bitter lemmings

three candles in the wind

Well, what can I say? It had to be done. Elton, who sensibly flew in at 4pm and straight out again after the concert by private jet, was fab. Shame about the audience!

A cypriot aquaintance commented rather disappointedly after the show that Sir Elton, as he was introduced, several times, did not hang around to savour the delights of the beautiful isle. Err, sensible man was all I could muster as a half-hearted reply and the humidity can't have done his piano his much good either. His wife was more concerned that the Mayor's accent had rather gone to seed, he was sounding a tad 'local' these days. 'Oh, is that who it was that rather obsequiously kept stressing the Sir bit, I thought it was one of the car park attendants!' And he is a local isn't he after all?

Well, as I said the concert was great and all the old favourites were there. During Candle in the Wind, (Marilyn version not Diana), a few of us attempted to hold up our fag lighters but the wind kept blowing them out but someone behind us did manage to light a sparkler and that was a bit of a highlight. At one point four of us got up to dance along to something and don't know if Elton could see us in the cheap seats, from the stage but am sure he appreciated it. He probably isn't use to such a comatose audience. And yes, we did embarrass ourselves by standing on the chairs and singing along to Crocodile Rock and Don't let the Sun go Down, at the end. Does the sun ever go down in Cyprus?

The friend who organised the tickets was rather miffed that she had been told that the seats at the back would be raised and, guess what? They weren't. Apparently, it was a fire hazard and the fire department warned against it. This did cause undue stress because she then ahd to worry about the cheap seats she has organised for Pavarotti in ten days time. What about those seats; are they going to be raised or not? Well, she got reassurances that whatever the fire department says the organisers of that gig are ignoring the advice and the cheap seats will be raised. No worries there then as I've got the expensive kind.

tonight's the night

So after a week of school productions, tonight I shall be doing something I never thought I would do; going to see Elton John! I do like Elton John but would I be going to see him play a concert in a car park in a moat around the city walls? I doubt it. Why? I would probably have something better to do and frankly who comes here to do a concert if they have anything better to do? It is surely the kiss of death for anyone's career! I bet not even Bob Dylan would come here and he must be nearing the end of his career, he was when i saw him at Wembley in the early eighties. Would Oasis or Robbie Williams be seen dead doing the playing a gig in a car park experience?

What the hell, I'm going anyway and so is virtually everyone else I know, except my hubbie who says he really wouldn't be seen dead in the audience in the car park in the moat, it's an image thing!

the excitement is killing me

Well with the referendum over, there is only the Euro elections to look forward to and more whinging on the part of the Greek Cypriots about how the rest of the world is punishing them for voting no, particularly the Brits. Why do they all love the Turkish Cypriots so much? I wonder! The victimhood myth is kicking in again and it is frankly getting tedious. Still there are still wonderfully exciting columnists in that rag the Cyprus Weekly willing to rant on about the really important issues, like how the embassies should read Debrett's and not getting an invite to a wonderful exhibition of Greek paintings, or rather not getting an invite to the coctails afterwards...Shame!

Of course anyone can go to the exhibition sponsored by the Hellenic Bank as long as you if you happen to be one of that large portion of non-Greek speaking residents you don't want to know anything about the artists; be warned if not a greek speaker, there is no info in any other language. This is what is called being inclusive and making everything accessible in the spirit of new Europeanhood.

So haven't managed to make it to see the Greek classics yet, as have spent almost every night at the school watching end of term school productions, which ranged from mediocre to slightly less than mediocre. Still the wonderful thing about them is that almost every other parent seems to buy into yet another myth; the one that says if your child is in it, it must be good. Is that why you can never get a seat anywhere near the fron if you turn up ten minutes before they start? Why? Because all the six feet tall sad bastards with their expensive video cameras and reindeer jumpers were there two hours earlier getting the front seats. Consequently, I always have to stand at the baack to see a thing with baby bear clinging on to me and moaning about not being able to see a thing. And he can't be convinced that he isn't missing much.

the curious incident of the dog int he night-time

Well just for Pat. You may like to know that the book group went well on Friday morning. In fact particularly well this week because for once we did not have to follow the prescribed list of questions for discussion given by the bookclub website, which I cannot direct you to because I never go there myself! The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was not listed. Why? Perhaps because it was a Whitbread prize-winner in the children's literature category?

The only interesting thing to arise out of the discussion was a question raised by one member about how this book could have been a prize-winner and recommended for children when there such bad language in it, in other words a couple of swear words! Derr! Well it is about a fifteen-year-old boy with Asperger's, not that his language is anything but completely 'acceptable,' whatever that means. Where have these people been living all their lives? This kind of attitude could account for the adverse reaction I got on saturday after footie when I called some guy a wanker. Apparently it was the talk of dinner parties up and down Nicosia on Saturday night, from Strovolos to Ayios Andreas. I wonder if it made the national news?

