bitter lemmings

the guests think it is great

One thing that is great about having visitors is that they are always really positive about the place you inhabit. They come here for a week, you show them around all the vaguely interesting tourist sites and they enthuse about it endlessly as if Strovolos were the 8th wonder of the world. Ok, there are some interesting things to do for the first week, (although not in strovolos), particularly now with the Green Line, which divides Nicosia, having opened up and yet another possible solution to the cyproblem about to be wasted. What they don't realise is that if the holiday had stretched into two weeks, all those interesting sites wouldn't be soo interesting the second time round and after 15 years of repeating the experience it wears a bit thin.

They are constantly amazed by things that have become so commonplace that you realise that far from having a better standard of living than we aparently would have back home, as the rhetoric goes, our expectations have lowered so far that things that used to make you mad have become invisible.

Take last night for instance, you go to a concert to see some Russian tenor, who is supposed to be brilliant. It's only on for one night so you don't get a choice about when to go. You get there to find about three other people have showed up, which didn't stop a bit of noise pollution from mobiles, flash photography, general wittering and trolleys being moved around back stage during the performance. And to be honest, all that Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov was a bit heavy for me, anyway. Why bother?

Then you get home to find the guests enthusing about the hilarious state of the pavements in downtown Nicosia and wondering who you might sue, if you tripped and had an accident. You are having a laugh, aren't you? And don't get me started on why no-one pays attention to traffic signals, er like red lights...

Only three hours in the car today!

from lesbianity to inanity

Bertrand russell says, "There is no sound reason, of any sort or kind, for concealing facts when talking to children. Their questions should be answered and their curiosity satisfied in exactly the same way in regard to sex as in regard to the habits of fishes, or any other subject that interests them."This is good news for liberal parents everywhere and is exactly what led us to a conversation about 'lesbianity' the phrase coined by my delightful middle child yesterday evening.

"I don't believe in Christianity or Lesbianity, except maybe in porn." He hasn't learnt about threesomes yet, as we are not buying the porn, we're not that liberal. But frankly, if nothing else he appears to be shaping up and turning into the gender stereotype I most feared; a typical man. Could it have something to do with living in Cyprus? Environment is everything as Oliver James says. The house guests have interefered with my emotional audit, too many hours driving round Nicosia in the heat and no time to read.

the joys of hyperspace

It is very heartening to check in late at night and see that people have been reading the blog and commenting. Walt says that we are conducting an internal monologue in hyperspace and no-one is listening. Clearly a few people are listening, or at least reading, unless Walt, Graham, Pat et al are all the same person. But let me put the cards on the table right now, we both read Normblog for politics not entertainment value, or at least I do when taking a break from precocious spoilt brats and mid-life crisis and as for Becks and Owen, I can say without hesitation that, I for one, am firmly in the Becks camp and if he were in my reading group, I would hope to have shagged him by now.

Am working on the woman on woman reading group titilation thing. In the mean time, I discovered from my porno reading wannabe son that this is called 'Lesbianity,' which he equated with the term Christianity. The reason this came up over dinner last night was because, yet again, he was in trouble at school for his unpc language. Obviously feeling the pressure from some of the girls, that he thinks are in hot persuit, he retaliated with: 'they're all midgets and lesbians.' Why? because they're all short and two of them were caught sucking fingers at a birthday party!

Have sent the guests off on an interesting little tour of Strovolos, to which my more mature half, who is a native of this fair isle could not stop sniggering, 'what to see the sights?' Emmm, you need to see Strovolos to know what I mean.

In the meantime, I am off to a school meeting to thrash out issues over the stroppy Catherine Tate terrible teenager wannabe with the Head and the English teacher. Back to the mid-life crisis........

does my face look bothered?

The teenage drama queen in our house has 'party issues'; is it better to hold the party before school finishes even though it is a month before her birthday? Clearly she can't afford to wait until her actual birthday because she might miss out on getting the maximum amount of birthday money to spend over the summer in London if too many friends have already departed the island for the summer. But even more importantly, will I be reasonable enough to refurnish the house so as not to embarrass her in case her friends think we are poor?

She spent the whole of yesterday, during our day out in the mountains, doing a very good Catherine Tate terrible teenager impression, having never actually seen the TV series; 'does my face look bothered?' Frankly darling, yes. It was a classic, I hate my parents day: "My best friend has a real mobile (a flash one that takes pictures), a digital video camera and an expensive hair straightener, what have you ever done for me?" Which naturally didn't stop her lecturing her brother on the perils of associating happiness with material possessions when he was moaning about not being allowed to buy a 20cents bouncy ball.

