Sunday, January 19/2025

We’re sitting in the warm sun enjoying a drink, and in J’s case a cigar. Happy view of the Mediterranean down the slope beyond the orchard. And thinking that the remaining electrocuted bat on the electrical wires does nothing to improve the aesthetics of the scene. When it occurs to me that what we have here is a real life - or more accurately death - Memento Mori. As in the Medieval and Renaissance paintings enjoining one to remember death - think on your mortality. Somewhat out of fashion in recent centuries.

 

St Jerome in his Study (Dürer, 1521)

Much commentary online over the increase of the monthly  minimum wage to 37818 lira net ($1540 CAD, £874). Mostly, apart from the unions obviously, astonishment verging occasionally on rage at how high it is. Difficult to assess without a lot more information. For one thing it seems that the minimum wage here is not significantly different from the average wage, which in many countries is not an amount that anyone is seriously expected to live on - take for example US at $7.25 an hour (and yes, I know in some states it’s higher). Also the TRNC economy is subsidised - to what degree is unclear - by Türkiye. In return for which there is no real industry or manufacturing here and most goods are imported from Türkiye. So, interesting if not highly transparent.