Obviously no lesbo action to report from that meeting but things are looking up. We have our next meeting arranged for June and a night out with wine and the full works. And we shall be discussing Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, about a school teacher who has an affair with a fifteen year-old-boy. So ebdless potential for scandalous revelations after a few glasses of wine.....

he's my son

It has been a difficult weekend. Fluffy Bunny having returned from a school trip to the other end of the island for three days, during which time I heard nothing from the school and had been lulled into a false sense of security, believing that all had gone well....I should have known better!

How many cocky young male PE teachers does it take to supervise a bunch of half a dozen reasonably compliant eleven and twelve-year-olds? Is it a good idea to let eleven-year-old boys buy four coffees and a couple of cokes each from the local shop and then expect them to sleep at night? Well, being on a school trip, away from home for the first time I wouldn't have expected them to sleep anyway. Who do they think they are dealing with? The cloned progeny of the international Stepford Wives brigade? I am beginning to see that I should have spotted the resemblance earlier. I restrained myself from saying anything on Friday for fear of total ostracism from the mainstream and very conformist school and ex-pat community.

The cause may not have been helped on saturday morning after footie, when having lost the cup final and been fouled relentlessly by a member of the opposing team, Fluffy decided to take matters into his own hands. During the post-match line up to shake hands and do the decent sporting thing, Fluffy substituted a handshake for a quick dig in the stomach. Bad move which the eagle-eyed, over-protective parent spotted and I didn't! The first I knew about it was when the back of a balding, fat, Cypriot male head pointing fingers aggressively at my son came into view, from the other end of the pitch. Naturally, at this point I had to intervene...

It started well, with a civilised, 'Is there a problem?' And ended with him threatening to hit me, after I called him a wanker and a sexist pig. And this was not a gross generalisation or assumption based on the fact that he is Cypriot and male, there is a history there. He is one of those parents who stands at the sidelines every week and shouts crap intructions really aggressively, clearly doesn't like and never has liked me because I have been quite successfully coaching my son's team and beating his son's team at every opportunity until this week and let's face it, I am a woman. But at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is just this; my son has a lot more talent than his!

schools are bad for you, at least in cyprus!

John Holt once famously wrote, in his book, "How Children Fail," "We encourage children to act stupidly, not only by scaring and confusing them, by filling up their days with dull, repetitive tasks that make little or no claim on their attention or demands on their intelligence. Our hearts leap for joy at the sight of a roomful of children all slogging away at some imposed task, and we are all the more pleased and satisfied if someone tells us that the children don't really like what they are doing. We tell ourselves that this drudgery, this endless busywork, is good preparation for life, and we fear that without it children would be hard to 'control'." How true!

I am absolutley sick and tired of the private school sector in Cyprus and let's not even ask why they don't go to state schools; apart from crap standards, just about the worst in Europe and the language issue there is the evidence of racism and indoctrination we saw during the referendum campaign! So what are the options? We have tried a fair few of the schools and guess what they are all pretty disappointing too in their own very unique ways. But unlike schools in the UK where you can at least read an OFSTED report first and know what you are dealing with, here you only find out once you have joined the ranks of variously disappointed but conspiratorially silent, seething but won't say anything because of fear that the alternatives are worse or it's just too unacceptable to keep quiet. Being in the latter camp is not easy and leads one to the point of doing the only honourable thing every couple of years and trying them all until you find one that is half-way decent...so naturally, we are still doing the rounds and currently at the point of I think it is time to move again.

Spoilt brats or no when you pay a school a lot of money to educate your child you expect them to at least attempt to pretend they are offering the kids some reasonable teaching and a half-way decent curriculum, if a limited choice of subjects and you expect them to take parents' concerns on board and have a dialogue. It seems to be the case here though that if you are one of those 'difficult' parents like me that knows something about education and asks a few questions when nothing like expectations are being met the response seems to be universally the same, shut up or get out. A head teacher actually told me yesterday, 'this is not a free school you know, we don't have to take anyone!' Clearly not a free school I pointed out, we pay a lot of money for the privilege or having our kids taught badly..........

Or perhaps I just got it all wrong, as Kostos reminded me in his recent comment, it was Aristotle and Plato that gave the world civilisation, culture, maths etc. Obviously schools here haven't moved on since, even though if I am not mistaken they were part of an ancient Athenian elite, I didn't know Plato was actually born and educated in Nicosia! All I can say is thank god he wasn't or where would the world be now?

eurovision

Am feeling guilty that there has been a whole week of raina dn fun fun fun and letting real life get in the way of blogging. Still, I am back in the land of aphrodite, the sun is out in force and so are all the smucks, as a good friend has just commented, there is still no solution to the Cyprob although I did note on the plane on the way home that the Cyprus Weekly's main headline was some gibberish about the US committing hostile acts against the Republic by addressing the Turkish Cypriot 'Prime Minister' as Prime Minister, rather than pseudo-prime miniser or prime minister of the pseudo-state etc etc, as parochial as ever............................and el presidente has takena few days off in hospital, apparently too much hospitality from the old europeans for the most hated member.....