Obviously, there is only so much pressure a parent can take and we gave in on the boucy ball issue, just to shut them up, having first had the prerequisite discussion about whether or not a bouncy ball would make him happy.

"Will a bouncy ball make you happy?"
"Er, no."
"Well, there is no point in getting one then."
"Ok, it will make me happy."
"Alright, well bloody well go and buy one then and shut up moaning. And buy one for your brother too."

So, did the bouncy ball make them happy? Obviously not. One bouce later and one ball was lost forever in the stream.
"Well, that is what bouncy balls tend to do, they bounce." More tears and whinging and we had to buy another bouncy ball. But this bouncy ball was the wrong colour, so a full scale war broke out over who was going to keep the pink bouncy ball because no-one wanted the green bouncy ball; at which point I felt obliged to bounce the remaining pink and green balls into the stream. No-one was happy.

Was this a waste of sixty cents or a valuable lesson in life? No resolution to the 'party issues' so far but it didn't stop her wittering about it all the way back in the car.......

trying to get some culture

Went to a recital last night, given by a very pregnant and very good American mezzo-soprano, Denyce Graves. Well done to the Pharos Trust (local cultural and educational foundation) and the US embassy for organising it. It is part of the US CultureConnect initiative. It is great that they spend this money trying to 'reinvigorate cultural exchange and cross cultural dialogue through the involvement of highly accomplished, internationally known Americans.' A bit like the McDonald's project on a grander scale. And it is good to see that at least some locals were resisting this latest form of imperialism by refusing to obey the rules and turn off the mobile phones during the performance.

what is the point of trout?

Went for a day out with the guests to the kaledonia Falls near Platres. Beautiful weather, moaning kids aside, "I hate walking, I hate the mountains, I hate this restaurant, I hate trout..........what is the point of a trout? I'm so bored, I am bored of being bored........."not a bad day out. Sitting drinking beer in the sun, watching the kids chucking rubbish into the stream, (not our little darlings naturally) and some not bad trout. But what about this for a loo, or a bathroom, as our American neighbours would say? Jamie Oliver spent thousands on the toilets in his restaurant, Fifteen.

a tristram shandy for our times

Let me pick up from the previous post which fumbled around in the dark for a general sense of Englishness. Living abroad puts you in an advantageous position within which to ruminate about such matters - you are continuely confronted by who it is that you are or, more particulally, who people assume you are. Never happy with a sense of Englishness which reduces me to reciting a literny of people and events - Churchill, Paul Mccartney, Gracie Fields or 1966, 1939-45 etc it is the 'everyday' sense of how you are that roots you. Michael Billig identified this as 'banal nationalism' a universal phenomenon which does not involve flag-waving but is a means through which the nation is constantly flagged in the most mundane of circumstances.

All this came to mind when reading a review, available here, of the recently published novel 'Ring Road' by Ian Sansom. The unspoken subject appears to be Britishness, rather than Englishness, made that much more intriguing since the novel appears to be set in Northern Ireland where Britishness is frequently contested. Yet what seems to find a place here is not the assertive, bowler hatted Britishness of Ulster Unionism but a Britishness that anyone familiar with the UK from St Ives to Gallashields or Southend to Larne would instantly recognise.

It is the Britishness of the everyday which the reviewer, Geraldine Bedell, highlights in the novel:

Ordinariness is not much in demand any more. Even reality TV shows claiming to explore the lives of the unfamous turn their subjects into stars, into Jade Goody-style spectacle, fodder for Heat magazine. The genuinely ordinary - the sort of people who might wear skirts with elasticated waists, eat fish fingers for tea and worry vaguely about fungal infections on their feet (people, in other words, who are like us in ways we might prefer not to mention but know to be true) - are beneath general notice. Except in novels.

Layering detail on wry detail, Ian Sansom has built up a complex, vivid and convincing panorama of life in an unnamed town (presumably in Northern Ireland, where the author lives) that remains obstinately ordinary. In this place, Bob Savory, the owner of the Speedy Bap! sandwich business (and author of a cookery book of the same name) is as close to a celebrity as they've got or as anyone wants. This is a town where a car park going pay and display is a big controversy; where, despite the recent preference for avocados over turnips, fresh herbs remain a rumour.

She goes on:

The tone is part elegy, part satire, part howl, and very, very funny. I laughed more times than I can remember over a novel for years. Sansom is a master of the dying fall and the punchline that jumps out of nowhere; his real subject is language, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world, and those we use in self-deceit. He revels in marketing speak, in starter homes and u-PVC windows in the new upmarket housing development, Woodsides: 'Which is something of a misnomer because they had to cut down the wood to build the houses.'

