will be different. We’re determined to kick the filthy habit (famous last words, I hear you mutter at the back). The £8 a packet price tag would drive us into the greasy hands of Blighty loan sharks. Yes, my friends, times have changed. They’ll be no pipe and slippers for us in our new gaff.

Cappadocia Then and Now

One of our greatest regrets during our time in the Land of the Sunrise is not taking the time to visit magical Cappadocia. I can offer no satisfactory excuse. We just didn’t do it. I give you some images to tickle the taste buds and stir the wanderlust.

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We were reminded of our failing by Pansyfan Bonnie. She sent me this fascinating Turkish film of Göreme from 1962, courtesy of Turkey Central. This is Göreme only 50 years ago, yet it could be from the time of Abraham – no camera-toting tourists, no swish cave hotels, no restored Disney murals, no over-blown restaurants, no hot air balloons, no hot air hawkers. From biblical to boutique. I have no words.

Kapadokya 1962

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Chip Pan Alley

This is a gumbet – a Bodrum water cistern

We closed the door on our little stone house in the heart of old Bodrum Town for the last time and said our fond farewells to our great neighbours. Tears rolled down Bubbly Beril’s cheeks and Vadim distributed rib-crushing bear hugs. We left Bodrum a week before returning to Blighty. We would have been homeless itinerants if two Gümbet gal-friends hadn’t come up trumps and offered us their holiday villa for a week, no strings attached. It was a fantastic parting gift. Lovely Lemon Tree Villa comes highly recommended. If you want to know more, contact Carole or Liza on info@turkuoise.co.uk.

Ironically, it was like taking a proper holiday, the first for four years. We planned to relax around a cool pool with a G&T, ice and a slice. We also planned one or two evenings getting down and dirty with the good, bad and the ugly along chip pan alley with its competing cacophony and naff neon. We were looking forward to witnessing the garrison of tattooed emigrey arms, pussy pelmets and pot-bellied Nike tops on proud display. It was not to be. Instead, our week became a fabulous fanfare of farewells as the Belles and the Gals sent us on our way in drunken style. I’ll be taking my liver back to Blighty in a jiffy bag.

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Amadeus

We were listening to Classic FM. Up popped Mozart’s Symphony No 41 in C Major (the ‘Jupiter’). Magic memories came flooding back of Liam’s long past days when he played oboe in minor league orchestras. He gushed about how he was plucked from obscurity to fly solo oboe for the Amadeus masterpiece at Chelsea Town Hall in 1997.  While he was practising his art in the grand Victorian hall on the ground floor, I was practising my trade in the Social Services Department in the basement. We never passed on the stairs and I didn’t get the chance to finger his instrument until 2006.

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NHS Treatment for Repats

Now that I’m officially old and hobbling towards my dotage, I was somewhat relieved to discover that I’ll be entitled to free NHS treatment as soon as we touch down in Blighty. I will just have to pay the standard charges since I won’t be claiming benefits. This has been confirmed by an NHS website. It says:

If you move to the UK, you will not be charged for NHS hospital treatment from the date that you arrive, as long as:

  • you intend to live permanently in the UK, and
  • you’re legally entitled to live here on a permanent basis

This information was further corroborated by the British Consul in Izmir at a recent meet-the-emigreys beano in Altinkum. He said:

The UK NHS authorities had said that a British resident living out of the country for more than six months loses their right to the NHS but that right is instantly re-installed if they return.

So, no pretending I was never away and hoping for the best. Nor will I have to wait six months before re-registering with a GP. Maybe the rules changed when I wasn’t looking. Marvellous.

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Jack the Hobbling Goblin

The Beau Belles

When we decided to jump the good ship Blighty, we enjoyed an extraordinary run of good luck. Our neighbour bought our house and its contents. IKEA-chic (or is that shit?) was clearly to his liking. We hauled over just 17 boxes of our precious personal possessions (aka old crap we couldn’t give away). Our extraordinary run of good luck has continued. Thanks to a select group of Bodrum Belles, we’ve flogged off our house contents all over again. We’ve hauled back to Blighty just 17 boxes plus Liam’s beloved Roland keyboard and our marvellous Samsung flat screen TV (miraculously still working; most of our other electrical goodies have malfunctioned). I love this recycling lark. No need to re-flat-pack the flat pack. So, a massive hand to the Beau Belles of Bodrum.

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