bitter lemmings

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!

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...

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!

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.......

seasonal good cheer

Spent a delightful morning in S&M looking for decent easter eggs; I thought that would be one place you could rely on. No, it was not to be. So we settled for a coffee and coke in the cafe instead. I noticed it had been refurbished but failed to appreciate the full implications for a full ten minutes.

Three boys, two of my own and one visiting from London went off to find the toilets; so far so good. Two minutes later they were back in fits of giggles about walking in on someone and oggling their bum. One of those occasions where they were not quite hysterical but over-egging the pudding just a bit and really enjoying the moment. Well, it couldn't last could it? It suddenly occured to me that all over the cafe people were glaring at our table. From the family next to us we were getting daggers, the full on:" Oh my God! We came out for a civilised lunch and have ended up next to the Osbornes. Can't they control those monsters, brats, philistines, hooligans? ....They must be foreigners...." routine over their cordon bleu fries, burgers and ketchup. I ask you, only in Cyprus.

We eventually found some eggs but only after a stand up swearing match in the Orphanides (supermarket) car park with some little tosser who kept bibbing his horn every time I stopped for a nano second to let someone out, the sort of pseudo machismo that makes my blood boil.

sophie's choice

Catherine Tate's teenager has moved to Cyprus and she wants to go shopping. Day four of the holidays and she's only been to one party and spent a few hours this afternoon looking after a younger brother while we entertained friends for lunch (i.e. pressed the play button on the video) and it is pay-back time. I have been forced to sit through a video of the film, Thirteen, about a self-obsessed, self-harming, alcohol, drug and nicotine abusing teenager and her completely messed-up, sexually-abused friend because......wait for it..... I need to know what real teenagers are like.

No point trying to argue that these two were not normal but particularly vulnerable. How lucky our little princess is to have such a loving, generous and warm family to help her avoid the slippery slope from peer pressure to self-destruction. She ignores my feeble, wine-fuelled, attempt at intellectual debate and persues her own agenda as usual. Today she is feeling self-righteous enough to ask for a reinstatement of the monthly allowance and a trip to the new Debenhams, full of designer outlets like Miss Sixty; not the way I remember Debenhams, but whatever! In an even more misguided attempt to inject a sense of perspective, I try to expain the film Sophie's Choice; Meryl Streep, Holocaust, concentration camp, a mother, two children, a chance to save one but which one?
Response: "OK, then, we can go to Buruska, it's cheaper."

school's out

Spring break, as the American's insist on calling it is upon us. Thank god for that, more than two weeks where I don't have to worry about detentions, inappropriate language, school-based alcohol abuse sessions and not half so much driving to be done.

The school week ended predictably with one detention for the porno-reading wannabe hard man of elementary, or fluffy bunny as we like to call him. He's so tough he gets detention for wearing his trousers closer to his ankles than his waste and possibly having an attitude problem when told to 'yank up the pants.' "Where do they want me to wear them? Up round my nipples? How gay is that?"

Meanwhile the elder prodigy has finished the alcohol abuse workshops helpfully provided by the school for wannabe teenage drop-outs. The last session involved a test on what they had learnt. Simple questions like, what happens when you smoke cigarettes, what happens when you drink alcohol, what happens when you take drugs? One inspired catch all response proved just how much she had benefitted, "You die."

Good, so now we have almost three weeks of wrestling them off the computer, the mobile phone, the TV and listening to delightful music like the latest best band ever, Bloodhound Gang, doing songs like 'Hooray for Boobies!'

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.......

bright young things

Oliver James tells me what I have long suspected, that intelligence and academic performance have rather a lot to do with social background. So middle class aspirations and a bit of hot housing goes a long way....

"But having exceptional early gifts written into our family script is not all accolades and subsequent eminence. Childhood prodigy is not necessarily the precursor of adult genius - in the vast majority of cases it is not. Nor is being able to score high marks in intelligence tests a guarantee of lifetime achievement. A famous study of 400 American children with IQs above 140 (the average is 100) found that they achieved no more than would be expected from a person of their social class. None of them became geniuses. If anything, the capacity to pass exams or do well at IQ tests may be more a measure of our desire to please our parents and teachers than of originality."

You are not kidding, I am going to wave this book at all those pushy mothers at the nursery who are desperate to get their kids through every reading scheme book in the place before their fifth birthday, as if this is somehow a guarantee that they will one day turn into Einstein. The birthday party conversations are soo tedious these days. Naturally, I don't indulge this kind of competitive behaviour, I just tell them that my five-year-old has already finsihed War and Peace and is working his way through the whole Western Canon at an alarming rate.

And as for the older ones, well clearly my daughter's English teacher doesn't recognise real genius when it takes the guise of originality; she is so concerned with getting the date in exactly the right position on the page that there is no time in the English curriculum for minor concepts like originality and subverting a traditional style. Apparently, it's illogical to write a diary piece in the first person present tense, because you can't be writing and doing other things at the same time. Someone should have told the judges of the Whitbread Prize that before they gave it to Kate Atkinson for her book, Behind The Scenes at the Museum, which starts with the lines, "I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight......" And you can't bring people back from the dead, someone should have told Alice Seabold and Toni Morrison.

There's a lot of teaching kids to pass exams here but not much time for original thought. I wonder how Shakespeare would score on my daughter's writing project, where you can only get an A grade for a 'perfect' piece of writing, whatever that is????

the brats are revolting

Why do children these days seem to believe it is their right to get rewarded for anything they do well? It is frankly ridiculous. We are now at the point where it seems logical to a child to say things like, 'I've done my homework, can I have a present?'

The latest bit of lunacy to hit us this morning was the eleven-year-old demanding a present for participating in a play last night that he had wanted to perform in. Given that we'd already shelled out hundreds of pounds on drama lessons and spent hours chauffeuring the brats round town to get to said lessons this seemed a tad unreasonable but I thought I would ask what kind of present he had in mind; just out of curiosity. Deoderant, obviously the latest advertising craze. I have refused spray deoderant on environmental grounds for a long time but today, he decided to argue back.
"What do you care about the environment? You smoke fags and litter the roads by chucking the butts out of the car window." I acknowledged that he had a point but the answer was still no.

Naturally, at this point, the old request for porn magazines reared its ugly head. Apparently the child has already taken matters into his own hands and nicked one from a local shop. Pamela Anderson is the big attraction and he was lucky enough to find one with her in it. Sorry, what is the attraction?
"Der, everyone fancies Pamela Anderson." The brat even went so far as to suggest that his father only married me because he couldn't get Pamela!

Must keep plowing on with Oliver James...