bitter lemmings

eu here we come!

So we are ready for Eu accession at midnight; they've brought over Anna Vissy to sing in Eleftheria, 'freedom' Square and the lemmings are out in force.

I just heard that the disabled olympic athlete Tani Gray- Thompson said on the news, whilst talking about training in this wonderful country... "People stop and stare at us in Cyprus and even bring their families out to look at us - not like in the UK." Emm, so european.

And I just took the kids to the cinema to see School of Rock, which was great. But get this, there were four of us and the rest of the cinema was completely empty. Two more people came in and guess where they sat? In true lemming style, right next to us. Were we surprised? were we surprised by last weekend's result? Will we ever be surprised again? A resounding NO.........

little darlings

As if the bloody cyprob isn't bad enough, I now have to contend with Fluffy Bunny being suspended from school for, in his words 'beating the crap,' although I suspect it was more of a tap on the head to a kid who has been winding him up for months.

It is great when you pick up the phone and hear that voice from the school, which always, these days, spells gloom or disaster and at least ten weeks worth of counselling for one of the kids; anger management this time. Having spelt out to Fluffy in no uncertain terms that violence is always wrong, even if some people do appear to deserve a good hiding for the things they say, especially when they include, 'Your mum is a whore; fuck your mum; your parents are irresponsible,' I found it difficult to keep my temper when I got the phone call to add injury to insult.

Why is it that some parents just can't help themselves? You know the ones I mean, those of the 'my perfect little darling would never do or say anything that could be attributed to a anyone other than a really sophisticated, well balanced, forty-year-old with no personality.' So, I have been threatened with the police and accused of encouraging my child to go around assaulting people left right and centre and offered the numbers of various child psychologists. So, good day all round.

Have decided not to bother handing in the school application for the youngest one tomorrow, might not be the best day to do. In fact on second thoughts, I have decided to take them all out of school and enroll them straight into therapy for next year!

oh dear, the repercussions have started

The repercussions have started. I was at a street party yesterday at the nursery school, nothing to do with the referendum or the cyprob but inevitable there was only one topic of conversation!

A friend from the UK, a journalist was asked his opinion on the vote and gave it. And guess what when he gave it, he was berated for half an our for being a colonialist, meddling int he affiars of others. Well, why ask?

And don't people who live here have a right to an opinion, even if not of Cypriot origin? The idea of accusing someone living in London of not having a right to an opinion on a national issue beccause not of UK origin is outrageous and racist! The Guardian's leader article today just about sums it all up........

bullies 2

This hatred thing is invidious. I have felt on several occasions, when confronted with obnoxious teenagers, (and let's face it most teenagers are obnoxious anywhere in the world), running up and down busy streets and roads with their bloody Greek flags, 'Oxi' banners and religious/nationalist fanaticism in their eyes, trying to shove 'No' propoganda through your car window, like stepping on the accelerator and mowing the bloody lot down and doing us all a favour!

Anyway, yesterday I let my son go to the local play park with his mate, probably a mistake on referendum day as tensions were running high and foreigners are never popular at the best of times and as we know, Fluffy Bunny does like to perceive himself as a bit of a hard case. Anyway, I left them for one hour to come home and have a shower and tidy up and what happened? He got back a few minutes late, having given some kid a black eye and almost got himself banned from the park, called ironically Extreme Park.

How did it happen? Fluffy's version: local kids at a party wouldn't get off the tramoplines, Fluffy suggested they had had more than their fair share of time on the trampolines. Given that Fluffy and his mate neither speak Greek nor look Greek this was bound to lead to trouble! A bit of pushing and shoving and swearing lead one boy to say to Fluffy: "Fuck your mother!" This is not something Fluffy takes kindly to, it must be the meditteranean in him, so he responded by giving the kid a black eye. Said kid then went running to mummy who got the manager to give Fluffy a mouthful of abuse, for hurting her little darling. Did she ask what her little darling had done to provoke this outburst of violence? Of course not, I have never seen a Cypriot kid get told off, the kids are never wrong, it is always someone else's fault, a bit like the cyprob really, what would they do without it? Well fortunately they won't have to live without it, it has taken on a new life all its own and looks set to be with us for the next half a century, hurray.......

bullies

I don't want to be accused of quoting verbatim on this blog but I have to say that I found a quote which was definitely worth picking out.

There are only two papers I can read in Cyprus; the Cyprus Mail which is bloody good and the Cyprus Weekly, which is not only not a newspaper because it is a weekly and therefore by definition only has old news but it is also a complete nationalistic, badly written rag! I have to pick it up occasionally just for a laugh and int his week's diary column I found this email to the author of the diary piece, George Lanitis:

"You are going to vote against the Annan plan for the reunification of Cyprus, because you claim it is against human rights. Never mind that 8 different groups of 1,000 people, many legal experts, as well the UN and whole International Community says its a plan that ensures human rights. "Could it be the whole world is wrong and the Greek Cypriots are right, as always or that you just don't like this particular plan because you want everything your own way? "I don't buy your excuse, nor do I care for which way you will vote. You are nothing more than a bully. I feel sorry for you. "This aspect of journalism that allows not so famous people (often with no journalism skills) like you, to inflict their half-baked, opinionated views on the masses really sucks.

Quite.............................................

we're in the news but not for the right reasons!

