Thursday, January 29/2009

The nearer Smart store, discount in theory although not always in practice, has moved to larger quarters and opens today so we stop, but no ceremony, no specials - though a pretty good price on cayenne, so it´s not a wasted trip.

Today Bill Stone, the last British WWI vet to have seen active service, is buried. (I have no enemies only friends he used to say: outlived all my enemies.). He was 108. Impressive enough, but a woman is discovered in Uzbekistan with documentation giving her birthdate as 1880 and consequently making her a hundred and twenty-eight years old. She appears on television in a brightly coloured scarf, toothless and looking old, but no older than women of a hundred who could have been her daughter´s age.

Wednesday, January 28/2009

An afternoon walk in search of reading material, which is thinning out. An Updike book would be nice, to commemorate the writer´s death, but actually anything we both like would do. We stop at the second hand shop, a place so crammed full of clothes, books and other things that it´s almost impossible to examine the wares. Sign on door says back in five minutes. So round the corner to the charity shop called Curiosity Killed the Cat. They don´t have many books but we are treated to the owner of the crowded second hand shop of our first stop, (a girl who is Georgian or Bulgarian?) telling the woman behind the counter of a male stripper group which they both agree would be much better entertainment than the pub.

Back to the crowded shop on the way back from our walk, but the back in five minutes sign still in place. Perhaps someone else is hearing about the male strippers.

Tuesday, January 27/2009

Early forecasts show no showers (unlike last night´s predictions). So we (M&M and J and I) drive out past the airport - and the flamingos at rest in the salt lake - and join up with the coast road until we turn north for Lefkara, via a back road into Maroni - a village so silent it could be deserted, with streets no more than eight feet across and little blind corners and dead ends.

Lefkara is known for lace and silver work and is a charming town in the hills, divided into Kato (lower) and Pano (upper) towns. Narrow lanes, stone houses with wooden shutters and women sitting in the sunlight working at lace and embroidery. we´re invited to watch and it is interesting, although we´re not really there to buy, which is a bit awkward. Not nearly as much pressure as usual Maggi assures us.

Over the hills, on an astonishingly good road. We stop at Kato Drys, a tiny village, for a picnic lunch. Only four people in evidence in the village the whole time we´re here, two of them a very young couple on a motorbike who roar past three times, like punctuation in a quirky comedy. There´s a covered well in the middle of the village where we spread out our picnic in the peaceful sunlight. We´re just round the corner from a ruin, the roofless stone arches of an old church on a hillside.

Then back through other loely little villages - Choirokitia (near the neolithic settlement of the same name) where we get directions from two young boys proud of their village, Tochni, and Skarinou. Narrow lanes, dark blue shutters, glimpses of bougainvillea blooming in courtyards, and rosemary in flower by a church. And almost no sign of the blight of huge developments of villas and holiday homes we passed closer to the sea.

Monday, January 26/2009

Watching the sports reports on European television sheds interesting linguistic lights. So, for example, Austria, in German, is Osterreich - literally the Kingdom of the East - a lovely Wizard of Oz sounding place.

Jenny texts with the names of her two new grandchildren - Cody (Laura) and Jasmine (Emma).

Sunday, January 25/2009

Rain in the night has made its way through the ceiling, so back to the red plastic pail. Leak fortunately mid-floor and not over bed.

Gwynne Dyer's column appears semi-regularly, as today, in our Sunday paper, so a touch of home as well as good analysis. The Sunday Mail (Cyprus) also carries a fairly horrific article on Cypriot teachers defying the Minister of Education in order to continue teaching a distorted, inaccurate and highly chauvanistic version of recent Cypriot history and the Turkish-Greek conflicts. Well beyond a question of interpretation and into propaganda.

Saturday, January 24/2009

Rain day. So mostly inside things - embroidery (me), soup making (J) and reading aloud Anita Brookner's The Next Big Thing. Then in late afternoon M&M arrive at the door with fresh strawberries and cream, straight from the morning market to the brandy marinade to us - lovely.

Friday, January 23/2009

We've been watching a blue splotch on the BBC Mediterranean weather map working its way across the Med from west to east and today it does bring in some rain. More promised so over to Metro and the bakery and lay in some fish and bread. Now set for a couple of rainy days.