He loves names of hairdressers (Upper Cutz, located near Inspirationz, the cards and novelties shop, and Sew Biz, where the Romanian lady alters garments), bakers (the brown-and-yellow cake shop) and supermarkets (Supa Valu) and the way that the promises implied by the names, the invitations to sample wares, are invariably not quite fulfilled...

This sounds like home to me...

in praise of cosmopolitanism

Sitting with a small group of Greek Cypriot collegues the conversation turned inevitably to the A*** P***. An animated discussion ensued - quick witted verbal reparte, hands gesturing wildly - 'We should organise a picket of the British High Commision' she says, with a sly smile on her face. She looks at me, the group turns and glances in my direction. I am fixed as a Brit. I refuse the implication - why should I be held accountable for what her Britannic Majesty's Government decides to do. I've been here before - at a different time and in a different place. Being English in Northern Ireland produced many comparable moments. I explain that whilst I have a strong affinity with Englishness, an affinity which is difficult to articulate, this does not extend to a simple identification with the machinations of the British government or its foreign policy objectives.

If pushed I mumble about an Englishness I identify with which is part self-edifying myth and part an idealised potential in English life which remains to be fully realised. This came to mind when reading an extract, published here, from Anthony Sampson's new book about twenty-first century Britain in which he revisits territory he first explored 40 years ago:

...Nothing would surprise a Rip Van Winkle more than the state of London. The capital has become the most cosmopolitan city in the world, from top to bottom, teeming with Americans, Europeans, Australians, Asians, Africans and Arabs. Large areas have become barely recognisable: Docklands looks more like an American city than like the rest of Britain...

...All this would have been unthinkable to the imperial Englishmen of 40 years ago - it would have represented the defeat of all they stood for. Was it a defeat or a victory? For many today, including myself, it represents a triumph of adaptability and survival, a reversion to the much older English qualities of pragmatism and tolerance. The English have escaped from the stifling post-imperial malaise to provide a political and economic system which is both continuous and dynamic, attracting capital and enterprise from all over the world. At the same time they can draw in hundreds of thousands of immigrants, most from peoples who have been subjects of the empire, who now provide much of the indispensable workforce and contribute to London's unparalleled prosperity. It's not so much a retreat from empire as a return to Britain's pre-imperial past, recreating its role as an international trading country competing with the world. London's economic success is rewarded by an unprecedented explosion of cultural activities, with a vitality and diversity which eclipses other European capitals.

Adaptability, pragmatism and tolerance - if that's how you want to 'fix' me I am happy with that.

the same old crap

At least five hours in the car today! That's what happens when you have visitors and try to be a good host. Kyrenia Harbour for the five hundreth time this year. Then you forget that you not only need a passport but a driving licence to cross the border and have to queue up four times instead of two.

Teenage daughter needs taxiing to the third party/sleepover this week. And now there's no hot water for a shower. I hate them all.

an invitation to anti-americanism

A fellow blogger on this site frequently gives her off-spring a hard time - well, I think I'd prefer the company of her kids to this bunch of nerds and premature adults. This from here:

...The teenagers are among about 50 students from eight countries competing this week in an intellectual version of "Survivor," the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships. Unlike other high school competitions, it is easy to forget that these 13- to 18-year-old prodigies are not adults. For one thing, they are impeccably dressed. The boys wear ties, dress pants and most wear suits, recently dry-cleaned and pressed. The girls wear professional skirts and blouses or business slacks and dress shoes -- except those from the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The airline lost their luggage, said Ester-Maria Toumpouris, 16, so the six-member team trekked to Wal-Mart on Tuesday night. "That's why I'm wearing these," she said, modeling black pants that extended about four inches beyond the tops of her tennis shoes.

That would'nt be courtesy of Cyprus Airways by any chance?

Apparently, a debate and public-speaking contest also compels students to imitate adults in ways that the teens may try to avoid as they grow older. One boy, tie undone and in shirtsleeves, prepares for his next event by pacing a parking area, muttering and gesticulating...

Now that is scarry.

...Despite the intensity of the competition and the emotional weight of its topics, the messages that emanate from the various events are often uplifting and inspirational. One Connecticut student cited a Jack London passage that urges readers to live now rather than wasting life by trying to prolong it.

Uplifting? Sounds like a punk manifesto to me...

A Lithuanian student told her audience that Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull showed that failure can lead to new life goals.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - are kids still being encouraged to read that shite? Not normally prone to unthinking anti-Americanism I'm now sorely tempted....they are quite obviously corrupting the world's youth.