Finally, Cyprus has had a bit of international news coverage with about 150 foreign correspondents camped out all week waiting for the historic vote yesterday in the referenda that would have meant that the border, the green Line in Nicosia, Europe's last divided capital city, would have been removed. But this was no Berlin Wall celebration. The Turkish Cypriots voted yes, overwelmingly and guess what, three quarters of the Greek Cypriots voted no. This was a triumph of hatred, nationalism, small-mindedness, sheer stupidity and a lack of vision over logic, rational debate and good political judgement on the part of the GCs. Soooooooooo predictable!

Anyone who saw the hundreds of school children marching for political oblivion this week could not have failed to notice, what we always suspected, the education system here breeds lemmings and indoctrinates kids to hate. In what normal country do teenagers demonstrate in favour of things the establishment and their parents stand for. At a time when they should be out throwing stones at the police and breaking drug and alcohol laws and having casual sex, thesse guys only get animated about hating the Turks, that they have surely never met, any foreigners in fact, getting back homes they have never seen and wanting to support their joke of a president, who is not only a devious liar, Turk hater, known supporter of Milosovic and a man with a very big nose and a penchant for crying on TV. It is a crying shame that we have to live in this country, but my suspicion is that when the EU gives them the cold shoulder, the UN packs its bags next week and they start to realise the full weight of the consequences of ther actions, anyone wth a brain, which looks like about one in four of the voting population, will be out of here..............

there is hope yet

So much for the bloody Bishop of Kyrenia telling us that all the Yes voters are going to hell. He was upstaged today by his boss, when it pissed with rain on the latest mass propoganda rally for the No fanatics, mainly involving five-year-olds and the intellectually challenged! Good.

It is good to know that the Guardian is keeping an eye on things here and keeping everyone back home updated ont he history of this island. But surely it was General Grivas, not Gravas????????

depression is setting in

Real life got in the way of blogging yesterday. That does happen sometimes. It started with a hangover and an urgent need to diplomatically resolve an issue from the night before involving friends, alcohol and the need to raise our spirits after a particularly depressing week, in the run up to a predicted resounding rejection of the best opportunity ever to make Cyprus vaguely habitable and interesting in 30 years. The drink was supposed to make everyone feel better and it did until two friends left and in a drunken late night haze crashed into each other while driving away! What can you say?

Had a visit to the osteopath, which could potentially have been very nasty as I dared to suggest that the A****Plan was good for Cyprus. Never discuss the Cyprob when you are half naked in a head lock with a Greek Cypriot three times your size with the ability to break your back bearing down on you. She was inevitably taking the line that many Greek Cypriots take, 'we love the Turkish Cypriots but want all our land back, chuck all the Turks out, even if they have lived here for 30 years and married and had children. Oh, yeah, make their children homeless too, so that we can get everything back as it was before, even if we don't want to go back and live in the north and we have 15 marble palaces in the south and it is all the fault of the interfering UN, Americans, Brits and other Europeans and no, they should not let Turkey into the EU, they are just not a democracy like us and they breed like rabbits!'

Have just read that appalling Lanitis diary in the Cyprus Weekly rag that passes for a newspaper; even more illogical drivel And have just seen all the marauding school kids out on their way to today's demonstrations for the Oxi campaign, emm 8-year-olds marching down the road shouting fanatically about saying no to the evil A**** Plan and waving Greek flags. Yes, very European.!

going to hell

The day started well. Went to get a relaxing facial after weeks of visitors and driving around but spent an hour listening to a load of garbage about, emm, guess what? The only topic of conversation available at the moment; the bloody A**** Plan. Then, as if it is not bad enough having idiots playing russian roulette on busy main roads to collect money for charities, now they are doing it to hand out propoganda for the 'oxi' campaign. Unlike the charity collectors, for whom I have some minor sympathy, these guys just deserve to be run over, several times.

Then I was accosted in the baker's by some woman who clearly didn't like my 'nai' sticker in the car and presumably didn't like me anyway for being a foreigner, as all foreigners, even EU commissioners have been banned from talking on TV about the Plan this week. No doubt this is a move intended to impress EU member states about the readiness of the Republic of Cyprus to join the club in less than two weeks!

Next I open the paper, the Cyprus Mail, to find that the Bishop of Kyrenia has damned all yes voters, so I must be going to hell for evil thoughts of a united, bi-communal, non-racist Cyprus. Time for a bit of direct action, I think. Althougth some woman was arrested yesterday for de-facing 'oxi' posters, so better try something more hard line this time..........

useful ways to spend my time

Living here means regularly waking up to the BBC news to realise you have missed some major world or local-to-home event that you would never have missed had you been at home, such as, the Grand National, The London Marathon, The Rebecca Loos Kiss'n'tell interview, The Baftas, etc etc.

Never mind! This morning I consoled myself by walking to school with Fluffy Bunny, along the main Strovolos Avenue. It was very educational for two reasons. Firstly, the opportunity to enlighten Fluffy about the ways of the world; we're not talking casual sex and hard drugs, as he obviously knows all about that but I am talking political activism. Secondly, it clarified just how blinkered drivers are here when it comes to pedestrians. Between us we ripped down at least five 'Oxi' placards prominently stuck to lamposts all along the main road. We were clearly never in danger from other pedestrains as no-one ever walks anywhere but given the level of tension over this issue and the apparent numbers of thugs in the Oxi camp it was suprising that no one even gestured at us, let alone got out of their car to smack me one. How did they not see us? What were they doing sat on the main road in almost no-motion, slow-motion?

There was one big sign at a roundabout, wired up at the roadside. There was no chance of getting that one down discretely but no worries, have plans to get some spray paint and take Bunny back later after dark for the sake of his education................