Finish reading aloud Charlie Chaplin's autobiography. Interesting but by far the best bits are the impoverished youth in south London. In the early parts he doesn't avoid the personal and relational as he tends to do in later years.

Thursday, January 22/2009

The Eleonora - our apartment hotel of last year - has a showing of its renovated flats, word having spread by mouth - or text. So we go to look, along with a small crowd of others, mostly Scandinavians. They´re not finished yet - in fact we must be contravening EU safety regulations as we explore unfinished balconies. Enough of the floor is still open that J can see that the plumbing - in terminal difficulty last year - hasn´t been replaced. And most of the changes don´t really strike as improvements - e.g. kitchen and bathroom layouts. It is going to have that new flat gloss - but a lick of paint and some new tiles and counter tops would have achieved the same effect for much less money. Winter stay prices are supposed to be 650 and 700 euros a flat monthly, a 44% increase on last year.

M&M come back with us for tea - the cafe where the five roads meet having waffled enough over the price of coffee that we give up on them - 90 euro cents last week, one euro fifty-four on the printed menu, and a euro even when Maggi inquires inside.

Then Margaret and Tommy Mann - from the Isle of Mann - stop for tea. They´re up from Limassol for the day, staying on a 4 week package. Luckily they check out the Eleonora renovations just as we´re leaving (they having stayed at the E last year). Nice catching up. Margaret had a kidney removed in October so she´s still recuperating - and unfortunately their Limassol hotel has had some kind of bug circulating.

Wednesday, January 21/2009

According to (Cypriot) Financial Mirror, the average interest rate on bank deposits in 6.5%, necessitated by the high rates paid by Greek banks (7-9%). Greek banks based in cyprus pay up to 7.6%. Difficult to imagine how and why Greek banks do this, considering the difficulties the Greek economy is having.

Tuesday, January 20/2009

Lazing about in the morning as M&M drop in, so tea and J has an excuse for sweet biscuits and concocts a drambuie flavoured icing for the digestive biscuits in seconds.

BBC World provides hours of live coverage of Obama's inauguration and, along with a third of the world's population, we watch. For us the time is quite good as well. Ten a.m. in Washington is 5 p.m. in Cyprus, and between the hoopla and the hope of the new dispensation a good time to sit back and raise a glass of wine.

Monday, January 19/2009

We're reading in the early afternoon when we hear screech-thunk. Out on the balcony we're not alone as there are viewers from balconies along the road. A girl in a fairly posh black BMW has tried to cross three lanes of traffic at an intersection without traffic lights and been broadsided. It's surprising that there isn't more of this in Cypriot traffic. Half an hour of discussion with the young man who hit her (having had, in the far lane, limited opportunity to see her coming) and various bystanders cum witnesses. No police, though the station is only a block away, close enough in fact for a policeman to have looked out and shrugged his shoulders.

Sunday, January 18/2009

Sunny skies as we set off in early morning with Maggi and magne for Limassol down the coast, threading through and past little villages as we go. Limassol is bigger than Larnaca, more spread out, its business centre more modern European looking. M&M drop us at St. Catherine´s Catholic church and head off for Maggi´s faith meeting. We have some time to kill so we check out a couple of hotel apartments nearby. Stunning seqview across the waterfront park, but prices at least twice what we´re prsently paying, which if fair disincentive.



After church we drive out to Limassol´s Sunday flea market - big and cheerful though not incredibly cheap. Good poke about though and nice semi-carnival atmosphere. Stop at the little plastic tables for a cheeseburger, which is big and filling, lots of fried onions and friendly service. It´s lovely sitting in the sun people watching, the market pennants flutering overhead. There are a number of foodstalls including one offering food for vegetarians and vegans and another serving Indian food -"real Indian food all the way from India via Manchester."



On the way back Maggi drives up to the reservoir at Germasogeia where we see for ourselves how very little water is there, a shallow covering in the bottom of a dry reservoir - with a few hopefuls fishing at its side.



Then to Protaras, just north of Agia Napa, where Ellen, the Norwegian tour representative whom we met on our trip to Israel last year, has invited all of us for "coffee and cake" - Maggi says a standard Norwegian invitation. Ellen has a lovely little flat near the little hill with the chapel of St. Elias on top (Elijah to Anglos). She's had it nicely decorated and lives there 8 months a year, returning to Norway in the summers. She's made waffles with fresh strawberries and ice cream and we eat in her kitchen/dining room with a balcony overlooking the town and the sea. As night comes on the view is of the tiny lights along the bay.