But last night was the highlight of the week. With nothing better to do on a saturday night, no invtations received or pending and not even a decent pub quiz in sight, what else was there to do but watch the eurovision song contest, in Turkey, conducted in English, talked over in Greek on Cyprus TV, as we still can't get BBC. I naturally relished the opportunity to phone up and see if they would let me vote for Turkey, which apparently they did, although the phone started making funny noises after and is probably bugged by now. But I knew that Ukraine was going to win the moment Roslana came on and did that Zena Warrior princess impersination, what sad bastards watch this bloody fiasco? As per usual the Cypriots gave the Greeks douze points, the Greeks gave the Cypriots douze points and UK got nil points for a very long time. Does no-one like us? Obviously all the former Yugoslavian countries also gave each other max points but only the greeks and the Cypriots felt the need the add some grovellingly pathetic tribute to how wonderful each other's entry was... and naturally only the French felt the need to give out their points in their own language when everyone else used English; were they making a point? And why didn't Italy bother to enter at all? What's it all about anyway?

give me Becks and a bottle of Beck's

Two days of shopping, cinema going and ladies who lunch, in other words catching up with old friends in central London always makes one feel very young. Then a quick trip to the National Portrait Gallery to see Sam Taylor-Wood's video installation of a gorgeous, naked, sleeping, posing David Beckham, all one hour seven minutes of it, and in an instant the gallery staff have a knack of sneering while pointing you in the right direction, which detracts somewhat from the feel-good factor. Is it that obvious what we're looking for? Are we really that sad? Do we not look like the sort of people of regularly pop into the gallery in our lunch time break to visit the Tudor gallery? It was worth every minute, even though I had to go back a second time just to be sure that the Michaelangelo comparison stood up to scrutiny. Shame the benches had been removed, apparently too many women lying in the gallery all day, simulating sleeping next to Beckham; that small avenue of pleasure was denied us, which is probably a good thing, or I never would have done any shopping or managed lunch!

Am off to crack open a bottle of Beck's in celebration at a barbecue up the road and in true British style it has been pissing with rain all week, never mind, who needs sunshine when there are good friends, crap country music, Elvis and loads of alcohol and the memory of Becks sleeping alone just up the road in the National portrait Gallery..................................

worst pub quiz ever

Went to the Plume and Feathers last night, great pub in Greenwich opposite the park and surrounded by million quid houses, which I would love to live in if I won the lottery. However, for now have to content myself with the odd wednesday night out at the pub quiz when in London.

Going with people who are very competitive and keen to win puts one under a certain amount of pressure; last night out of eighteen teams I think only one team got a worse score than us! They must have miscalculated, I thought we were doing quite well even though there were no questions about the cyprob or David Beckham's personal life. The one good thing was that we were able to watch Chelsea lose on the big screens and that means Becks won't be going there and on top of that there were plenty of good looking people in the pub, something which rarely happens in a pub in Cyprus.... not least because there are no real pubs.

However, when you realise that even in this rather up-market part of Greenwich everyone must have been a Sun reader, one has to question whether or not the average Sun reader really is that thick? How do I know they were Sun readers? From the quiz team names, of course. Most of them were about the sqaddies in Iraq, who it turns out are actually in Cyprus now, so there was a connection after all. One team name was, 'Two squaddies talking about Iraq. One say,'Do you think we'll win?' The other one replies, 'We'll piss all over them!' Those team names that were not about Iraq were about the antics of Eastenders character, Dirty Den, caught on camera.....The winning name was 'Dirty Den tosses himself off of Eastenders,' which I thought was rather good!

back in blighty

Well, having escaped the heat and the post-mortem on the bloody referendum taking place close to Europe's furthest borders back to good old blighty for a few days, it is good to know that back home we are still being shunned and cold-shouldered by the international community. In fact Greece and Cyprus have finally achieved enosis (or union) as both have now managed to incur similar levels of ridicule and wrath for not disimilar reasons. Can't help but laugh and think, 'I told you so,' when any number of experts and ex-foreign office officials line up to comment on the lack of security in Athens for the Olympic games, - well known terrorist organisations allowed to buy flats in their own name next to Athens airport? Olymic stadiums without rooves? Did anyone stop and wonder why there are so many half-built houses in Greece and Cyprus before they decided to hold the Olympics there?

Having failed to get near a computer for a few days it is a relief to get back to the blog and write about the joy of the rain and the transformation that comes with being able to watch a film at the cinema at any time of day, get a decent curry and go to the pub quiz..........

And families are a wonderful thing, parents bickering here, receiving early morning calls from the school out there, on tender hooks in case one of them is to tell me the kids have finally been expelled! In the meantime I have completely fallen out with my mother here for even considering coming back and sending the kids to state schools here, 'am I mad?' It's not enough to be cold-shouldered in Cyprus, back in the bosom of my European family I couldn't be made to feel less welcome. I know how Papodopoulos must have felt last week...