Ellen has some interesting stories to tell. One is of a small Orthodox monastery in our area. It has, she says, three monks - well, four. One died 20 years ago and had, in fact, been buried, when the monks in their wisdom decided to dig him up and check for signs of sanctity, which apparentyly they found - less corruption of the flesh or something of that sort. So now he sits, fully dressed, at a desk, his face decently obscured but otherwise the pride and pleasure of the three remaining monks.

Saturday, January 17/2009

Very sunny at morning market so we ignore forecasts of rain and have Cypriot coffee at the ittle cafe with M&M. Then pick up oranges, broccoli, onions and tomatoes from the stalls - a big bag of oranges with the dark green leaves stil fresh. The promised rain does come in the afternoon but not enough of it to help Cyprus water supply much. Our hotel gets municipal water supplied three days a week. The other days it has to be brought in, and at that we´re much luckier than the locals, many of whom simply do not have water every day. Some water has been brought in from Greece by ship but the situation is still very difficult. The basic problem, of course, is simply lack of rain but there is also a lack of deent storm sewers and local reservoirs. When there is a real rain, as just before Christmas, the local news is busy reporting not only on flooded streets but on how busy the fire department has been pumping out people´s basements. An interesting use for the fire department.

Friday, January 16/2009

Late night. Jewish MP Sir Gerald Kaufman is interviewed on BBC 5 radio. He´s so softspoken, so rational, so humane. So sympathetic and yet so totally opposed to Israeli policy that considers Palestinian lives as having no vallue, as they did Lebanese lives. Hamas is particularly unpleasant, but Kaufman blames both Israelis and Americans for having been unwilling to talk to Arafat and more moderate Palestinians until they were left dealing with Hamas. Sir Gerald´s perspective is interesting. He represents Manchester and points to the number of British killed by the IRA in Manchester and the fact that peace eventually came in Northern Ireland not via bombing or even British troops but by talk and negotiation. The other interesting aspect of his perspective is his family history. His grandmother was killed by German Nazis and he regrets what he considers the use of the holocaust to blackmail the world into accepting the unacceptable. So unacceptable that he believes that Israeli leaders should be tried for war crimes.

Thursday, January 15/2009

Further to the price of sweet things in Cyprus. A single iced doughnut costs a euro sixty five at the bakery down the street, and that´s not unusual. That´s $2.75 CAD of one pound fifty UK. By comparison, a litre box of Spanish wine - young vin tres ordinaire, but perfectly drinkable - can be had for a euro fifteen ($1.95 CAD or just over a pound UK). Impossible to explain.

Wednesday, January 14/2009

Walking home from the supermarket I pass a high school. In front is a bit of graffiti - two large words printed in English. NATIONALISM and RACISM. No suggestion of pro or con.

Only in Cyprus. For the past month a Cypriot criminal called Kitas, better known by his nickname Al Capone, had been on the loose after escaping from a medical clinic. Kitas, who had been jailed for life in 194 for the rape and murder of two women, was recaptured only Monday, after endless scandal in the press, police searches, etc. Now tonight the clincher - two senior policemen are accused of being accomplices in the escape. And we´ve been wondering why police are so reluctant to ticket the many Cypriots who park illegally or use Hollywood mufflers.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Meet Maggi @ internet and she invites us to lunch so we collect J and drive out. So lunch on th sunny balcony overlooking the dark blue sea. It´s a stunning view, and one we could hae shared but for us a bit far from the centre. Lovely lunch and we linger and chat. Then walk back along the waterfront, our shadows long in the sun across the road.

Monday, January 12, 2009

We watch television, although only BBC World is in English. The other chanels do show English programs though; particularly films, though sometimes documentaries. So we see quite a bit in the way of subtitles. We´re a bit slow at sounding out the Greek leters and some of the combinations ae quite different; for example the mp letter combination gives the b sound. But it´s interesting nontheless. The Swedish chanel is quite interesting, with many words similar to the English or, often, to the Scots usage. Thus child is barn, comparable to bairn. Sometimes as interesting as the program itself, although there are often good British programs in the very late evening. We also get a chanel from Dubai where the programming is almost entirely American of a relatively uninspired sort (chat shows, soaps), apart from the occasional film and local news. Here everything has Arabic subtitles but it´s done nothing for our literacy. Periodically one thinks that it should be possible to learn what any six year old can learn with a little application, but the swirls and dots remain impenetrable.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

We take a walk down to the waterfront. It´s sunny but quite breezy. Either tonight or tomorrow morning a boat is supposed to go to Gaza from Larnaca carrying medical supplies, a successor to the boat Dignity that was rammed by the Israelis, apparently in international waters. We try to spot the boat from the pier. There´s a possible one in view but who knows. We´re less than 200 miles from Gaza. Mostly we´re north of it. We´re probably not a hundred miles from Syria, roughly opposite Latakia, where Lilly, my genealogical correspondent and probably very distant relative lives.

The news from Gaza is so horrific it´s painful to listen to. Actually, it´s rather difficult to listen to, as J is too frustrated by the blatant Israeli framing of the conflict in misleading terms to listen silently. Not only are casualties running a hundred to one but, as has been pointed out, this is the only war of recent times where civilians are unable to flee the conflict. Usually there´s not much historical context to reports (we´re largely dependent on Euronews and BBC, but there are worse sources). However on BBC World radio the other night we listen to Robert Fisk, experienced and prize winning journalist with the UK paper The Independent, for incisive and courageous analysis.

Meanwhile it´s hard to know whether the second Cypriot boat is being sent with any realistic hopes of getting through or on a mission that is symbolic only.

About 5, just after I´ve put the rice on, we hear car horns outside. A wedding? A celebration after a football match? We go out on the balcony and look down on a parade of honking cars festooned with Palestinian flags. Check down at the waterfront but no demo, though the restaurants and cafes are fairly busy and there are still children at the merry-go-round.

J still has with him his little pin with the entwined Canadian and Palestinian flags that he got in Bethlehem last year, though we left our Free Palestine shirts at home.

Saturday, January 10, 2008

Snake down through the wavering line that is the Saturday market. Inger, the Swedish woman who lives on the 2nd floor, has painted it, and the postcard sized version lives on our desk at home. It´s such a sensual pleasure - bags of oranges still with the leaves on, artichokes, radishes the size of tennis balls, fresh wet cheeses, bundles of cut narcissi, tomatoes with garden earth clinging, kohlrabi with flags of leaes sprouting, rough local wine in plastic water bottles, buckets of eggs (buy the number you need not a dozen). At one stall a man is running a small gambling enterprise involving a little roulette wheel and various bottles of liquor as prizes.

We meet Maggi who has cycled in and have Cypriot coffee behind "our" cafe. The tables in front spill into the market proper but those behind catch the warm sun. J´s butcher, whose shop also opens onto the market, leaves the door open and lovely smoked ham smells emerge. Loops of sausage and smoked tenderloins hang in the doorway. We resist, but do round the corner for 6 eggs from the egg bucket. And i get a half dozen onions as well. At one time the market was the cheapest, or at least inexpensive and the freshest place for produce. Sadly, this isn´t always so now, so each purchase has to be weighed on its merits and the days of our going home with 20 different coloured plastic bags and the week´s fruit and vegetables seem to be over. But we seldom miss going.

Friday, January 9/2009

Maggi picks us up and we go to suburban Livadia to check out the supermarket there. Nice to pick up the bottled water there (what comes out of the tap being suitable for cooking) as it's heavy to bring back when walking. It's a beautiful day - M has been swimming this morning - so we sit in the sun at the corner where the fivew roads meet and drink Cypriot coffee - always served with a glass of water on the side. Like most Cypriot cafes the tables spil out across the sidewalk and into the road.

Now reading, alternately with the Chaplin autobiography, Ann-Marie McDonald's prizewinning Fall on Your Kneew. Very powerfully written.

I learn never to try to roast garlic in the microwave. We have no oven and it seemed like a good idea. I oil the garlic and put it in a cup copvered with a saucer with water in it. However, the result is not glorious pasty roasted garlic but a microwave filled with smoke which J removes to the balcony. So, open patio doors, scented candles and, fortunately, no fire alarm. And the corn on the cob J has bought at Prinos greengrocers is boiled not microwaved as J prefers it. (It's good enough corn, but not a patch on fresh August corn at home).

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Down on the lift to get a litre of milk for breakfast. At 8 o´clock the lobby is not quite dressed for the day, as the cleaners mop down the floor. The manager and another man are behind the counter and in front of it stands a man wearing shorts and t-shirt and holding a plate of what I take to be his beakfast on raised palm, waiter style. He´s singing, in English, with indeterminate accent and a pretty good baritone. The shy manager has a look somewhere between amusement and embarrassment and I listen, unsure whether my acting as audience is appreciation for serendipitous entertainment or just encouragement for a drunk.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Thunder and lightning, visible through the curtains at 6 a.m. this morning, but by the time we get up the sky is an innocent blue. And the temperature rises to 20 degrees - 26 in the sun - though it does cloud over later.

I stop at the charity shop, presided over by a large and motherly englishwoman. A customer, a thin middle aged woman with blonde hair, possibly not naturally so, asks tentatively if she could dye her hair grey by using household bleach. "Somebody said yo could and it would be inexpensive." I´m still wondering why one would choose to do this and only two possibilities come to mind - returning it to its natural colour or playng an elderly character in a play. The mother figure is firm. She definitely cannot use household bleach; she´s to go to the Smart store where she can buy hair colouring for only three euros, very reasonable. The timid woman continues: would jewellery be ageing? No, no, says Mother; it brighterns you up. As I leave she is studying the plastic earrings wistfully.

I come in to the flat as one of the cleaners is leaving. The other, not hearing me, continues taking advantage of the good natural light on the dressing table mirror to examine her spots at length.

Construction in Cyprus often uses quite different, even baffling methods. So, out the window we see a fork lift affair loading gravel into a flat via the first floor (read 2nd floor in North America) balcony.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Feast of the Epiphany, which in Cyprus seems unrelated to the Magi. Religiously, it commemorates the Baptism of Christ, but culturally it´s a carnival style family day. There is, in every Cypriot city (near the water at least) a parade from the principal church to the sea. In Larnaca this is from St. Lazarus Church, the crypt of which is said to have been the burial place of the Biblical Lazarus following his second death (in fact the name Larnaca means coffin).

The parade is a rather unsettling mixture of Orthodox Church clergy in full regalia and the military, cadets as well as weapon bearing soldiers. Greek flags much in evidence. The bishop throws a cross off the pier (prudently tied to the end of a string - the cross, not the pier) and teenage boys dive to retrieve it. It´s an honour to be the successful diver but it´s no polar bear feat. The high temperature today is close to 20 degrees, warmer in the sun - and the water will not be terribly cold. The pier is strewn with aromatic leaves from the mountains which we, along with others, gather up afterwards, as they smell lovely in the flat.

There are crowds for the parade and the waterfront is bright with helium balloons and full of children eager for the bouncy castle or ice cream or popcorn. And plenty of people of all other ages as well. We stand on a low wall at the edge of a bed of petunias to get a better view. Then Maggi texts "where r u" and we meet up. Impossible in the crowd without directions. Back to our place for tea and cake.

In the evening J does swordfish for dinner. And then the terrible contrast with our day as the news brings ever more horrific scenes of Gaza, such a short distance away, sharing our eastern end of the Mediterranean. And last January we were in Palestine.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Trips to bakery and supermarket as tomorrow, Epiphany, is a holiday and nothing will be open. It´s the fifth holiday in 13 days as on the days after Christmas and New Year´s most things are shut. Some enterprises - building construction projects for example - seem simply to close for the entire period.

Jenny texts to say that her daughter Laura has just had a boy. Exciting times as her other daughter, Emma, is also due in January. The UK has been very cold and she says that at 6 this morning there was an inch of snow in Thames Ditton - suburban London.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Rainy a.m., so back to the books and the Sunday paper. Learn on the news that there was a shoot out on the street in Agia Napa last night. Here we thought it was semi ghost town when the truth had more of the wild west about it.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

In the evening we join M&M and drive up the coast to Agia Napa to have dinner at Tony´s, an old haunt of M&M´s in the days when they wintered there. It´s too dark to see the sea, but there´s still the romance of the lights strung out along the bay, backed up by the light romance of Maggi´s new Mantovani cd´s.

Agia Napa is quite different from Larnaca. Once upon a time it was a humble fishing village. Now it has ballooned into a commercial resort, booming and relatively vulgar in high season but semi ghost town in low. Little raffic and many shops and cafes closed for the season. There remains a small community of off-seasoners though, many of them Scandinavian.

Ton´s is nearly but not quite full and Toy himself, a short man with a waist length white beard, does greet Maggi with a hug, but she´s not sure he actually recognises her. The menu is typically Cypriot but also what J and I refer to as a "Polish menj" (as in Poland menus list all the dishes that are ever on offer, many of which may not be available on any given day). Thus the stuffed vine leaves that Maggi´s mouth had been ready for are not on, but she has moussaka and Magne giant shrimp, both of which they say are good, while J and I both order beef stifado - the nicest I´ve had and very generous portions. So while M&M regret the lively venue they remember - open 24 hours and a live band at night - we do have a very good meal.

Friday, January 2, 2009

No man´s land between holiday and ordinary time. Sale signs have begun appearing in shop windows, some advertising 50% off, interesting in itself as sale times used to be controlled by legislation. But most shops have not reopened yet, extending the New Year´s holiday. Even the supermarkets are still closed J finds. I pass a large flower bed shared by snapdragons looking sadly tired but still faintly aromatic and three dark green artificial Christmas trees.

The Dubai television chanel, which usually features the most vapid American programming imaginable, along with brief and superficial local news reports and the occasional film, now has several hours of a robed man in a chapel like room mournfully chanting from the Koran. Have we failed to remember an important Moslem holiday? Is this a lament for the fate of Palestinians? No, it seems a council member has died and displaced regular programming. But the dirge continues for enough hours that we begin to speculate on possible arrangements for bathroom breaks. How does he manage?

January 1, 2009

New Year´s Day. Still chilly but we wake to that cloudless dark blue sky that is so very Mediterranean. Walk out along the seafront for our now traditional New Year´s meal with Maggi and Magne. There aren´t a lot of people out in the cool wind, though the man who sells hot chestnuts is there. Once the wind drops the sun is quite warm though. Lovely meal from a beautifull lemony shrimp cocktail and roast pork to Christmas pudding and brandy sauce. The sun still streaming in from the balconyas we start.

Wednesday, December 31,2008

New Year´s Eve. We´re reminded of the old Cypriot custom of barbecuing on the street. Shopowners used to barbecue meat and halloumi and share it, along with wine and spirits and pitas and salad with their customers. One still passes the occasional shopfront barbecue but mostly they´re just intended for staff now.

Buying frenzy in the supermarkets, both for New Year´s meals and because the annual sales on liquor are coming to an end.

We work a bit at staying awake through the evening but 11:45 sees us bundled up - it´s an astonishingly chilly +5 C and windy - and down to europa Square on the waterfront. It^s only a block away, so we don^t need much time to get there. Plan B would have been to watch from the roof as Inger said she would do, but the waterfront is livelier and, as J says, it´s probably warmer at ground level. Crowds as usual. There is free wine, beer and zivania, all in plastic cups, but the disincentive is the need to remove a hand from a warm pocket to wrap it around a cold drink. The first salute comes from the deep tones of the ships at anchor in the bay as their horns greet the New Year. Then the fireworks, accompanied by terrified cross-flutters of birds that had thought themselves safely at roost for the night efore the big bang. The fireworks are set off on the beach and we´re standing about 200 feet away, so the bursts of colour and light are almost above our heads and we´re looking straight up at the cold black velvet sky. We don´t linger long when it´s over. Back to the warm studio and a New Year´s rusty nail.

Tuesday, December 30-2008

Meet M&M at student internet so they stop in for tea.

PM begin reading aloud Charlie Chaplin^s autobiography. Absolutely fascinating and, somewhat to our surprise, very well written. His early childhood was spent in the Kenington road area of South London, very near the Imperial war Museum. As he was born in 1889, his memories are of a Victorian London, and one in which his family was so poor that he spent time in the Lambeth workhouse. Any real pretence of education had ended by the time he was twelve and his stage career had begun. Amazing the changes in his world as he went on to become an international star, a thorough cosmopolitan, and, in 1975, to be knighted.